New type of Fission reactor!

[qube_TA]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/14/nuclear_re...


This sounds really amazing, much reduced cost and risks, but as it will run from existing nuclear waste it could power the world until 2083 without the need for new fuel

Could feed it Thorium afterwards and power the world until the Sun goes out.

[Hooli]

Interesting & such a simple safety system too.

[ikarl]

that sounds too simple..... I think I even understand it!

will it work? is it feasible?

[qube_TA]

They'd need to build a working model, but on paper it works.

This reinforces the view that the solution to any problem is never 'stop doing it' but find a better way to do it.

[MKnight702]

Is this the reactor designed by the 18 year old that got stopped from building a fusion reactor in his garage?

[Shaolin]

Sounds too good to be true. 3kg of waste a year? How do you separate the 3kg that is less radioactive than the rest especially given that it's in a large volume of molten salt? If the fuel can produce so much useful energy I don't see why it can't be captured otherwise.

Great idea and I'd like it to be true, but it just sounds a bit like a back of a postcard perpetual motion machine that "can't fail".

[Terminator X]

Stepping stone between nuclear and the flux capacitor!

TX.

[Pobolycwm]

They do work, I believe they ran one in the 70's in the States, problems with corrosion and friction wear due to pumping the high temperature molten salts around, magnetic pumps also used to eliminate pump wear, though simple on paper technically and chemically quite challenging, their efficiencies also lower than more conventional gas and water cooled reactors, not to say these guys haven't overcome the technical/ efficiency issues but there's no detail given

Fusion reactors quite simple on paper, heat helium up to several million centigrade, fusion starts and lots more heat generated so reaction becomes self sustaining, also no nuclear waste products, in practice trying to control a plasma magnetically at these temperatures has so far proved challenging, that's after 50 years and many many £billions

[RealSquirrels]

Shaolin said:

Sounds too good to be true. 3kg of waste a year? How do you separate the 3kg that is less radioactive than the rest especially given that it's in a large volume of molten salt? If the fuel can produce so much useful energy I don't see why it can't be captured otherwise.

Great idea and I'd like it to be true, but it just sounds a bit like a back of a postcard perpetual motion machine that "can't fail".

just a guess... let it cool down, dissolve away the salt.

dissolve the fuel mixture and make it into some kind of mixture of salts... and then separate the different constituents by ion affinity chromatography, and then reduce back the salts to the elemental metals.

just a guess.

[ShayneJ]

{tinfoil hat} if it works and its cheap and efficient to operate and replicate
it will never see the light of day big oil and the energy corporations will
"obtain" any relevant patents and bury it in a deep dark hole {/tinfoil hat}

[hidetheelephants]

Pobolycwm said:

They do work, I believe they ran one in the 70's in the States, problems with corrosion and friction wear due to pumping the high temperature molten salts around, magnetic pumps also used to eliminate pump wear, though simple on paper technically and chemically quite challenging, their efficiencies also lower than more conventional gas and water cooled reactors, not to say these guys haven't overcome the technical/ efficiency issues but there's no detail given

The efficiency is not that much of a concern given the fuel costs very little; the Yanks did indeed build a research reactor and ran it for a while but for reasons of inertia and commerce(Westinghouse and GE had huge money invested in uranium fission reactors and big money buys a lot of lobbying) the AEC withdrew funding. The Chinese are pumping a lot of money into Thorium reactor research. Given it doesn't require a massive pressure vessel(the bottleneck preventing the Chinese building more PWRs is very few companies can produce the pressure vessels and their order books are full for the next 2 decades) for the reactor it could revolutionise nuclear power.

Listen to Kirk; he goes on a bit though.

[annodomini2]

Pobolycwm said:

Fusion reactors quite simple on paper, heat helium up to several million centigrade, fusion starts and lots more heat generated so reaction becomes self sustaining, also no nuclear waste products, in practice trying to control a plasma magnetically at these temperatures has so far proved challenging, that's after 50 years and many many £billions

1. They are not simple on paper.
2. Tokamak (which is the most famous) uses a mixture of Deuterium and Tritium, which are Hydrogen isotopes.
3. Controlling the plasma isn't a problem, achieving the conditions for fusion without it consuming more energy than the reaction generates is the current issue.
4. Assuming they ever get a Tokamak to net energy gain, the D-T reactions produce huge amounts of neutron radiation and will leave the reactor components radioactive for many years after it's stopped working. Not as bad as fission, but perfectly clean it isn't.

There are other concepts, but the Tokamak is the one that is currently receiving all the funding.

[jebus]

They look very interesting, and i'm sure its only a matter of time before they can get to the stage where the experimental versions can run themselves and put power out and a few years after that before they are able to build the first "proper" one, give it another 50/60 years and they will most likely power most of the developed world. Just need to wait for them to find and be able to manipulate antimatter and they can make a warp core, still need to find a way to get around those pesky laws of physics for faster than light travel but part of me remains hopeful.