WANTED: Spare Nuclear Reactors

[JustSomeDude]

Energy bill requires doubling nuke use (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/12/democrat-energy-bill-requires-nuke-use-to-double/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_photo_feature)


The funny thing is... I doubt anyone is really surprised by this. Seriously - did anyone really think we gon' power all those electric cars with some newfangled whirly-birds out on the plains? :crazy:

[asp_125]

Maybe Russia has a few lying around.

[JustSomeDude]

Maybe Russia has a few lying around.

Neh... they're too busy drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for oil (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32214665/ns/business-oil_and_energy/) that they will ultimately sell back to us.

[Shea]

"What this shows is that when you fail to make necessary investments in clean and renewable technologies and in efficiency measures, you are left with using fossil fuels and other anachronistic and outdated technologies, and I include nuclear in that"

Yeah, because all your pie-in-the-sky renewable technologies are state-of-the-art... ugh.

Gen III-IV MSR's are a great way to generate power and not "outdated" or "anachronistic".

-inherently safe

-abundant supply of fuel (Thorium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium)), without the need for expensive preprocessing used for Uranium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium)

-significantly reduced amount of radioactive waste (per TeraJoule of output energy), a fraction of what is created by Pressurized water reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor).very good thermodynamic efficiency of the turbines because of the relatively high temperature (Brayton cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brayton_cycle) or Combined cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle) instead of Rankine cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle)

-it actually provides a bit more than what most scientists expect from fusion: it can be built in small, even 1.2 MW (electric).

-a 7.4 MW (thermal) reactor was built in the 1960s and operated for years, proving the concept. Several experiments were carried out between 1964 and 1969. It was proven that it can be shut down and restarted in a short period of time. The physics operated flawlessly. Some engineering aspects were refined (such as composition of the vessel alloy)

[Snowman]

Yep, with the advancements in reactor design, this would be a viable option for producing the power we are going to need. I would never make it the only option, but I can see it creating 20% to 40%.

[Shea]

Yep, with the advancements in reactor design, this would be a viable option for producing the power we are going to need. I would never make it the only option, but I can see it creating 20% to 40%.

Oh I agree, try everything. Never put all your eggs in one basket...

[TFOGGuys]

Yep, with the advancements in reactor design, this would be a viable option for producing the power we are going to need. I would never make it the only option, but I can see it creating 20% to 40%.

If only we could recover the energy in the hot air coming out of DC........

[Mental]

If only we could recover the energy in the hot air coming out of DC........
QFT

But the reason we have to build all these plants is the same hippies than whine about my van polluting were the same ones whining about nuke plants in the 70's and 80's

[gtn]

Yep, with the advancements in reactor design, this would be a viable option for producing the power we are going to need. I would never make it the only option, but I can see it creating 20% to 40%.

Nuclear is currently about 20% of US power production. I would like to see us really do it right. Full actinide burn up! That's right folks... don't burry spent fuel, recycle it. The long lived isotopes in spent fuel are actinides that are either fissile or fertile.

I can really get spun up about this topic.

[IT WASN'T ME!]

Energy bill requires doubling nuke use (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/12/democrat-energy-bill-requires-nuke-use-to-double/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_photo_feature)


The funny thing is... I doubt anyone is really surprised by this. Seriously - did anyone really think we gon' power all those electric cars with some newfangled whirly-birds out on the plains? :crazy:

So?

[IT WASN'T ME!]

If only we could recover the energy in the hot air coming out of DC........
Or, better yet, Alaska.

[Snowman]

Nuclear is currently about 20% of US power production. I would like to see us really do it right. Full actinide burn up! That's right folks... don't burry spent fuel, recycle it. The long lived isotopes in spent fuel are actinides that are either fissile or fertile.

I can really get spun up about this topic.I agree Breeder Reactors do have the potential to reprocess the waste fuel repeatedly until the rods are totally spent. The concern that they can be used to generate bomb grade material should be a mute point now that the technology on how to do this is already out there.

[JustSomeDude]

Democrats, who fought the development of nuclear power for decades, want to implement a plan that cuts carbon emissions from energy production by putting restrictions on fossil fuels. Yet, to make up the difference due to limitations on fossil fuel based energy production, we will be required to double our nuclear power capacity. (or miraculously pull extra wattage out of my ass)


So?

:crazy:

[Shea]

(or miraculously pull extra wattage out of my ass)


Sounds like a more feasible plan then the current administration's...

[brennahm]

So conservatives are pissed that they're getting what they wanted all along? I'm confused...

[gtn]

I agree Breeder Reactors do have the potential to reprocess the waste fuel repeatedly until the rods are totally spent. The concern that they can be used to generate bomb grade material should be a mute point now that the technology on how to do this is already out there.

It's not necessary to build breeders to ensure full actinide burn-up. All reactors breed to some extent. So long as the fissile material enrichment in the recycled fuel is sufficient (and all of the other parameters are satisfied) existing reactors and current new designs could use the recycled fuel.

Grooming the neutron flux energy to maximize fissile production from fertile species is really only necessary in reactors purpose built for this, such as those at Hanford that produced Pu.

To me the part the public isn't being properly educated about is that if spent fuel is recycled and any waste contains little or no actinides, the remaining waste isotopes are relatively short lived. In addition, there is a shortage of many medically essential isotopes that could be partially addressed via spent fuel recycling and isotopic separation.

[TFOGGuys]

It's not necessary to build breeders to ensure full ...

You're tawkin way over our heads here....

I'm pretty comfortable with the concept of burning stuff with fire to make heat and all.....

[Shea]

So conservatives are pissed that they're getting what they wanted all along? I'm confused...

One good page in a 1000 pages of shit doesn't really make it something I think should pass.

[Keepitgreen]

April 17, 2006

Greenpeace founder: I was wrong about nuclear power

This is certainly an intriguing about-face from Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace:

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

I might also note that, according to the March issue of Nuclear Energy Insight, there are now 10 new nuclear plants proposed, and all expect to submit their combined construction/operating license applications by 2008.

And Greenpeace still officially opposes nuclear energy.

[Keepitgreen]

Nuclear power in France
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Electricity production in France has been dominated by Nuclear power ever since the early 80s with a large portion of that power exported today.
thermofossil
hydroelectric
nuclear
Other renewables
In France, as of 2002, Électricité de France (EDF) — the country's main electricity generation and distribution company — manages the country's 59 nuclear power plants. As of 2008, these plants produce 87.5% of both EDF's and France's electrical power production (of which much is exported),[1] making EDF the world leader in production of nuclear power by percentage. In 2004, 425.8 TWh out of the country's total production of 540.6 TWh was from nuclear power (78.8%).[1]
France is the world's largest net exporter of electric power, exporting 18% of its total production (about 100 TWh) to Italy, the Netherlands, Britain, and Germany, and its electricity cost is among the lowest in Europe.[1][2]
In 2006, the French Government asked Areva and EDF to build a next generation nuclear reactor, the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor), at the Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant. This was followed in 2008 by an Presidential announcement of another new EPR, spurred by high oil and gas prices.[3] A site for that unit should be selected in 2009, and construction should start in 2011.

[Keepitgreen]

Hydrogen power maybe?

http://www.videosift.com/video/Hydrogen-Powered-Speed-Cars-Hit-Bonneville-Salt-Flats

[gtn]

You're tawkin way over our heads here....

I'm pretty comfortable with the concept of burning stuff with fire to make heat and all.....

Sorry Jim. I'm a nuke by training/education so I can get carried away.

The point is that the technology exists to deal with spent fuel. You use up all the stuff in it that the reactor can "burn" by recycling the used fuel over and over again and the stuff that's left over in the end lasts a few decades not thousands of years.

Lots and lots of clean energy.