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Nuke the Energy Problem

I thought you hydronics guys might like this:
http://energyfromthorium.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor
Talk about politics of heating..
http://energyfromthorium.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor
Talk about politics of heating..
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Comments
The Chinese and the Indians have both been pouring money into thorium for several years now.
Light-water reactors, as they now exist, really should never have been used to generate power. They are not self-limiting, since the chain reaction can run away very easily if someone doesn't actively work to slow or stop it. Compare this to the accelerator pedal in a vehicle- if your foot leaves the pedal, the vehicle slows down instead of speeding up. Think of how many more traffic accidents we'd have if it worked the other way.
There are several very good books on this subject, that simply tell the story without editorializing:
1- We Almost Lost Detroit, by John Fuller, regarding the Fermi 1 fast-breeder reactor that partially melted down in 1966. This book also traces the development of these reactors and details some of the accidents that occurred during their development:
http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Lost-Detroit-John-Fuller/dp/0425067009
2- The Warning: Accident at Three Mile Island, by Mike Gray and Ira Rosen. I grew up less than a hundred miles from there. This accident almost killed Babcock & Wilcox:
http://www.amazon.com/Warning-Accident-Island-Nuclear-Terror/dp/0393324699/ref=sr_1_1/190-6119114-7702137?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463410438&sr=1-1&keywords=the+warning-+accident+at+three+mile+island
3- Final Warning: The Legacy of Chernobyl, by Robert Peter Gale and Thomas Hauser:
http://www.amazon.com/FINAL-WARNING-Robert-Peter-Gale/dp/0446514098/ref=sr_1_3/190-6119114-7702137?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463410610&sr=1-3&keywords=Final+Warning+chernobyl
I'm not necessarily anti-nuke, but as you'll see, there were (and still are) lots of problems with this technology. It was definitely not ready for prime time. Kind of like software companies now, especially Microsoft- but in this case, the bugs and glitches had far more serious consequences.
"Reducing our country's energy consumption, one system at a time"
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Baltimore, MD (USA) and consulting anywhere.
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/all-steamed-up-inc
trainer for Caleffi NA
The magic is in hydronics, and hydronics is in me
The DOE has stated 1 hp and larger, I expect soon all pumps will be ECM mandated.
I guess the same would apply to ALL motors. Every hotel room I stay in has a small EMPTY refrigerator running. If that is a requirement, at least make them efficient. same for every coke machine.
trainer for Caleffi NA
The magic is in hydronics, and hydronics is in me
So this is where I usually go on one of my "keeping parking lots and streets lit all night for no reason sucking down energy " rants?
In sunny western climates those PV solar parking lot lights with batteries are showing up everywhere.
I think the SMA building near Denver has small wind spinners on the parking lot lights.
trainer for Caleffi NA
The magic is in hydronics, and hydronics is in me
I like this book, too:
http://www.amazon.com/THORIUM-energy-cheaper-than-coal/dp/1478161299
I see Mcmansions popping up all over near where I work and the only thing standard is cheap windows, plain vinyl siding and forced hot air installed as cheaply as possible. Have to have the huge arched door way with the huge window over it though and very high ceilings......
3000sqft+ of garbage.
The primary problem with water/water nukes is that regulators have them unnecessarily expensive.
Molten salt reactor that so many are gushing over involves extensive reprocessing outside of containment vessel. If it's built envirowhackos will make up issues about it as well.We can count on that.
Eventually somebody,perhaps China or India,will commission a next generation nuke.Very high temperature gas cooled.Its economy will obsolete other sources of energy.
Not everyone that is against destroying our home is a wacko.
The tubes they put the solid pellets into are zirconium and if they over heat the swell (jamming them in place) and then they start to give off hydrogen (that is what caused the explosions at Fukushima).
The current pellet fuel only uses 3-4% of it's energy before the fuel rods have to be replaced, a liquid fueled reactor can use up to 97% of the fuel so the waste is orders of magnitude less. Liquid fuel can be chemically separated on site and the small amount of waste has to be stored for a few hundred years, not tens of thousands of years.
Liquid fueled reactors have several good characteristics. They can not melt down, they can be designed so they are self limiting (they can't run away) and there is no hydrogen production. They do not run at high pressure so EVERYTHING is smaller and cheaper. Although liquid reactors run at low pressure they run hotter so they are more efficient.
Thorium has problems that have to be solved but using a fuel that cannot be used to make bombs is worth a little research. We have put men on the moon, I don't think there is anything we can't do if we put our minds to it.
Bob
Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
3PSI gauge
Politics: fast neutron vs. molten types. Turns out Uranium isn't too scarce and the fast neutron types aren't needed, but Nixon was from California and favored the fast and sodium types being developed there. Plus, he didn't trust Jewish people (except for Kissinger), so Alvin Weinburg (inventor of the LWPR) was discounted and lost funding for the ORNL fluoride test reactor they built and tested in the 60's and 70's. That successful test reactor is the basis/inspiration for the Indian and Chinese designs. I read that ORNL gave a tour to Chinese nuclear scientists and talked about their development history. Soon after China announced the planned development of their own molten designs. Go USA.
Anyway, I write all this to peak the interest of anyone interested and not familiar. Take a read of the above books suggested. Very cool stuff.
I think the drive for maximum efficiency (& it's obvious success) is masking the problem, that we just use to durn much. The steam to hydro is a good example: there may very be efficiency to be gained, but look at the cost.
People go whacko when they get emotional about stuff that they don't understand. Conservation organizations have long been suborned by whackos.
Reactor safety was secondary to the national goal of plutonium production for warheads for national defense.
The breeder reactor was killed by president carter on grounds of plutonium proliferation would make it easier for enemies to get plutonium for bombs to threaten us with. Likely good that he killed it , thousands of pounds of flammable liquid sodium as the coolant.
The other thing, though, really has to be considered. It's all very well for us in this country and most of Europe to preach that conservation is very important and the way to go, and we do use more energy than needed (although a lot of the waste is in transportation...). However, that script doesn't play very well in much of the rest of the world, where a flashlight D battery is regarded as a big power source. This isn't only an enegy things; there are a number of first world environmental concerns which are not well received in places where there is no energy and not enough food. Worth thinking about.
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
> I think that part of the problem, is, that we have been focused on creating huge sources of power. We want to be able to feed that grid, and ultimately those meters. Where would we be today, if Tesla was allowed to give free electricity to the world?
Exactly where we are now because that was baloney. Unless someone can explain where this free energy was going to come from.
These projects are indiscriminately categorised as green and environmentally friendly (which most of them aren't), and the political and siting procedures are set up so that the local people -- whom they actually matter to -- have no say at all. Not impressed.
I could go on, but I won't.
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
The waste argument I get. Hanford is dirty. Safety was second in those days. When you look at the new designs they are so vastly superior to the light water reactor, which is a terrible design. It’s what they had that worked at the time. Even the inventor of the light water reactor said it was the wrong design for power generation. Thanks to organizational momentum, Greenpeace, and poor education at the political level, the existing plants were never phased out. Molten designs make a lot of sense, except sodium. An integrated system of a couple flavors of molten designs will burn all the waste we have, power the planet for 1000’s of years, and be safe. Look at the safety record of the industry now. Nuclear is the safest bulk generation method in history considering CO2 generated, land fallowed, lives lost, etc... and this is all with plants using the dumbest design possible: the pressurized light water reactor and it’s current dumb fuel cycle. Those fuel rods are unusable after only 3% of the energy is extracted, then they go to the cooling pools in the plant- great news if you make fuel rods. The issue takes a lot of reading to wrap ones head around all the factors. In the final analysis: it’s a clean and scalable method that works with just engineering effort, now. And, the US is an industrial leader in the technology. Imagine all the good jobs from a nuclear energy industrial complex.
Regarding the long term radiation, for me, I don’t mind it. Decay happens anyway, for example, granite. Either it’s fast or slow decay. As long as we use an efficient fuel cycle and have reasonable long term storage it is a safely manageable problem.
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
This seems to be the biggest stumbling block, there is no current safe disposal. Yucca Mountain was supposed to be the safe catch all facility, it seems to have fizzled. Many of the temporary storage facilities around the country are decaying and or failing. They get "band aid" repairs every so many years. Does the DOE even have a handle on where leaks are currently occurring?
We need to address the current storage issues as part of a nuke plan.
trainer for Caleffi NA
The magic is in hydronics, and hydronics is in me
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
If ever there was a time for that to happen.... You have an energy guy as DOE head, and one party in almost complete control politically. It doesn't even seem like this subject is a blip on the radar?
So build a multi billion dollar wall or some solutions to storage of waste that has been piled for decades. Which is a better use of taxpayer $$?
trainer for Caleffi NA
The magic is in hydronics, and hydronics is in me
I'm not sure technology exists to deal with the nuke waste we have for as long as it needs to be protected safely? If rail cars in a dirt tunnel are the current solution. Sounds Flintstone era, Homer Simpson level technology to me
trainer for Caleffi NA
The magic is in hydronics, and hydronics is in me
> Tesla held hundreds of patents for bologna...........crazy things, like the electric motor and radio.
I know all about Tesla. My point was there is and was no such thing as free energy. Can you show us his patent on this? I'm betting no.
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
No...........Tesla saw electricity as his gift to mankind. Once the robber barons saw that they could not make money on it, they cut his funding. If anyone could have figured it out, it would have been Tesla. Who knows how far mankind would have advanced, had electricity been available to the whole world, for the last 100+ years.
> @ChrisJ
>
> No...........Tesla saw electricity as his gift to mankind. Once the robber barons saw that they could not make money on it, they cut his funding. If anyone could have figured it out, it would have been Tesla. Who knows how far mankind would have advanced, had electricity been available to the whole world, for the last 100+ years.
Yes but he didn't.
Liquid fueled reactors create magnitudes less waste and the overs\whelming bulk of that only has to be looked after for 300 years max, that's a lot more doable than 10,000 years.
Bob
Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
3PSI gauge