Smaller, Safer Nuclear Energy Reactor Designed by Utah Professor (ksl.com) 209
Slashdot reader thedarklaser writes:
A chemical engineering professor at Utah's BYU has
created a nuclear reactor design that could produce enough energy for 1000 homes in the space of 4 feet by 7 feet. And there's a bonus: potentially no nuclear waste or risk of melt down.
They use molten salt that bonds with the dissolved fuel. Then, very valuable Molybdenum-99 (as in $30 million per gram) can be extracted from that salt and sold for use in medical imaging.
Additionally, this system is very inexpensive, at a cost of around 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
The professor (who led a larger team on the project) tells a local TV station it's important because nuclear energy is "the only baseload or controllable, 100% on-power that has no emissions at all."
And since all the radioactive byproducts are dissolved into molten salt with this technique, he believes it's "a system that's impossible to melt down. There's nothing to melt, and it's not likely to cause any release problems because there's no pressure and there's nothing to push it out."
They use molten salt that bonds with the dissolved fuel. Then, very valuable Molybdenum-99 (as in $30 million per gram) can be extracted from that salt and sold for use in medical imaging.
Additionally, this system is very inexpensive, at a cost of around 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
The professor (who led a larger team on the project) tells a local TV station it's important because nuclear energy is "the only baseload or controllable, 100% on-power that has no emissions at all."
And since all the radioactive byproducts are dissolved into molten salt with this technique, he believes it's "a system that's impossible to melt down. There's nothing to melt, and it's not likely to cause any release problems because there's no pressure and there's nothing to push it out."
https://alphatechresearchcorp.com/ (Score:5, Informative)
This is the company he's with. The TV article failed to include that as a link :D
Re:https://alphatechresearchcorp.com/ (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately the web site has even less content than the university press office blurb or the local radio station report.
Content-less promotional material slashvertizing should not be on this site.
Lets at least see a decent set of specs. How much uranium and of what enrichment for starters?
Conundrum (Score:5, Interesting)
Then, very valuable Molybdenum-99 (as in $30 million per gram) can be extracted from that salt and sold for use in medical imaging.
Additionally, this system is very inexpensive, at a cost of around 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
If the byproducts are that valuable, and abundant enough, the electricity generated should be free or companies should pay customers to use it. (hah!) If they're not, then the power generated is too inexpensive and some energy company will buy and bury the IP in 3... 2... 1...
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Or they could charge you a bit less than the other power operators and cash in the revenue coming from the sale of the byproducts.
Re:Conundrum (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, as soon as he produces the first gram of the material, the price will probably drop to 7.5 million per gram.
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Re:Conundrum (Score:5, Informative)
Molybdenum is common, but the isotope Molybdenum-99 is extremely rare and al lcurrent sources are man-made via Uranium-235 fission or neutron bombardment of common Molybdenum-98 [nih.gov]
My issue is that they do not mention the need for the conversion of heat to electricity, which takes a rather large facility and is not addressed in the article. Are they hoping to replace the burners/boilers of existing coal/natural gas power plants with these units?
As usual, it's a gilded version of reality... (Score:5, Informative)
I.e. Everything is wonderful if only nuke. Nothing can ever go wrong, be bad nor are there any disadvantages. [wikipedia.org]
Disadvantages
- In circulating-fuel-salt designs, radionuclides dissolved in fuel come in contact with major equipment such as pumps and heat exchangers, likely requiring fully remote and possibly expensive maintenance.
- Some MSRs require onsite chemical processing to manage core mixture and remove fission products.
- Required regulatory changes to deal with radically different design features
- Some MSR designs rely on nickel-based alloys to hold the molten salt. Alloys based on nickel and iron are prone to embrittlement under high neutron flux.[10]:âS83âS
- Corrosion risk.[11] Molten salts require careful management of their redox state to handle corrosion risks. This is particularly challenging for circulating-fuel-salt designs, in which a complex mix of fissile/fertile isotopes and their transmutation/fission/decay products is being circulated through the reactor. Static fuel salt designs profit from modularising the problem: the fuel salt is contained within fuel pins whose regular replacement, primarily due to neutron irradiation damage, is part of the operating concept; while the coolant salt has a simpler chemical composition and, under appropriate redox state management, does not pose a corrosion risk either to the fuel pins or to the reactor vessel. (Regarding redox state management, see the descriptions for the stable salt reactor's fuel and coolant salts). The MSRs developed at ORNL in the 60's were only safe to operate for a few years, and operated at only about 650 ÂC (1,202 ÂF). Potential corrosion risks include dissolution of chromium by liquid fluoride thorium salts at greater than 700 ÂC (1,292 ÂF), hence endangering stainless steel components. Neutron radiation can also transmute other common alloying agents such as Co and Ni, shortening lifespan. If using lithium salts (e.g. FLiBe), it is preferable, if expensive, to use 7Li to reduce tritium generation (tritium can permeate stainless steels, cause embrittlement, and escape into the environment). ORNL developed Hastelloy N to help address these issues, and there is an effort to certify other structural steels for use in reactors (316H, 800H, inco 617).
- Some MSR designs might be modified to make a breeder reactor able to produce weapons-grade nuclear material.[12]
- The MSRE and aircraft nuclear reactors used enrichment levels so high that they approach the levels of nuclear weapons. These levels would be illegal in most modern regulatory regimes for power plants. Most modern designs avoid this issue.[13]
- Neutron damage to solid moderator materials can limit the core lifetime of an MSR that uses moderated thermal neutrons. For example, the MSRE was designed so that its graphite moderator sticks had very loose tolerances, so neutron damage could change their size without damage. "Two fluid" MSR designs are unable to use graphite piping because graphite changes size when it is bombarded with neutrons, and graphite pipes would crack and leak.[8] MSR using fast neutrons cannot use graphite anyway to avoid moderation.
- Thermal MSRs have lower breeding ratios than fast-neutron breeders, though their doubling time may be shorter.
The article is basically a funding request, aimed at people who don't know jack about science or engineering but who will come in their own cereal at mention of "30 million per gram... used in approximately 20 million medical imaging procedures and scans each year... can be extracted with Memmott's design.".
Re:As usual, it's a gilded version of reality... (Score:5, Informative)
Some MSR designs might be modified to make a breeder reactor able to produce weapons-grade nuclear material.[12]
This part isn't true in practice. In fact most of those points you copied from Wikipedia aren't true in practice and are the result of anti-nuclear propaganda. Often the points in this article mix up Uranium and Thorium fuel cycles, often in the same point. If you use Thorium to breed U-233, technically that can be used in a nuclear weapon. But you leave out the fact that nobody alive on earth knows how to make a U-233 based bomb. The math of how you create a chain reaction in enriched isotopes is different for different isotopes. So you use one geometry for P-239 (what most big countries use) another for U-235 (what Iran is doing and like little boy) and a 3rd for U-233. The thing is while we did identify the correct geometry for U-233 back in the 50s, since the bomb was a dud, we destroyed the research (look up operation teapot I think). So this one of those technically true but practically false things. As in it would be easier to start with LEU sold on the open market quite cheaply than to use something made from a Thorium powered reactor like this professor is using.
The MSRE and aircraft nuclear reactors used enrichment levels so high that they approach the levels of nuclear weapons. These levels would be illegal in most modern regulatory regimes for power plants. Most modern designs avoid this issue.[13]
This part is just plain false. Anti-proliferation is based upon 2 things: 1) isotopes are hard to separate and 2) you can't work with very highly radioactive materials. So any given mixture must either be very radioactive or have an isotopic composition with mostly non-fissile isotopes at all times. MSRs use the first part to meet anti-proliferation requirements. Existing reactor designs use the second part. Basically, for a short period there is a mixture of highly enriched material but it is so radioactive at that point it couldn't be separated. By the time the mixture cools to the point it could be worked with, it will have decayed to something that isn't so enriched. This is how MSR designs are proliferation resistant. And from any practical point of view, Thorium MSRs are much more proliferation resistant because nobody knows the correct geometry for a U-233 based weapon (also, they tend to be duds and nobody knows if Tritium boosting would work for those types of bombs).
The rest of your points is based upon typically anti-nuclear non-sense. All they point out is that you have to use special materials in nuclear reactors which everyone already knows. MSRs are typically designed to work for 10 years. We have engineered reactors that are still worked after 60 years. It is far easier to build something that lasts a shorter amount of time obviously and the materials involved become far less radioactive (not that it matters, isotopes of the metals mentioned have very short half-lives and low emissions of ionizing radiation). Finally, the molten salt used in these types of reactors is the same as the "solar salt" used in a solar concentration plant. So we have plenty of experience with how to handle that material. This is all just anti-nuclear FUD.
Re:As usual, it's a gilded version of reality... (Score:5, Interesting)
Name one molten salt reactor that wasn't some kind of disaster.
There aren't any, they all had expensive problems that nobody has a realistic solution for. The best anyone has come up with is to make it modular, so that when parts inevitably wear out or corrode they can just be swapped out and the old one becomes high level nuclear waste. Not exactly economical, and we still lack good options for dealing with that kind of waste - it just gets thrown in pools along with spend fuel, for our kids to deal with.
Thorium too has been tried and every time it failed. It's always the next design that gets it right and is sure to work, until it doesn't.
Re: As usual, it's a gilded version of reality... (Score:2)
Re: As usual, it's a gilded version of reality... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As usual, it's a gilded version of reality... (Score:5, Interesting)
But you leave out the fact that nobody alive on earth knows how to make a U-233 based bomb.
Take one part TNT, wrap it in radioactive material, say goodbye to economic output of a major metropolitan area.
You don't need a nuclear reaction to make a nuclear bomb.
These "designs" are supposedly intended to "produce enough energy for 1000 homes" - i.e. it's a boondoggle FalloutTM vision of a reactor at every corner.
Now, such proliferation of reactors you can ram with a truck full of ammonium nitrate and diesel while chanting from Bible, [wikipedia.org] Quran [wikipedia.org] or William Ernest Henley's poetry [wikipedia.org] MAY NOT present a security issue in... I don't know... New York.
Or Oklahoma City.
BUT... The places where we're actually going to need a lot of energy, and pretty damn soon, [wikipedia.org] - kinda aren't as safe as Lower Manhattan and tend to be populated by warlords. [wikipedia.org]
Anti-proliferation is based upon 2 things: 1) isotopes are hard to separate and 2) you can't work with very highly radioactive materials.
Oh I'm sorry... I didn't know you were cryogenically frozen all this time.
See... We don't live in a MAD world any more.
We live in a world where the worlds biggest nuclear power (on paper) keeps shelling foreign nuclear reactors while inventing preemptive excuses for "someone else" using a dirty bomb.
It's also a world where a whole lot of people are perfectly willing to suicide themselves for their faith. Particularly those with engineering background. [lse.ac.uk]
Arguing that few martyrs would be a deterrent to people willing to detonate a dirty bomb in a major harbor is like arguing that Republican politicians are bound by morals and ethics.
MSRs are typically designed to work for 10 years.
Having your reactor last less than your first house [rocketmortgage.com] is NOT the argument for good design you are looking for.
It is far easier to build something that lasts a shorter amount of time obviously and the materials involved become far less radioactive (not that it matters, isotopes of the metals mentioned have very short half-lives and low emissions of ionizing radiation)
You are clearly talking out of your ass. Read the article.
Instead of trying to trap uranium inside a zirconium alloy rod, and then putting that inside of a big pressure vessel, and then putting that inside of containment where you're trying to mechanically keep things in place in case something goes wrong," Memmott said. "Instead, what you do is you dissolve the fuel directly into a salt that's melted or a molten salt."
...
We can now go to that salt and apply specific electrochemistry to pull out pieces one at a time, or groups at a time. So this nuclear waste - which is really just a mix of uranium and all these different components - we can now pull those out and separate and sell them," Memmott said
Yeah. Sure. VERY short half-lives and low emissions of ionizing radiation.
Finally, the molten salt used in these types of reactors is the same as the "solar salt" used in a solar concentration plant.
Regardless of the fact that that is simply not true [wikipedia.org], mainly due to the fact that concentrated solar power doesn't require nuclear fuel in its salt mix to operate - corr
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Re:As usual, it's a gilded version of reality... (Score:5, Informative)
I’m pro-nuclear. I wish you were right. But the whole “meh youve seen one salt system youve seen em all” is a chernobyl-grade engineering claim. Which brings the rest of your post into question.
Not a Typical MSR (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still sceptical of their claims that there will be no nuclear waste but by encasing the dangerous fission products in solid salt and extracting energy from their decay it should be much safer and produce much less waste. Indeed, it seems like a clever design in principle but the important details about whether it will ever be practical and safe will depend on the engineering...but it definitely sounds interesting. Although the irrational fear that anything with nuclear in the name generates means it faces an uphill struggle to be successful regardless of how safe it is.
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30 million per gram... used in approximately 20 million medical imaging procedures and scans each year... can be extracted with Memmott's design.
An MSR design is actually not a bad idea for an isotope-producing reactor. It doesn't need to be very powerful, so the corrosion and neutron embrittlement rates are low. It also doesn't need high-flux heat exchangers that right now require unobtainium to build for large-scale MSRs.
Heck, people are looking at homogenous dissolved uranium-salt reactors for isotope production. Which are completely useless for energy production.
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Aaaand you only cover disadvantages. I'm not saying your wrong by any means, but there are plusses and minuses. Most of the plusses are way better than conventional nuclear
Advantages with a bit of issues:
Burn most/all of the fuel resulting in little waste (and that includes what we call nuclear waste)
Is meltdown proof because fuel is melted down already (in MSRs)
Reprossessing on site is best for efficiency, but doing it offsite still results in about 70% fuel efficient vs 5% at best (based on Russian BN600/
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Then, very valuable Molybdenum-99 (as in $30 million per gram) can be extracted from that salt and sold for use in medical imaging.
Additionally, this system is very inexpensive, at a cost of around 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
The Mo-99 claim puts this squarely "Thar's a fortune of platinum waiting to be grabbed out in the asteroids sonny!" territory. There is a reason for Mo-99 to be very expensive and it is not because nuclear power plants are not cranking the stuff out by kilograms hourly. Complex processes are needed to extract it from highly radioactive fuel. It is not like milking a cow. How is the "neighborhood unit" going to be yielding up its valuable Mo-99 exactly?.
The amazing low, low price (if you act now?) needs a ba
Re:Conundrum (Score:5, Informative)
Neutron bombardment of uranium targets actually produces decent amounts of the stuff; but remains expensive because you can only recover it by pulling the target out immediately after neutron bombardment and doing some delightful hot cell chemistry as quickly as possible before getting it packaged up and shipped out as fast as possible. Very different schedule from reactors aimed primarily at power generation; where you normally keep the fuel loaded as long as it makes sense in terms of power output, then deliberately give the spent fuel assembly some time to cool off and burn through a few of the faster decay chains to make reprocessing less unpleasant.
It's certainly not a lie to say that you can get Mo-99 from a uranium reactor; but suggesting that you can do it and operate a highly compact and extremely cost effective reactor is either a much bolder claim(if you are in fact stating that the highly compact reactor and very cheap electricity can be achieved even as you are constantly pulling molten fuel out of the system for processing); or effectively a lie(if you don't actually have a plan to reconcile the competing interests of a reactor being run for energy and a reactor being run for short-lived isotopes; and are just stating two distinct things you could do as though you could do them simultaneously).
Economics (Score:2)
Molybdenum 99 is only so damn expensive because there is so little of it.
IF these reactors are used everywhere the price will come down.
Need to check (Score:3)
Is this another thorium thing?
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Inherently Safe: The 12 MWe, fluoride salt, Uranium (LEU) fueled ARC Generator has multiple layers of safety features. The ARC Generator does not require high pressure to prevent coolant from boiling off. In fact, even though it operates at around 700C, the salt coolant cannot get hot enough to boil. If the ARC Generator loses power, the fuel salt freezes, safely containing fission products.
So no.
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On that note, do you think "ARC Generator" is a backronym? A promotional name designed to sound like the magic power source from _Iron Man_?
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You have 6 months, we need solutions fast.
20 years ago protesters were saying nuclear would take too long, and here we are 20 years later and they cling to the same excuse. But here is the funny part - 20 years from now, we will still be burning a shit ton of natural gas and coal, absolutely guaranteed. And you will still be saying nuclear will take too long. And we will laugh then like we do now.
That's not what we're saying (Score:2, Flamebait)
This sounds good, but again, wake me when it's in production.
Bottom line a reactor has to be cheaper than wind & solar (which can already do base load power) *and* just as safe. I'm not going to risk homelessness when the reactor of a rich asshole who lives 1000 miles from the disaster he created
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I am saying that I do not trust an anti-nuclear energy industry (greenpeace, the green party, sierra club, etc...) that takes money from fossil fuel companies to propagandize against nuclear power
The irony of green peace and the sierra club being significant causes of global warming and the resultant extinction event is too spicy for my tastes, and yet it is the elephant in the room, that you try and dance around every time you justify your flimsy anti-nuclear stance
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I'm not going to risk homelessness when the reactor of a rich asshole who lives 1000 miles from the disaster he created sprays radiation all over what little property I manage to own.
The joke is on you. Google says Fukashima cost 97 billion dollars. Hurricane Katrina alone cost 186 billion dollars. The current narrative is that climate change is ostensibly going to make large catastrophic weather events more common. Math and statistics matter regardless of where you own property.
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How can wind and solar provide base load power?
You mean during the day? What happens at night or when the wind isn't blowing? This is the first time I've heard that claim even on the super greenie message boards I'm on.
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Another solution is HVDC transmission lines to solar farms further west, so sunshine in California cooks dinner in Chicago.
And Californians just have a salad for dinner.
So the answer is HVDC interconnects.
People here are saying nuclear takes too long, but the sort of grid enhancements you are talking about are going to be decades long projects as well.
Re:Need to check (Score:5, Informative)
Examine the recently built and modestly successful new design nuclear power plant hyped for their potential improvement over the older models proven to have unmitigated and uncontrollable risks. Take the Tianshan nuclear plant that China rushed. While it is the largest and most powerful in the world, technically on the name plate, its first reactor and has had to remain shut down for the majority of its potentially operational life. The cladding on the fuel rods made by France can't stand the physical stresses of actually being used. Instead, to offset the failed nuclear reactor China had to lean more on the older Guohua coal power plant to supply the region. If a cooperative between China and France can't produce a functioning nuclear reactor from one of the newer designs and actually keep it working, then what the the odds anyone else can?
Other issues: And severe problem vastly exceed simply the function. The issue of mines and fuel rod production releases so much waste and causes so much harm it makes coal look like candy. In Jadugora, India there is clear evidence of tailings causing mutation in children born in the area as well. And that still ignores the problem of waste, which despite the often made claims of being solved, still leaves fuel so dangerous it escapes the best engineered solutions that have been made and causes environmental contamination. It is easy to ignore regions when you don't live there, but the regions exist. And the problems multiply as scale increases, meaning that fewer and fewer people can possibly escape the externalities inherent in nuclear power white-washed into seeming green.
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Take the Tianshan nuclear plant that China rushed. While it is the largest and most powerful in the world, technically on the name plate, its first reactor and has had to remain shut down for the majority of its potentially operational life.
Nice of you to highlight a single project. My take is good on China (and France) for spending the time and money to advance the technology while the rest of the west quivers in their collective boots. You neglect to mention China's functional nuclear capacity has increased by 400% in just the last decade, and is only going to speed up from here. TLDR; China is going to eat your lunch one day soon.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
And India can't handle uranium. I'm shocked and I'll have to ask abou
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It's actually worse than that. The Tianshan nuclear plant is an EPR design, which doesn't work. The designers in France have admitted as much and have been working on a "new model" since 2015, with the various fixed being rolled into plants that are already under construction in Europe.
The Chinese are screwed, their plant is the old broken design and will need major changes if they want it to ever work reliably and not have on-going expensive maintenance issues. Knowing EDF and Framatone (the designers and
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It's actually worse than that. The Tianshan nuclear plant is an EPR design, which doesn't work.
It doesn't work you say? So, have you just given up all research all together an hoping we won't call you on your bullshit at all? How stupid do you think we are?
The Tiashan nuclear plant has been connected to the grid, both reactors, since 2019. They are both currently producing 3320 MWe to the grid. Sounds like it is working damn well to me.
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After extensive downtime and new fuel rod designs. As I said, there are numerous other flaws that lead the designers to abandon the EPR and do a new version. There Chinese, and to an extent the plants in Europe, got to beta test the old one.
That's why they are all over budget and over time, and why EDF is saying 20 years for new reactors. They are still debugging it as they try to build them.
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You said. "it didn't' work." Well, it's working. It's also the first of its kind so it is expected to be issues. But, Its working.
If you are going to spread your fud you might want to lookup something that doesn't take 5 minutes to debunk.
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After extensive downtime and new fuel rod designs. As I said, there are numerous other flaws that lead the designers to abandon the EPR and do a new version.
But they are learning and advancing. The rest not so much. I guess you can always polish the old participation award.
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No they were not, you are making that up. 20 years ago the issue was that all the projects started in the 60s and 70s were reaching end of design life and looking extremely expensive to decommission, and waste disposal sites were not ready.
As I recall the old Magnox reactors in the UK were talking about a 95 year decommissioning process around then. They wanted to just wait for it to cool, but of course the site needs maintaining, monitoring, and guarding until that happens.
Look, we are where we are. If we
Re:Need to check (Score:4, Insightful)
Most patent offices have a ban on perpetual motion machines. Maybe we need a similar ban on miracle new nuclear reactors.
A formal ban on anti nuclear bullshit from the likes of you would be far more beneficial.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Most patent offices have a ban on perpetual motion machines. Maybe we need a similar ban on miracle new nuclear reactors.
Build one and prove it commercially. You have 6 months, we need solutions fast. Otherwise it's got to be existing technologies.
So you want to ban new designs but you also want to require a design to be built to prove it works? Your FUD is getting more absurd as the years go on. I remember when you actually tried argue about the science and engineering. But since we know about nuclear physics, you always got something wrong and were corrected. So now you just post this type of politically motivated FUD. It must kill you to see all the supporters of nuclear power we have now. Oh, the humanity, to be proven wrong, oh no...even t
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I don't want to ban new designs. I want you to pay to prove them. I don't want any part of that, it's insanely expensive and almost every time it fails and the investors lose their money.
If you think it will work, and will produce competitively priced electricity, and be ready before it's irrelevant, you go ahead. You will get a great return on that investment.
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"Marxist" seems to have become a generic term for people you disagree with. Perhaps I should change my signature.
Uninformative article (Score:5, Insightful)
This could be a cool idea, but TFA omits most of the important details. What is the actual fuel? How much energy is "1000 homes"?
Extracting valuable elements is also overly simplified. How will they do that? And claiming that they can take out and use *everything* is simply not true. Plus, other parts of the reactor will become radioactive.
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"This could be a cool idea, but TFA omits most of the important details. What is the actual fuel? How much energy is "1000 homes"? "
And the most important question:
Can they get any insurance company on the planet to cover it?
Re: (Score:2)
According to U.S. EIA, "The average U.S. household consumes about 11,000 kilowatthours (kWh) per year" tho it varies by region some.
Sooo.... 1,000 homes would be 11,000,000 kWh per year.
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So, get 1000 of these and you have 1.21 Jigawatts! (approximately)
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This puts the average usage about 31kwh per day (31,000) So I think if you are getting a backup solar generator that has 21,000 listed capacity- you'll get about 17 000 actual out of it or about 14 hours runtime. But, you can greatly reduce your usage when the power fails and keep your refrigerator, a cell phone, a light, a small 5w fan, cable modem, and laptop going for 24 hours.
And they are getting pretty cheap- $1400 with tax. They also help with short term power outages, have 10ms UPS these days, an
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A quick google suggest that the average US home uses about 29kWh/day (figure for 2021). That's an average of 1.2kW continually. So this reactor seems to be about 1.2MWe, i.e. tiny.
Even if it scales extremely well to say 500x that, unless the energy is extremely cheap then it won't be of interest in anything but niche applications.
"Baseload" is not special (Score:2)
Energy is produced and used instantaneously. There is nothing unique about that energy demand except that it is an arbitrarily defined amount of power required at every instant. This does not mean it must be provided by a constant source, by a single source, or that satisfying it requires a different structure than the rest of the variable demand.
As for the idea of having a reactor on an 18-wheeler or comparable truck or railcar, it may physically be possible if you neglect shielding, and containment, and s
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Quite wrong. There is significant momentum in there or power-grids could not be stable at all.
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"Baseload" just means it guarantees a certain amount of power 24/7. You can probably [skepticalscience.com] guarantee a certain amount of power 24/7 with interconnected wind farms geographically distributed across a wide enough area.
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Yeah, but the more redundancy you have, and the wider the area, the more expensive it becomes. That is the eternal problem (if money weren't an issue, we'd have everything right now).
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This is sort of true. Nuclear (and coal) plants don't throttle easily. So the best way to use them is to turn them on and let them run at a fixed power setting. But once they are on, they stay on. Very reliably. Plants with this characteristic are scheduled to serve the base load of a utility.
Other sorts of plants are used to serve power peaks. Fast starting gas turbine plants and (even faster) hydroelectric. They can be spun up in a matter of minutes, so they are best used to serve peaks. Hydroelectric pl
4'x7'? (Score:2)
Sounds cool. How big is a sub or ship reactor the Navy uses?
Re: 4'x7'? (Score:2)
Prior Art (Score:3)
A chemical engineering professor at Utah's BYU has created a nuclear reactor design that could produce enough energy for 1000 homes in the space of 4 feet by 7 feet.
Lockheed is already developing a revolutionary two-dimensional reactor.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
Lockheed Martin claims it has made a significant breakthrough in the creation of nuclear fusion reactors. The company says it has proved the feasibility of building a 100MW reactor measuring only 7 feet by 10 feet.
That's why it never worked before! Nobody thought about building a two-dimensional reactor!
Corrosion (Score:3)
Re:Corrosion (Score:5, Informative)
Has been a major problem with molten salt reactors.
You mean in the 1 that we have ever built that ran for 5 years without significant corrosion (MSRE [wikipedia.org])? Because otherwise you are just making up things. I quote, "The MSRE confirmed expectations and predictions.[15] For example, it was demonstrated that: the fuel salt was immune to radiation damage, the graphite was not attacked by the fuel salt, and the corrosion of Hastelloy-N was negligible. Noble gases were stripped from the fuel salt by a spray system, reducing the 135Xe poisoning by a factor of about 6. The bulk of the fission product elements remained stable in the salt."
Re:Corrosion (Score:5, Informative)
That reactor only produced 7.4MWth, i.e. it was a tiny test reactor. Despite only running intermittently for 5 years, it turned into high level nuclear waste that presented a serious problem. Checking in 1994 revealed the danger of a criticality accident, and the production of a large quantity of fluorine gas.
The contractor who handles decommissioning for old government nuclear experiments like that described it as "the most technically challenging" one they had done to date. As of today they aren't even sure how to decommission it fully, it's an unsolved problem.
Not an entirely new idea. (Score:5, Informative)
Molten salt reactors have been since the sixties. MSRE was an 8 megawatt prototype run at Oak Ridge for about four years from 1965.
The good news is that molten salt reactors have a negative temperature coefficient, which means that as the fuel heats up the reactivity decreases, so there is weak negative-feedback. They also run at much lower pressures than a PWR and keep most of the nasty reaction products (except xenon and tritium) dissolved in the salt phase, so leaks are less likely to be disasters.
With an appropriate choice of fuel, presumably thorium-233, the production of long lived waste products can be minimised, but I don't believe there will be zero high level waste. Tritium production can also be minimised by removing as much lithium-6 as possible from the salt solution. (6Li + n --> 4He + 3H)
However, the molten sale (FLiBe) is very aggressive and needs some unusual alloys for containment. Beryllium fluoride is also very toxic. Depending on the neutron flux there will be degradation of the graphite moderator. I read somewhere that they might only have a working life of 8 years. So it's not all plain sailing.
Re: Not an entirely new idea. (Score:2)
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Xeon decays to iodine so it still needs containment since your thyroid drinks iodine.
All the fission products need containment. That is part of the basic design of a MSR. The fission produces stay dissolved in the salt and the noble gasses are captured. What you said is basically like, "all cars need seat belts because anyone can crash". Also, the isotope that Xeon decays into is stable (which means it isn't radioactive) and it is Caesium (not Iodine). Maybe try again with your anti-nuclear FUD.
Re: Not an entirely new idea. (Score:2)
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Ah, thorium rears its ugly head, that didn't take long.
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I resent that. Thor, I am!
Nobody fears a melt-down (Score:2)
The fear is somebody strapping a few pounds of C4 to it.
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The fear is somebody strapping a few pounds of C4 to it.
Ah, because the risk of doing nothing is 0 right? There is no perfect way to make power. There are only ways with various draw backs. The draw backs with other power sources are well known and planet killing in some cases. The draw backs from nuclear are the plots of low budget action movies.
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Technically people do fear a melt-down, too. It's been bad in the past.
Other advanced BYU tech (Score:4, Interesting)
BYU engineers etch entirety of The Book of Mormon on a microchip wafer
https://news.byu.edu/byu-engin... [byu.edu]
Molten salt reactor (Score:2)
That would not be the first operational molten salt reactor. Here a molten salt reactor built in China. And before term !
https://www.world-nuclear-news... [world-nuclear-news.org]
If the US project goes trough of course.
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The actual paper is here... (Score:5, Informative)
For those complaining about the lack of details, look here: Thermal Design and Analysis of a Passive Modular Molten Salt Microreactor Concept [ssrn.com]
It has detailed diagrams and everything.
This is still in the ideation stage, so obviously a lot it TBD and would require testing.
Half-life. (Score:2)
Re:Half-life. (Score:5, Funny)
Then society really needs collection areas for nuclear waste and infrastructure to transport it safely. Because what is worse than concentrated nuclear wasted is small amounts of the material in cities all over the world.
I propose storing it on the Moon.
That ought to work until around September 13th, 1999,
Even better, real grid redundancy (Score:2)
The thing that excites me about truly small modular reactors is the thought every small town could have an independent power source... imagine how amazing this would be for natural disasters, where most of a state can be rendered without electricity because power lines go down.
Solar is also really great in this way, but there are lots of locations or situations not well suited to solar, and it's always better to have layers of options to get power.
If we get enough spare reactor capacity up we could enter a
how many homes? (Score:2)
There are (or were in 2020) about 140 million "homes" in the US (https://housegrail.com/how-many-houses-are-in-the-us/). If we had no other power supply than these mini-nukes (which of course is not the case, and probably never will be), we would need 140,000 of these nuclear reactors. Choose a number for how many such reactors would likely get built, and divide 140,000 by that number, and you'll know what portion of American electricity *for homes* this would produce; 1400 of these, for example, would pr
Just build the damn thing (Score:2)
Seriously, build one. Show the skeptics that it works. That can't be that hard unless you have a whole lot of government flunkies heavily invested in wind and solar companies who will stop at nothing to keep their cushy slush funds.
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Talk to Musk or Bezos. $10 billion is couch change to those guys.
Question since I have no expertise on nuclear... (Score:2)
...and it doesn’t take long for the temperature of these elements in the salt to fall beneath the melting point. Once the salt crystalizes, the radiated heat will be absorbed into the salt (which doesn’t remelt), negating the danger of a nuclear meltdown at a power plant.
But how does that prevent the radioactive element in the molten salts to not pose a danger in terms of radiation? Like, preventing meltdowns is great, but the article itself named 2 risks. Meltdown and radioactive waste being harmful due to it still being radioactive. How does this prevent the second?
Thank you in advance.
Lots of small reactors is concerning (Score:3)
Lots of small reactors though seems like a bad idea. Each one is a potential source of significant contamination and the cost of guarding them against intentional damage will be high. While accidents will be less serious but with 100,000 of these around the country they will happen. Given the public's reaction to radiation, that seems like it won't go well
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
BYU, not Utah (Score:2)
When I first saw Utah and nuclear energy, I immediately thought of cold fusion. But this is not cold fusion. Also, BYU and the University of Utah are rivals, so it's interesting having this work attributed to the rival (only on Slashdot and not in the BYU PR).
homer will find away to make it meltdown (Score:2, Funny)
homer will find away to make it meltdown
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we're still not sure how he caused the meltdown. there wasn't any nuclear material in the truck! [frinkiac.com]
You'll pay. (Score:3)
The industry doesn't care who will pay the bill for the next 10 000 Years.
Researchers are even more disconnected from reality.
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I like the idea, in part because I can imagine the keystone-kops-like decontamination trucks rushing around to each fender-benders
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(from TFA) The research team said everything needed to run this reactor is designed to fit onto a 40-foot truck bed; meaning this reactor can make power accessible to even very remote places.
How about a way, *way* smaller one to actually power electric vehicles -- or, perhaps, just large ones like semi-trucks, trains and airplanes?
Atomic Battery to POWER. Turbines TO SPEED.
Roll Out!
Holy Batmobile on a turntable!
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Or ships. Strange nobody has thought of this before [wikipedia.org].
Trains: Better to electrify them and keep the nukes in fixed and protected locations. Same for trucks. Airplanes: You might actually need more than "1000 homes" worth of power, even if you could make it light enough to take off. And planes need an easily throttlable source. Which nukes aren't. And then there's the problem of the odd airplane dropping out of the sky from time to time.
Ships are great. Because when things go wrong and they sink, the reactor
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"Professor touts great invention" is a newspaper headline from 150 years ago, not a serious piece of information today.
Indeed. There are no fruits hanging this low anymore and there have not been for a long time. This is people that are still in denial about what is to come trying to grasp at straws.
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And it will also flush out the "Nuclear is the solution to everything and there is no financial or safety risks at all!" folks too.
Including that one guy who is rabidly pro-nuclear.
Re:Anti-Nuclear Posts (Score:5, Insightful)
But here is the difference. The pro nuclear crowd, that includes me, takes the safety factor of nuclear energy in to account. Also realize that is not the allways the answer to everything, and we find ways to make it work. While we are not always right on every aspect of nuclear energy we are more often right than wrong.
Where the anti nuclear crowed is ALWAYS, "nuclear bad.. nuclear bad" froth froth... "nuclear bad." Always decrying anything nuclear as a waste of time and overly dangerous. They always trot out the same tired FUD on the subject even after it has been proven to be untrue.
So, of the two which is more reasonable? The ones that want to work toward a solution with safe nuclear energy. Or the group that just spouts the same old anti nuclear lines and doesn't bother to check where the industry is today.
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I’m not saying it’s dangerous, I’m saying building a plant is too expensive and takes too long. Look at the final price of Watts Bar. Nobody is going to foot the bill.
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Iâ(TM)m not saying itâ(TM)s dangerous, Iâ(TM)m saying building a plant is too expensive and takes too long. Look at the final price of Watts Bar. Nobody is going to foot the bill.
This is where your lack of research is showing though. Go lookup Small Nuclear Reactors and do your own research. I'm not being a smart ass here, I really mean go look them up, and see what you think. I can tell you that I think they are great. But make up your own mind.
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Where the anti nuclear crowed is ALWAYS, "nuclear bad.. nuclear bad" froth froth... "nuclear bad." Always decrying anything nuclear as a waste of time and overly dangerous. They always trot out the same tired FUD on the subject even after it has been proven to be untrue
The following example is a perfect example of what I'm talking about from our best known anti nuclear nazi.
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
No discussion on if the technology is feasible. No examples of why it's not. Nothing. Just "oh its new and nuclear. Just ban it and be done with it." Lets not even bother to look at the research. Just toss it in the trash and move on.
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