I doubt if an economical one-family LFTR could be built. The stuff I've
read indicates that a small LFTR could be factory built and trucked to
the
end-user. I understand that the navy is looking at this to power ships.
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com
[mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com]
On Behalf Of Larry T
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 6:22 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Nuclear power
Could small reactors to power a single family home, an apartment bldg or
a
office bldg be developed? Seems the market for that would be huge - just
because the fuel itself has little cost doesn't mean the technology has
no
value. If I could spend $5K on a small reactor to bury in the back yard
and power my home for ever, that would be a huge marketing tool. IMHO.
And I think a lot of people would be interested.
Focusing on the cost of the fuel is not the proper market - just because
the
fuel is cheap/free doesn't mean the technology is also. Just like the
bottled water business - it's all in the marketing - maybe a better
example of the solar business - the fuel is free but there's a large
technology base being developed to put that free fuel in peoples hands...
LarryT
91 300D
"In God We Trust"
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Greg Fiorentino" <gf...@dslnorthwest.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 4:44 PM
To: "'Mercedes Discussion List'" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Nuclear power
I am NOT a nuclear physicist, but had some advanced physics, chemistry
and
philosophy of science courses in college. I have had a lifelong
interest
in
keeping current in scientific advances. I have a pretty solid layman's
understanding of how this stuff works. I think this is a winning
technology
from many different views. It would be an economical, safe and secure
(not
to mention "green") way to produce power. It does not have the drawback
of
producing large amounts of high half-life radioactive by-products. It
is
not as vulnerable to conversion to a terrorist weapon. It has the
capability of fail-safe design in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor
(LFTR).
I have read that there is more energy in the Thorium ash from coal than
in
the coal itself.
Advancing this technology to the commercial stage would be a worthwhile
expenditure of government stimulus money.
What the heck are we waiting for?
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com
[mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com]
On Behalf Of Mitch Haley
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:44 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: [MBZ] OT: Nuclear power
I know there's at least one nuclear physicist on this list, so what do
you
think
of this?
Mitch
There is no certain bet in nuclear physics but work by Nobel laureate
Carlo
Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the use
of
thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors
may
be
the
magic bullet we have all been hoping for, though we have barely begun to
crack
the potential of solar power.
Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal - named after the Norse god
of
thunder, who also gave us Thor's day or Thursday - produces as much
energy
as
200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal. A mere fistful would
light
London for a week.
Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It can even scavenge the plutonium
left by
uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. "It's the Big One," said
Kirk
Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear
technologist
at
Teledyne Brown Engineering.
"Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away. You can
run
civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it's
essentially
free. You don't have to deal with uranium cartels," he said.
Thorium is so common that miners treat it as a nuisance, a radioactive
by-product if they try to dig up rare earth metals. The US and Australia
are
full of the stuff. So are the granite rocks of Cornwall. You do not need
much:
all is potentially usable as fuel, compared to just 0.7pc for uranium.
After the Manhattan Project, US physicists in the late 1940s were
tempted
by
thorium for use in civil reactors. It has a higher neutron yield per
neutron
absorbed. It does not require isotope separation, a big cost saving. But
by
then
America needed the plutonium residue from uranium to build bombs.
"They were really going after the weapons," said Professor Egil
Lillestol,
a
world authority on the thorium fuel-cycle at CERN. "It is almost
impossible
make
nuclear weapons out of thorium because it is too difficult to handle. It
wouldn't be worth trying." It emits too many high gamma rays.
You might have thought that thorium reactors were the answer to every
dream
but
when CERN went to the European Commission for development funds in
1999-2000,
they were rebuffed.
Brussels turned to its technical experts, who happened to be French
because
the
French dominate the EU's nuclear industry. "They didn't want competition
because
they had made a huge investment in the old technology," he said.
Another decade was lost. It was a sad triumph of vested interests over
scientific progress. "We have very little time to waste because the
world
is
running out of fossil fuels. Renewables can't replace them. Nuclear
fusion
is
not going work for a century, if ever," he said.
The Norwegian group Aker Solutions has bought Dr Rubbia's patent for the
thorium
fuel-cycle, and is working on his design for a proton accelerator at its
UK
operation.
Victoria Ashley, the project manager, said it could lead to a network of
pint-sized 600MW reactors that are lodged underground, can supply small
grids,
and do not require a safety citadel. It will take £2bn to build the
first
one,
and Aker needs £100mn for the next test phase.
The UK has shown little appetite for what it regards as a "huge paradigm
shift
to a new technology". Too much work and sunk cost has already gone into
the
next
generation of reactors, which have another 60 years of life.
So Aker is looking for tie-ups with the US, Russia, or China. The
Indians
have
their own projects - none yet built - dating from days when they
switched
to
thorium because their weapons programme prompted a uranium ban.
America should have fewer inhibitions than Europe in creating a leapfrog
technology. The US allowed its nuclear industry to stagnate after Three
Mile
Island in 1979.
Anti-nuclear neorosis is at last ebbing. The White House has approved
$8bn
in
loan guarantees for new reactors, yet America has been strangely
passive.
Where
is the superb confidence that put a man on the moon?
A few US pioneers are exploring a truly radical shift to a liquid fuel
based
on
molten-fluoride salts, an idea once pursued by US physicist Alvin
Weinberg
at
Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee in the 1960s. The original documents
were
retrieved by Mr Sorensen.
Moving away from solid fuel may overcome some of thorium's
"idiosyncracies".
"You have to use the right machine. You don't use diesel in a petrol
car:
you
build a diesel engine," said Mr Sorensen.
Thorium-fluoride reactors can operate at atmospheric temperature. "The
plants
would be much smaller and less expensive. You wouldn't need those huge
containment domes because there's no pressurized water in the reactor.
It's
close-fitting," he said.
Nuclear power could become routine and unthreatening. But first there is
the
barrier of establishment prejudice.
When Hungarian scientists led by Leo Szilard tried to alert Washington
in
late
1939 that the Nazis were working on an atomic bomb, they were brushed
off
with
disbelief. Albert Einstein interceded through the Belgian queen mother,
eventually getting a personal envoy into the Oval Office.
Roosevelt initially fobbed him off. He listened more closely at a second
meeting
over breakfast the next day, then made up his mind within minutes. "This
needs
action," he told his military aide. It was the birth of the Manhattan
Project.
As a result, the US had an atomic weapon early enough to deter Stalin
from
going
too far in Europe.
The global energy crunch needs equal "action". If it works, Manhattan II
could
restore American optimism and strategic leadership at a stroke: if not,
it
is a
boost for US science and surely a more fruitful way to pull the US out
of
perma-slump than scattershot stimulus.
Even better, team up with China and do it together, for all our sakes.
