[geeks] electric power [was: [rescue] Need Build Help]

[Nick B]

Yes, we need breeders.  And yes, we need non-first gen designs.  Sadly our
current administration has made it pretty plain that we will get nothing,
and we will like it.  We also shut down our only long term waste site
(Yucca Mountain) in a move that was at best questionable.  The interesting
bit about that is the US Government is legally required to, and paid to,
have a long term waste site.
Nick


On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 6:35 PM, Sandwich Maker <adh at an.bradford.ma.us>
wrote:

> " Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 16:25:47 -0400
> " From: Nick B <nick at pelagiris.org>
> "
> " That is very interesting.
> "
> " I can't wait for the US to re-embrace real clean power - nuclear.  We
> need
> " to start building new nuke plants *today*, the longer we wait the worse
> it
> " will get.  I'm worried that one of the plants we've kept running for 3x
> " it's lifespan will finally have an accident, which I've got to assume is
> " the current goal for those blocking new nuke plants.
>
> real clean except for high-level radioactive nuclear waste.  where
> should we store it, for ever and ever?  nowhere is safe enough.
>
> i have a love/hate relationship with nukes.
>
> hate - the waste, as mentioned.  a byproduct of appalling efficiency -
> american nukes convert only a few percent of their fissionable load to
> power.[1]  this is like filling your gas tank, driving -3- miles, having
> it pumped out [and paying hazardous-waste disposal costs], then
> filling up again.  what would that do to your cost-per-mile?
>
> our plants are fundamentally 1st-generation designs with safety
> features added, like a curved-dash oldsmobile[2] with emission
> controls, abs, and airbags.  would you want one?  and they've become
> so expensive that nobody risks an unproven design no matter how good
> it looks on paper.
>
> the people who operate our plants don't seem to be our best and
> brightest, either.  i worry their heads are still stuck in fossil-fuel
> management and that, despite three mile island, they don't really
> appreciate the risks of what they're responsible for.
>
> love - the technical potential.  as far back as the '70s,
> theoreticians were desigining 3rd-gen plants inherently more efficient
> and with safety baked in.  one was actually built at hanford before it
> was closed by clinton.  my favorite was the liquid-fueled slow breeder,
> which integrated fuel reprocessing into the reactor so that the
> fissionable material never left the plant, only lead, hot by
> association but not inherently radioactive.  not only that, but after
> 'lighting off' it could run on thorium as well as uranium.
>
> theoretical designs are up to 5th gen now.  i believe they are all
> slow breeders of one sort or another.  you have to breed u238 up to
> pu239 to make use of it; the trick is to do so only as fast as the pu
> decays, so you don't build a bomb.  you also get rid of the battlefield
> scourge which is du.
>
> india is concentrating on thorium-fuelled designs; they're sitting on
> the bulk of the world's -known- th deposits, currently estimated to be
> 2-3x as abundant as u.  these designs work by breeding th232 up to u233.
>
> the slow breeder neatly solves the problem of nuclear waste, which has
> always offended the engineer in me - all is consumed, none is produced.
>
> i've also heard the gee-whiz stat that with efficient nukes we could
> power the entire grid for the next 5 centuries on uranium this country
> has already refined - and that was taking growth into account.  i
> don't know what basis the statement was made on.
> --
> [1] natural uranium is only 0.72% u235, which is what our nukes run
> on, and it has to be enriched up to ~3% to fuel our ractors.  not even
> all of that u235 is used before the fuel is too weak to sustain
> reaction.  du, the enrichment byproduct, still has ~0.35% u235.
>
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_Curved_Dash
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
> internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
> adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought
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