My friends and I have been debating this since the Fukushima accident in Japan a few months back and most of us agree that nuclear energy needs to happen, but will it given the knee jerk reactions of the Japanese and the Germans? Also curious to see whether people would support/oppose a plant in Alberta and why?
My friends and I have been debating this since the Fukushima accident in Japan a few months back and most of us agree that nuclear energy needs to happen. But will it given the knee jerk reactions of the Japanese and the Germans? Also curious to see whether people would support/oppose a plant in Alberta and why?
I also see a future of abundant and cheap electrical energy from nuclear, but not from what most people would call traditional nuclear power.
Thorium fuelled breeder type reactors are certainly the next step.
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My friends and I have been debating this since the Fukushima accident in Japan a few months back and most of us agree that nuclear energy needs to happen, but will it given the knee jerk reactions of the Japanese and the Germans? Also curious to see whether people would support/oppose a plant in Alberta and why?
The economics of a plant dont currently make sense in Alberta given the price of and availability of coal and natural gas and the fact that the Alberta government gets a royalty cheque from those two natural resources.
I dont think we have any Uraniam so you would be sending that money to Sask or other places.
From a PR perspective is the only way it makes sense here IMHO.
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It seems inevitable that our (soon to be) robot overlords will harvest mankind as an energy source - why not just beat those sneaky buggers to the punch?
As for nuclear.....show me another energy source that is as abundant, environmentally friendly (grain of salt), and ready to go. It ain't perfect, but it's a helluva step forward.
I also see a future of abundant and cheap electrical energy from nuclear, but not from what most people would call traditional nuclear power.
Thorium fuelled breeder type reactors are certainly the next step.
Sounds good. My first question is always if this is efficient, safe, easy and cost effective, why hasn't it already been rolled out? There must be some downside that didn't come up in the video...
Sounds good. My first question is always if this is efficient, safe, easy and cost effective, why hasn't it already been rolled out? There must be some downside that didn't come up in the video...
You need to start it up through the act of incinerating 150 kittens.
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More about thorium, which The Globe and Mail published a little while ago. I found it rather interesting; I'd never heard of thorium before.
Quote:
With thorium, we could have safe nuclear power
In the beginning, nuclear scientists identified two fuel sources for the atomic age: uranium and thorium. They went with uranium. Why? It wasn’t because uranium was the better fuel. Thorium is more abundant. It is simpler. It is safer. (Although slightly radioactive, it can’t sustain a chain reaction in a nuclear reactor and, hence, can’t “melt down.”).... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2030383/
Sounds good. My first question is always if this is efficient, safe, easy and cost effective, why hasn't it already been rolled out? There must be some downside that didn't come up in the video...
My limited understanding is that the Uranium fuelled, water cooled reactors produce much more enriched weapons grade plutonium. This was a key consideration at the time this technology was being developed (i.e. WWII era) and implemented.
Furthermore, the large footprint and amount of material, cost of extracting the fuel, etc related with the water cooled reactors mean that these plants take the gillette "razor blade" business model approach. That is to say, they sell the electricity at a loss and make their profits selling the plutonium.
Keep in mind, I am just starting my own research into this subject and you should do your own reading if you're intrigued.
Thorium reactor research has been around for a while, but liquid salt reactors like what Sorensen was talking about are really, really new.
Also fluoride is somewhat not nice.
I believe it's in India's energy plan to have something on the order of 30% of their power supplied by LFTR type reactors by 2050. I will edit this post when I have time to cite the reference I am thinking of.
Thorium reactor research has been around for a while, but liquid salt reactors like what Sorensen was talking about are really, really new.
Also fluoride is somewhat not nice.
DO you mean fluorine because fluoride isn't a big deal? You aren't talking fluorine but molten metal fluoride salts (i.e. the FLiBe reactors). Completely different beast. The stumbling block to the molten salt reactors is getting the purity the salt to a sufficient level so that the reactions with impurities don't become a concern (you don't want a build up of fission products in your coolant). In particular you need to not only have a generally high purity product but you also need to have the salt highly enriched in Lithium-7. The problem with that enrichment process is (1 ) no one carries out that enrichment in the world today because (2 ) lithium-6 is used in the construction of nuclear weapons (increases the nuclear yield I believe). In order for the western world to produce such salts you need to get the government on board with the idea, have the government transfer over the technology to do the separation, have beyond rigorous mass balance of the lithium, find a non-nuclear weapon market for the lithium-6 (there is one so that actually isn't a big deal) etc etc etc. The government will not do it themselves and will be extremely picky about who they let do it. How picky? We've been negotiating for several years as a former DOE/DOD facility with all the necessary security and requirements and one that has served the commercial nuclear markets for 40 years to get that process. They supposedly want us to have that process from all accounts but actually getting the government to move on something is beyond painful and slow. If we are extremely lucky we might get to begin development of the salt synthesis 5-7 years from now. That would put any salt availability out likely another 5-7 after that (even for pilot scale they need a whole whack of the material).
Internationally, when all is said and done Japan will continue to build new reactors,as well update and improve existing ones. They have no real choice. Germany will never be free from nuclear energy as either they make it themselves or they get it from France which just makes it about semantics at that point. My guess is as always happens in Germany once the election year is forgotten they quietly slip nuclear back into their future energy plans.
My limited understanding is that the Uranium fuelled, water cooled reactors produce much more enriched weapons grade plutonium. This was a key consideration at the time this technology was being developed (i.e. WWII era) and implemented.
IN general it's a different technology to produce power than it is to produce plutonium.
To use uranium based power fuel to produce weapons grade plutonium you also need to use a weapons grade plutonium producing reactor which is a different beast. The reason is that in power reactors there is a build up of Pu-240. For a weapon you need something like 10 kg of pure Pu-239.
Now that isn't to say that a power reactor doesn't create Pu-239 as it does. However, to produce enough of it you need to be operating for 30 years with numerous fuel changes AND you have to reprocess the hot fuel (i.e. you can't let it cool for years so you can then more easily handle it). Simply put, if a rogue nation wants to make a nuclear weapon they are better off just building a plutonium producing reactor rather than trying to use a power plant as some sort of cover.
When cold the fuel can be reprocessed into further power fuel rods (not weapons) but I believe only one country currently does this (France). Westinghouse and Areva have a desire to do the reprocessing in the States but only have plant designs at this point. THey have no approval to go ahead (if you knew the logistics in shipping nuclear waste you'd know why this is a difficult thing to get approved, not including the general design and process approvals).
Very interesting SeeGeeWhy. Where did that lecture take place? I noticed the YYC in the background.
I remember reading an article a few years ago that talked a bit about green 'myths' or 'sticking points' and it basically stated that the green crowd, would have to let go of some of it's gripes over nuclear power as it really was the 'greenest' solution we had in terms of energy.
The guy in the lecture sure makes Thorium and salt fueled plants seem like a no brainer, but there must be some problems or drawbacks, no? I've read some of the responses here, and the article about wanting to use uranium to make plutonium, but still, you'd think if it was such a good solution, and possibly such a money maker (as any good energy solution would be right now) we'd be building these plants all over the globe.
Is it a situation where the idea and the technology is relatively new?
I think that's part of it. Until it's been done a few times it's more an unknown; lots of history and experience with Uranium reactors, very little with Thorium.
It'll be interesting to see how Germany fares, I'm very skeptical that they'll be able to phase out nuclear and replace it with renewables.
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