Teenager designes nuclear reactor
Discussion
Dogwatch said:
OP quoted Article said:
The relatively small, modular reactor can be shipped sealed with enough fuel to last for 30 years.
And then? Sounds like the jobsworths at the local tip are going to have a field day. 
A reactor is reasonably simple. It's the bits to keep is safe, and to manage the fuel cycle that really cost. This 'design' can't avoid the back end costs. Even if the core could be disposed of as a unit, hundreds of small pressure vessels filled with highly radioactive and corrosive salts is going to be an 'interesting' disposal challenge.
Hard enough disposing of the dounreay sodium coolant.
Gary C said:
Dogwatch said:
OP quoted Article said:
The relatively small, modular reactor can be shipped sealed with enough fuel to last for 30 years.
And then? Sounds like the jobsworths at the local tip are going to have a field day. A reactor is reasonably simple. It's the bits to keep is safe, and to manage the fuel cycle that really cost. This 'design' can't avoid the back end costs. Even if the core could be disposed of as a unit, hundreds of small pressure vessels filled with highly radioactive and corrosive salts is going to be an 'interesting' disposal challenge.
Hard enough disposing of the dounreay sodium coolant.
But other than that I agree that a liquid core reactor is going to be expensive to decommission because basically it is similar to a fuel cycle facility which have tended to be dirty and difficult to decommission.
Talksteer said:
Actually disposing of the SFR at Dounreay hasn't been that expensive, around £300 million for a unique 250MW plant. The radioactive parts of that reactor are nicely compact and made of relatively thin steel. expensive stuff was the fuel cycle facilities, the waste stores and the older DFR which was complicated and had fuel pin failures and stuck fuel rods.
But other than that I agree that a liquid core reactor is going to be expensive to decommission because basically it is similar to a fuel cycle facility which have tended to be dirty and difficult to decommission.
300M is still quite a bit for one fairly low power reactor, but lower than I was lead to believe.But other than that I agree that a liquid core reactor is going to be expensive to decommission because basically it is similar to a fuel cycle facility which have tended to be dirty and difficult to decommission.
Do you work there, did you work with Norman Harrison? He was one of our shift charge engineers many years ago.
mattnunn said:
There is an step by step instruction set of how to build a nuclear bomb from a tennis ball and about 10,000 old smoke alarms on the net somewhere, it's the getting hold of the smoke alarms that prevents most people from trying, Iran and North Korea accepted.
Err not quite. The story I remember was a kid in america collecting the small amounts of radioactive material found in smoke alarms and the like, and putting it into a homemade breeder reactor to try and get something along the lines of uranium/plutonium. Luckily or unluckily depending on your point of view, he would have needed a damn sight more then 10,000 smoke alarms, ended up being caught and giving himself radiation poisoning before he came remotely close.
Also the smallest nuclear weapon I know of is this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nucl... which would use more then a tennis ball sized amount of nuclear material.
Making a nuclear weapon is much easier compared to a working reactor. I could probably knock one up for you if you gave me the materials, anyone with an A level in physics could. The hard part is actually getting hold of the weapons grade materials...
Rotary Madness said:
Err not quite. The story I remember was a kid in america collecting the small amounts of radioactive material found in smoke alarms and the like, and putting it into a homemade breeder reactor to try and get something along the lines of uranium/plutonium.
Luckily or unluckily depending on your point of view, he would have needed a damn sight more then 10,000 smoke alarms, ended up being caught and giving himself radiation poisoning before he came remotely close.
Also the smallest nuclear weapon I know of is this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nucl... which would use more then a tennis ball sized amount of nuclear material.
Making a nuclear weapon is much easier compared to a working reactor. I could probably knock one up for you if you gave me the materials, anyone with an A level in physics could. The hard part is actually getting hold of the weapons grade materials...
I thought he was joking - 10,000 smoke alarms is about 3mg of americium-241. Am-241 isn't fissile anyway so you can't make a nuke out of it now matter how much you had. As you say, David Hahn was trying to make a breeder reactor not a bomb. It didn't go well.Luckily or unluckily depending on your point of view, he would have needed a damn sight more then 10,000 smoke alarms, ended up being caught and giving himself radiation poisoning before he came remotely close.
Also the smallest nuclear weapon I know of is this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nucl... which would use more then a tennis ball sized amount of nuclear material.
Making a nuclear weapon is much easier compared to a working reactor. I could probably knock one up for you if you gave me the materials, anyone with an A level in physics could. The hard part is actually getting hold of the weapons grade materials...
A tennis ball sized amount of plutonium is about right to build a nuke though. You only need a few kilos.
Gary C said:
Talksteer said:
Actually disposing of the SFR at Dounreay hasn't been that expensive, around £300 million for a unique 250MW plant. The radioactive parts of that reactor are nicely compact and made of relatively thin steel. expensive stuff was the fuel cycle facilities, the waste stores and the older DFR which was complicated and had fuel pin failures and stuck fuel rods.
But other than that I agree that a liquid core reactor is going to be expensive to decommission because basically it is similar to a fuel cycle facility which have tended to be dirty and difficult to decommission.
300M is still quite a bit for one fairly low power reactor, but lower than I was lead to believe.But other than that I agree that a liquid core reactor is going to be expensive to decommission because basically it is similar to a fuel cycle facility which have tended to be dirty and difficult to decommission.
Do you work there, did you work with Norman Harrison? He was one of our shift charge engineers many years ago.
http://www.dounreay.com/decommissioning/prototype-...
The total cost of Dounreay site is over 2 billion which is usually the headline figure quoted in the news.
Talksteer said:
I'm in the industry I know a bit about SFRs, the cost of the decommissioning is on their website.
http://www.dounreay.com/decommissioning/prototype-...
The total cost of Dounreay site is over 2 billion which is usually the headline figure quoted in the news.
Where at? I am a senior ops engineer at an agr. Not ready to decommission yet thankfully.http://www.dounreay.com/decommissioning/prototype-...
The total cost of Dounreay site is over 2 billion which is usually the headline figure quoted in the news.
I'm sure it blindingly obvious...
But how did they initially fill the cooling loops etc with out the sodium freezing somewhere in the circuit? Was it pumped in way above the melting point (97C ?) and everything really well insulated? And how was it kept liquid until the reactor was brought on-line - heating elements?
The disposal of 1500 tonnes seems a lot of metal to keep hot without it freezing in an unexpected place (and more to the point if it did freeze how to melt it once in-situ?
Just something I always wondered.
But how did they initially fill the cooling loops etc with out the sodium freezing somewhere in the circuit? Was it pumped in way above the melting point (97C ?) and everything really well insulated? And how was it kept liquid until the reactor was brought on-line - heating elements?
The disposal of 1500 tonnes seems a lot of metal to keep hot without it freezing in an unexpected place (and more to the point if it did freeze how to melt it once in-situ?
Just something I always wondered.
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