Coming Soon: Open-Source Blueprints for a Tiny Nuclear Reactor (popularmechanics.com) 125
"A nonprofit startup is offering an open-source nuclear plant plan," reports Popular Mechanics:
A mechanical engineer-turned-tech entrepreneur has plans to, well, empower people around the world to build their own 100-megawatt nuclear power reactors. That's much larger than some of the modular reactors designed by nuclear startups, but still much smaller than operating nuclear power plants in the U.S.
The Energy Impact Center (EIC) is an energy nonprofit that engineer Bret Kugelmass founded in 2017. The organization's goals are similar to other groups working toward carbon neutrality or negativity, except Kugelmass has decided "cheap nuclear" is the only avenue he wants to pursue. By doing that, he's essentially operating a startup model, and for his technology to take hold, a new paradigm for nuclear power plants will have to be installed.
"Today, we offer reference plant schematics and a platform to compile ongoing design work. With the help of our partners and the National Labs, these drawings will evolve into a fully detailed, ready-to-build blueprint," the project website says. It seems like EIC exists to feed new technology into the nuclear startup development pipeline... Kugelmass writes that "It is detailed enough for any utility to begin early site studies with +/- 20 [percent] cost predictability. It is abstract enough to allow for site-specific engineering details to be added, with a $50 million budget allocated per plant for such efforts."
The Energy Impact Center (EIC) is an energy nonprofit that engineer Bret Kugelmass founded in 2017. The organization's goals are similar to other groups working toward carbon neutrality or negativity, except Kugelmass has decided "cheap nuclear" is the only avenue he wants to pursue. By doing that, he's essentially operating a startup model, and for his technology to take hold, a new paradigm for nuclear power plants will have to be installed.
"Today, we offer reference plant schematics and a platform to compile ongoing design work. With the help of our partners and the National Labs, these drawings will evolve into a fully detailed, ready-to-build blueprint," the project website says. It seems like EIC exists to feed new technology into the nuclear startup development pipeline... Kugelmass writes that "It is detailed enough for any utility to begin early site studies with +/- 20 [percent] cost predictability. It is abstract enough to allow for site-specific engineering details to be added, with a $50 million budget allocated per plant for such efforts."
Sheldon (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Then enrich away well from the UN teams and US spies.
The problems is the USA, Japan, France, Italy, EU nations, the UK would notice the nation is not importing their energy production spare parts and turn key energy products.
No windmills, huge battery pack, solar farms, dams, gas turn key energy production. No UN loan for a turbine repair team and parts.
Sooner or later the embassy staff would notice the lights are on and the imports of energy related spare parts from the EU
Hand the average person some blueprints. (Score:1)
Say, of a suspension bridge. There, you've just "empowered" him to make the Golden Gate Bridge.
Heck, it would probably take less engineering to build a Hiroshima style "gun-type" fusion weapon. Give someone the blueprints and "all" they need to do is obtain 64 kg of weapons grade U-235, then machine it into two cylinders, one solid and one hollowed-out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, but as with a bridge, having a reference design with predicted costs helps you get funding to do the actual specific design for the site.
This doesn't tell people how to build a nuclear power plant, it doesn't explain the technology and how to build everything, it is blueprints for the building that you need to build. The "plant" part of the phrase "nuclear power plant." That is definitely helpful, because "where to put it" it a major planning issue. As is the cost.
Re: (Score:3)
France figured this out 50 years ago [franceintheus.org]: they standardized the design of the entire plant and built lots of them.
In the US, every plant is unique, even if they use the same reactor type.
Re: (Score:3)
France figured this out 50 years ago [franceintheus.org]: they standardized the design of the entire plant and built lots of them.
In the US, every plant is unique, even if they use the same reactor type.
How are you going to continue to line the pockets of thousands of engineers, architects, and especially lawyers, unless building every reactor faces all the same legal and regulatory burdens as the very first one? That would be un-American.
Re: (Score:2)
France is a smaller country with very little variety in geography from the perspective of building this type of plant.
In the US, every region has different geology, water access and usage are very different, climate is very different, local zoning laws and requirements are different, etc., etc.
There are lots of things that you can standardize in a small country that you could also standardize in a US State, but not in the whole US.
This project is one step in that direction; a standardized layout for plants
Re: (Score:2)
France is a smaller country with very little variety in geography from the perspective of building this type of plant.
In the US, every region has different geology, water access and usage are very different, climate is very different, local zoning laws and requirements are different, etc., etc.
You made it!! Dumbest comment for this week, probably for this month, perhaps even the year.
While France is smaller it has the same variety than the US, unless you want to count eternal summer in Florida.
Also, for the
Re: (Score:2)
They make various types of maps.
Re: (Score:3)
You are clear about the fact that the factory and resources to make that bomb was bigger than the US auto industry at the time?
Enriching Uranium is very very hard. As for Plutonium, you cant build a gun type bomb with it and it is even harder to make.
Re: (Score:2)
I was being ironic here. A gun-type weapon actually *is* quite simple to make *once you have the HEU*, which as you note takes huge industrial facilities [wikipedia.org] to make. Likewise this design calls for industry standard reactor fuel rods.
So this design empowers anybody who can qualify for a license to buy fuel rods to build a power reactor (of unproven design).
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, you can design a gun type bomb using Plutonium, and in fact such a bomb was designed during the Manhattan Project. The design was called "Thin Man".
But the problem was that it was designed for Plutonium-239. And the reactor breed Plutonium wasa contaminated with Plutonium-240 which has a spontaneous neutron release rate high enough that predetonation was virtually certain, so they went with the more complicated implosion design.
Although, even with the Plutonium-240 contamination, it's still possib
You got that sideways. (Score:2)
The "Thin man" design was before they realized the barrel of the gun could be shorter and lighter, since it only had to fire once.
It would have been Uranium, as plutonium wasn't in the picture yet.
No, you can't. (Score:2)
A nuke's core takes 81 "shakes" to explode; that's 810nS.
Calculate how far a gun projectile travels in 1uS, even at ludicrous speed. :)
Not easy at all! (Score:1)
I looked into that for curiosity, as a teen, and unless you manage to get the whole mass to be *exactly* symmetrical in all directions, after and while pushing it together, you'll end up with a shitty bomb with barely any power, spraying most of its mass out, before it can contribute to the boom.
It will be dirty, yes, but a huge waste of hard to obtain material.
E.g. the timing of the charges, down to the precise cable lengths and electronics tolerances, is *crucial*. And apart from obtaining the material, i
Re: (Score:2)
That's my point. This thing assumes you can just buy premade fuel rods and the control rod assemblies. Sot he correct analogy here is building the gun weapon if the uranium parts were available premade.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Hand the average person some blueprints. (Score:1)
Heck, it would probably take less engineering to build a Hiroshima style "gun-type" fusion weapon.
You left out the tritium, and the time machine...
Re: (Score:2)
It's like Steve Martin's routine "You can make a million dollars and never pay taxes." The first step: make a million dollars.
Coming soon to a Simpsons episode.... (Score:1)
Of course, this might initially drive up the wages for nuclear power operators, but I anticipate a glut on those folks, and a BRIGHT future for nuclear waste processors.
New employee: Hi honey, I'm home.
Wife: How did it go? You look... happy. More radiant... a healthy glow. Finding a new job after all this time must really feel good!
New employee: YES! And there's higher levels of turnover in this company, so I see promotional opportunities coming more quickly!
Wife: OOOH, I'm so proud of you! Time for
Boom (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Fukushima's 1950s design made the GE engineers reviewing it resign over its design flaws.
nuclear-secrets.com (Score:2)
nuclear-secrets.com
Re: (Score:2)
nuclear-secrets.com
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I suspect clicking on that link would get you added to a government watchlist before you could say "Oops".
Am I kidding? I honestly don't know.
Re: (Score:2)
the Simpsons joke
Re: nuclear-secrets.com (Score:1)
You're on Slashdot. You're already on fifteen different watchlists.
Congratulations. Welcome to Soviet America. Enjoy your stay.
Oh Americans... always backwards. (Score:2, Insightful)
We got a giant fusion reactor in the sky, pumped storage, molten salt, wind, solar, hydro, batteries... and of all the things you choose the ONE other method of power generation that is both very dangerous and will run out comparatively early.
ONLY to feed your obsession to be backwards. To not care about pesky things like long-term viability or side effects or other "complicated" and "cumbersome" parts that are the difference between *doing it right*, and a lazy hack job done by somebody who "doesn't like t
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There's still one good reason to use nuclear power, and that's if you don't have the space or unique geology for solar/wind/hydro.
The problem with the big fusion reactor in the sky (Score:3)
To call other energy sources "backwards" just indicates that you're either blithely ignorant of this drawback to solar, or you're deceitfully neglecting it. That ship that sailed around the world on solar [wikipedia.org]? It spe
Re: (Score:2)
what a stupid title for a thread. So France, China, India, Russia, South Korea, don't have expanding nuclear programs? Maybe they know more than you do.
Re: (Score:2)
Not every place can do pumped storage. Renewables doesn't even come close to dealing with the baseline load requirements of power grids. If open collaboration led to safe and clean mini nuclear reactors, that solved the waste problem (by processing it until the point it's no longer a long-term dangerous material), then that would tip the balance quite dramatically and quickly towards clean, carbon-neutral energy. It's hardly backwards to consider nuclear energy this day an age. Indeed it's probably the
Re: (Score:2)
fusion power is 50 years away, and has been since the 1970s. *snicker*. It's unlikely to happen at all, the boondoggle that is ITER is be a waste of money.
actually only a 10 x 10 mile area of solar array would power the USA, the problem of energy storage has real solutions.
Re: (Score:2)
10x10 miles = 100 square miles = 258,998,800 square meters
* 1 kw/square meter * 24 hours * 365 days = 2,268,829,488,000 kwh every year
Annual US electric usage: ~4,120,000,000,000 kWh
So you're right. If we had a ten-mile square of solar panels, 100% efficient, that stayed in perfect sunlight 24/365 and it was lit from both sides, then yes, we could power the US electric grid with just
Re: (Score:2)
oh is it 4 terra KWh now? So 33% longer on a side, in space with 1.4kw / square meter and *bam*
Good (Score:3)
I rather random idiots have access than lunatic government officials. Education should never be restricted to people the government designate. The craziest anti-human and most unstable people work for the government â" dammit itâ(TM)s a fact. Think about it if you are a control freak, irrational, and love power what job would you try to get?
Boring outdated design (Score:2)
Any nuclear design that is not inherently safe these days, and allow for a variety of nuclear fuel, is already outdated.
There are much superior designs nowadays and /. reported on this years ago. [wavewatching.net]
David Charles Hahn: (Score:2)
We can have a nuclear boy scout on every block, and they won't have to settle for recycled smoke detectors!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This is a bad idea (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And strychnine is a delicious candy! (Score:1, Troll)
Made just for you!
Look, I too can make empty statements not backed up by anything since I haven't got a single clue about the scientific method or logic, and even if I did, my willful ignorance/delusion and my filter bubble would make even my observations and valid logic result in wrong conclusions.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How about you look up the essay"Know Nukes" written by James Hogan?
Now, that essay was written in 1988, so obviously it won't address Fukushima.
Facts:
1. Chernobyl - Didn't teach us anything new. An ineptly designed and operated plant is dangerous. But the graphite moderated design used was banned in the western world back in 1950, precisely because of the failure mode Chernobyl displayed.
2. Three Mile Island - Successfully shut down. No one killed, no one hurt, and no member of the public was ever in the sl
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
"3. Nuclear waste - Biggest issue he is ignorant people conflating high level waste with low level waste and not understanding what half-life actually means."
Sure we know.
The plutonium239 has to be guarded from terrorists with armed guards for 24110 years and then it will be still half as radioactive.
The plutonium242 has to be guarded from terrorists with armed guards for 373,300 years and then it will be still half as radioactive.
The plutonium244 has to be guarded from terrorists with armed guards for 8
Re: (Score:3)
"3. Nuclear waste - Biggest issue he is ignorant people conflating high level waste with low level waste and not understanding what half-life actually means."
Sure we know. The plutonium239 has to be guarded from terrorists with armed guards for 24110 years and then it will be still half as radioactive. The plutonium242 has to be guarded from terrorists with armed guards for 373,300 years and then it will be still half as radioactive. The plutonium244 has to be guarded from terrorists with armed guards for 80.8 million years and then it will be still half as radioactive. And it will still be just as toxic if you put a pound of it in the atmosphere.
A couple of hundred million years and we'll be OK.
PS. BTW Plutonium has a metallic taste, if you lick it.
Why would you lick it? Not all nuclear designs make Pu. And Thorium breeder designs waste only lasts 300 years (10x half-life of longest lived fission product). Finally, not all Actinides crumble like Uranium tends to do. But do continue to lecture us about nuclear waste by cherry-picking a few facts and scaremongering with them.
Re: (Score:2)
"Why would you lick it?"
Duh! How else would the world know how it tastes?
Re: And strychnine is a delicious candy! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is a great idea, but not really relevant until we have such reactors in widespread operation.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is why you put the waste in reactors designed to use up the rest. ... dumbass.
Those reactors don't exist.
Fission results can not be used in a reactor
Re: (Score:2)
The company, Oklo, got a permit in December to build the next-generation power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory, in Idaho Falls. The lab announced Wednesday that it will also provide Okl [grist.org]
Re: (Score:2)
As usual, no mention of digging it up, which has poisoned quite a few people between the radiation (mostly from the byproduct, radon) and heavy metal poisoning. Ask the Navajo amongst others. Then not mentioning various nuclear disasters such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] https://theantimedia.com/the-w... [theantimedia.com]
While nuclear is worth pursuing, the propaganda such as this or those exaggerated claims about how few deaths there has been don't inspire confidence. And the truth is if nuclear reactors start be
Re: (Score:2)
As usual, no mention of digging it up, which has poisoned quite a few people between the radiation (mostly from the byproduct, radon) and heavy metal poisoning.
But all the Thorium we need has already been mined to make your cell phones (no seriously). Wherever you find rare earths, you have to separate out Thorium (which is easy because its denser than Lead). So centuries worth of nuclear fuel is sitting around in big piles all over the globe (well, mostly in China). One year worth of one mines Thorium tailings could power the entire world's electric grid, plus have enough left over to create all the world's needs in hydrocarbon fuels too. All for 6 boxcars wo
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it is mostly a mute point depending whether all uranium is mined in the US, Canada or Australia and not the Congo.
It just seems dishonest when people claim close to zero deaths for nuclear instead of the reality which is that it is way better then coal.
As for thorium, hopefully someone gets a good design operating that doesn't leave U233 laying around.
I'm not anti-nuke but realistically there are problems with it, from shortcuts being taken in construction, to dealing with the waste heat, to the lack o
Re: (Score:2)
As usual, no mention of digging it up, which has poisoned quite a few people between the radiation (mostly from the byproduct, radon) and heavy metal poisoning.
Those things all happened in the 30's through the 60's. Lots of fucked up things happened back then, so its a bit unfair to single out Uranium mining and since nobody is talking about doing Uranium mining that way again its a moot point.
It's not a moot point until the issue has been resolved. It has not and those mine tailing *continue* to leak radon. It is a heavy gas, seeps downhill where it usually ends up polluting a water source. There are millions of tons of this stuff.
I'd offer that one solution could be to turn the mine tailings and the former uranium mine into a wind farm and perhaps we could use the mine tailings as an aggregate for the base that the wind tower is on. Effectively putting the radon source back into the grou
Re: (Score:2)
This essay is on a site [isfdb.org] that refers to itself as a speculative fiction database and doesn't appear to be a discussion about facts. I can't access the essay without logging in, do you have a publicly readable version or can you post it?
That's not true. We learned a lot about the types of conditions that would le
Re: (Score:2)
And the amount of energy given off is inverse to the half-life.
Nope.
The energy depends utterly on the isotope decaying. Most long half life isotopes are by the way the worst poisons we know about. Half life does not really matter, it is a /. myth.
Re: A childish lack of responsibility. (Score:1)
Re: A childish lack of responsibility. (Score:1)
The radiative glow coming off the uranium is green... so there's that...
Re: (Score:2)
The radiative glow coming off the uranium is green... so there's that...
You know that only happens in cartoons and bad sci-fi movies right?
Re: (Score:2)
The radiative glow coming off the uranium is green...
You know that only happens in cartoons and bad sci-fi movies right?
Actually... from a Chernobyl survivor [ecolo.org]:
From where I stood I could see a huge beam of projected light flooding up into infinity from the reactor. It was like a laser light, caused by the ionisation of the air. It was light-bluish, and it was very beautiful. I watched it for several seconds. If I'd stood there for just a few minutes I would probably have died on the spot because of gamma rays and neutrons and everything else that was spewing out. But Tregub yanked me around the corner to get me out the way. He
Re: (Score:2)
The radiative glow coming off the uranium is green...
You know that only happens in cartoons and bad sci-fi movies right?
Actually... from a Chernobyl survivor [ecolo.org]:
From where I stood I could see a huge beam of projected light flooding up into infinity from the reactor. It was like a laser light, caused by the ionisation of the air. It was light-bluish, and it was very beautiful. I watched it for several seconds. If I'd stood there for just a few minutes I would probably have died on the spot because of gamma rays and neutrons and everything else that was spewing out. But Tregub yanked me around the corner to get me out the way. He was older and more experienced.
Yea, but it was blue not green and caused by something that uranium doesn't do normally. Its called Cherenkov radiation [wikipedia.org] and it needs highly energetic gamma radiation to happen and that's something that natural Uranium doesn't produce and neither do fuel rods. In fact the only kind of Uranium (U-232) that does can be only be used in a nuclear battery of the type used by NASA for their space probes and isn't normally produced by reactors in power plants. Its produced in special "medical" reactors that prod
Re: (Score:2)
Blue is not green ... just in case you did not read carefully.
Re: A childish lack of responsibility. (Score:1)
Well drat, then that nuclear power is not green in any way at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Much like nuclear power itself, this is a total lack of responsibility.
Because governments and their regulatory bodies have done such a great job of making nuclear power safe.
https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-... [amazon.com]
If there's one thing that book shows, it's that building better mousetraps just breeds smarter mice.
I personally don't see what's wrong with getting more eyeballs on designs. Open Source software has shown the benefits of that. Now just apply it to everything else.
AFAICT, there's no reason nuclear power can't be reasonably safe.
Re: (Score:1)
AFAICT, there's no reason nuclear power can't be reasonably safe.
That isn't the main problem. What we need to do is make nuclear power cost-effective.
The cost of power from Vogtle is projected to be 13 cents/kwh.
Hinkley Point may be over 30 cents/kwh.
For gas, the cost is 4 cents. For wind, it is 3 cents.
China and India can build cost-effective nukes, but Western countries are no longer capable of doing so.
Re: (Score:1)
China and India can build cost-effective nukes, but Western countries are no longer capable of doing so.
More and more Western countries are incapable of building anything. Too many whiners.
Re: (Score:2)
More and more Western countries are incapable of building anything. Too many whiners.
There have always been whiners. But Western civilization has lost the ability to ignore whiners or steamroll over them.
Re: (Score:2)
AFAICT, there's no reason nuclear power can't be reasonably safe.
Never worked around bean counters cutting costs or contractors maximizing their profits I see. "hey we can save some money by using more sand in this concrete and I'm sure we don't need such high quality rebar"
Imagine today's Boeing being in charge.
Re:A childish lack of responsibility. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's irresponsible is leaving 300,000-year waste around. The ONLY responsible thing to do is to convert it into short-term waste (300-year). It just so happens one can power the entire society by doing so.
"Clean up your damn spent fuel!"
Google "integral fast reactor" - we had the technology in 1990 and Al Gore lead the effort to kill it starting the first week of the Clinton presidency. Now he's a multi-millionaire based on having no solution to CO2 output. Fact check it.
Why would you turn hand warmers into gunpowder? (Score:3)
One can turn re-usable handwarmers, which release the energy slowly, into gunpowder, which releases the energy quickly. I'm not convinced that makes it safer.
The waste works the same way. If the energy is released quickly, that means there is a lot of energy being released right now, and that can be dangerous. Waste which releases it's energy slowly, meaning it lasts a long time, releases less radiation per day than this banana I'm eating does. Slow is safe. If you were standing next to a drum of plutoni
Re: (Score:2)
One can turn re-usable handwarmers, which release the energy slowly, into gunpowder, which releases the energy quickly. I'm not convinced that makes it safer.
The waste works the same way. If the energy is released quickly, that means there is a lot of energy being released right now, and that can be dangerous.
You are looking at this the wrong way. That long lived "waste" is really unspent fuel. The other waste is proportional to the amount of fuel burnt and the amount of energy produced. You get the same amount of short lived "waste" either way. The only difference is how much long lived stuff comes out. Most folks would prefer that's as small as possible which is why we like MSRs based upon the Th-U cycle so much.
Using root killer for gunpowder is cheaper. (Score:2)
Thorium based reactors have an easy way to make U233, which is chemically removable from the relatively non-radioactive waste.
Relative to regular used reactor rods, that is.
Re: (Score:3)
Thorium based reactors have an easy way to make U233, which is chemically removable from the relatively non-radioactive waste.
Relative to regular used reactor rods, that is.
You don't remove the U-233. It is the fissionable isotope that creates the energy. Its the actual fuel that you breed the Th-232 into. And since the Actinides in the waste stream are stable, heavy and of different elements, they separate easily. However, due to treaty restrictions, you can't really have any U-233 in the stream or you have to pollute the steam with U-238 immediately after opening the reactor chamber (after a 10 year cooling period). But those restrictions were written before we understo
You only remove the U233 to make weapons. (Score:2)
It's an easy path to nuclear proliferation.
No one dissolves reactor rods for the fuck of it; only to blow up infidels.
The rest of your post resolves to "No shit, Sherlock!"
Re: (Score:2)
If you were standing next to a drum of plutonium someone put in your front yard, you'd be getting a lot of radiation from the sun. You'd need to stand there for a thousand years to get much from the plutonium.
That is complete bollocks.
The mars rover is run by a 100W plutonium dioxide heat source, 10 pounds. So it basically contains about 9 pound plutonium. So: 9 pounds already emitting 100W and you think that is nothing? Do you have mental problems or what?
The critical mass of plutonium btw is 8kg or 16 ger
So like a lightbulb (Score:2)
> The mars rover is run by a 100W plutonium dioxide heat source, 10 pounds. So it basically contains about 9 pound plutonium
Kinda like this light bulb here that's putting out nearly 100 watts of heat too. Should I be scared of it? Unlike the alpha radiation the plutonium puts out, the VL radiation from the bulb isn't stopped by air.
Re: (Score:2)
It is more 1000W, but it is converted into 100W electricity.
Wether you get hit by alpha particles is more a question of distance ... and question if it gets into your body despite the fact that your skin should prevent that, is a question of how lucky the tunnel effect master is :P
Pu 240 btw is a neutron and gamma radiator, so good luck with your idea to use it at home, and your silly comment how harmless it is.
Re: (Score:2)
What's irresponsible is leaving 300,000-year waste around.
After about 500 years, nuclear waste emits about as much radiation as the ore from which it was mined.
If that isn't good enough, please explain why not.
You only need to wait longer if you want to eat it, and in that case, heavy metal poisoning is a bigger concern than radiation.
Re: (Score:2)
Google "integral fast reactor" - we had the technology in 1990
Google "Phénix and Superphénix [wikipedia.org]. We've tried integral fast breeder reactors for 15 years and what we've learned during that time is that they're just not workable. During operation it had four major incidents that required stopping it for months and resulted in a an uptime below 68% whereas nuclear plants are normally above 90% (it's the whole point of baseload plants after all).
and Al Gore lead the effort to kill it starting the first week of the Clinton presidency.
And now you're going to blame Gore for the Superphénix shutdown too? By the way, the Japanese [wikipedia.org] too tested integral fa
Re: (Score:2)
Is the criminal ban of possession of fissile materials.
I'm confused. Do you mean banning criminals, the ban is criminal or possession is a crime?
Aaaaaand, coming up next... (Score:2)
Open source uranium enrichment. Sure that is going to happen...
Re:The real killer (Score:5, Informative)
I looked on the project website, and their design calls for "standard reactor fuel rods". To buy or sell those you'll need a license because they're moderately enriched, but it's obviously not illegal to own them. If it were, there'd be no private nuclear reactors.
So if you want to operate a nuclear power plant, you're going to show up on your country's regulatory radar screen when you try to buy the fuel. If you tried to enrich the fuel yourself, that's a massive and costly industrial operation that will surely be noticed.
To "empower" people to build reactors without government oversight, you need a reactor design that uses chemically separated but unenriched uranium. For DIY reactor builders, that's probably a graphite moderated reactor, although that's a horror show from a risk and proliferation standpoint.
In any case, you can purchase uranium ore without a license as long as you don't intend to enrich it (10 CFR 40.13 [nrc.gov]). I've got a lump of uranium ore in my workbench drawer. I bought to to validate the negative geiger counter readings I was getting from old watches I tested for radium contamination.
Re: (Score:1)
French? US?
Re: (Score:3)
I happened to be reading about Operation Sandblast, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] one of the things that stuck out was the mission choices, 56 days at 20 knots or 75 days at 15 knots (circumnavigating the world, submerged). The quicker trip was chosen as those extra 19 days of running the submarines reactors equaled $3.34 million of extra fuel consumed in 1960 when a million dollars was a lot of money.
Nuclear submarine reactors, which I believe use highly enriched fuel, are not cheap to run.
Re: The real killer (Score:2)
The quicker trip was chosen as those extra 19 days of running the submarines reactors equaled $3.34 million of extra fuel consumed in 1960
I do not understand this at all. I understand that rods are slowly depleted and need to be occasionally replaced but I always assumed that a rod lasted for years and produced a relatively constant amount of energy whether you used it or not. You always hear about nuclear being an excellent base load for this reason. What are they replacing that costs $175k a day and how are they even replacing it on a submerged sub?
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, I wondered about this as well but too lazy to chase down the cite, which is the book the Captain wrote about the trip.
I believe the rate that fuel is consumed depends on the moderators. Moderator fully inserted, fission almost stops, Moderator withdrawn, lots of fission. Moderator might be water or such so inserted might be the wrong term.
The Triton itself actually had 2 reactors, rated at 34k horsepower, sea trials saw 45k horsepower with the captain estimating that 60k horses was possible if needed.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe the rate that fuel is consumed depends on the moderators. Moderator fully inserted, fission almost stops, Moderator withdrawn, lots of fission. Moderator might be water or such so inserted might be the wrong term.
No, it is opposite way.
The moderators - hence the name - slow down neutrons and make them able to trigger another reaction. More moderation -> more energy.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure most nuclear reactor output is highly variable, just usually not *quickly* variable. And non-baseload generator output has to vary rapidly over the course of seconds, or preferably milliseconds. When you turn on a 1000W hair dryer, the generator outside of town has to instantly start producing an extra 1000W of power - until it does so grid voltage will lag and everything in town will be running just a little underpowered.
That's what the control rods are about in an old-school reactor - th
Re: (Score:2)
The quicker trip was chosen as those extra 19 days of running the submarines reactors equaled $3.34 million of extra fuel consumed in 1960
I do not understand this at all. I understand that rods are slowly depleted and need to be occasionally replaced but I always assumed that a rod lasted for years and produced a relatively constant amount of energy whether you used it or not. You always hear about nuclear being an excellent base load for this reason. What are they replacing that costs $175k a day and how are they even replacing it on a submerged sub?
Fuel rod replacement on a submarine where physical access is difficult is more expensive than for a power reactor and for this reason they use fuel rods which do not need to be replaced as often.
Capitol costs for a power reactor are so high that an economical return means operating them with as high a capacity factor as possible. They are also slower to respond although they could be designed for fast response.
Re: (Score:2)
and produced a relatively constant amount of energy whether you used it or not.
And why would you think that? (*facepalm*)
Obviously it produces more energy when "used" or how do you think a reactor is powered up or down?
Hint: moderator. Sponatnious decay creates neutrons ... they just fly a way. By moderating hem you get them to speeds that create a chain reaction. Hence: more decay, more energy.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously it produces more energy when "used" or how do you think a reactor is powered up or down?
A Nuclear reactor is basically a glorified steam engine. The radioactive material heats water that then turns turbines. Unlike a natural gas plant, a nuclear power plant doesn't really power up/down. It's more like on/off and even when off the radioactive decay doesn't just stop. It continues to happen whether you are taking advantage of it or not.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not illegal to own fissile material, you can go to the Grand Canyon and pick it up off the ground. I have some in a vial somewhere and plenty of students across Universities can enrich the material in labs.
Stockpiling "nuclear" material isn't illegal and in most cases not even dangerous, putting it in a rocket, bomb or threatening people with it is.
Re: (Score:2)
[The real killer is] the criminal ban of possession of fissile materials.
Maybe in 1955, but nowadays you can pick it up at the drug store.
Re:The real killer (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you could pick up fissile materials at the drug store in 1985, but in 2020 it's a little hard to come by!
Re: (Score:2)
Smoke detectors?
Re: (Score:2)
They usually use Americium-241, which is indeed fissile, as well as radioactive (the radiation being what makes it useful in a smoke detector)
However, that usage is allowed because the radioactivity of the quantity used falls below regulatory limits. While reaching critical mass requires a solid metal sphere (which I believe is the ideal shape to maximize chain reactions) around 19-21cm in diameter, massing ~58-76kg. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium-241)
Meanwhile a smoke detector apparently cont
Re: (Score:2)
I was being somewhat facetious. Still there was that kid who tried to build a reactor with Americium harvested from smoke detectors. David Hahn, seems all he succeeded at was making a neutron source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Not surprising, it's hard for a kid top get his hands on the required 66 billion smoke detectors. It's a neutron source from day one though, and just keeps getting more powerful the more you accumulate, easily reaching dangerous levels.
On a related note I once considered building a Farnsworth Fusor - but decided that a personal fusion reactor that wasn't good for anything but a neutron source (and desk ornament!) just wasn't worth the risks involved. I was a few years older than him at that point though.
Re: (Score:2)