tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post7667300261907276860..comments2024-02-16T17:52:44.944-06:00Comments on The Nuclear Green Revolution: The ThorCon fuel PlanCharles Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-32490714975159601662016-01-02T20:37:29.790-06:002016-01-02T20:37:29.790-06:00Sorry to come in at a tangent here but I've lo...Sorry to come in at a tangent here but I've looked at the ThorCon design for a prototype plant and I have a few questions around safety. The plant is below ground level and ground level is at sea level. As such I worry about the risk of flooding. How does the design deal with the plant being flooded? Cleaning up after a flood would be expensive. Also the approach made by the ship for swapping cans appears to be face on to the plant. Why risk a collision? To me the entire plant is somewhat like a dry dock with a ship approaching the closed gate and a collision invites a flooding event. Why not have the ship approach along side rather than head on? I know these are rather basic questions but they have been bugging me for a week now. TerjePhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01761760117648814096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-54715547161618266802015-12-12T18:46:18.400-06:002015-12-12T18:46:18.400-06:00Lars, I agree with you. It is a good plan to get ...Lars, I agree with you. It is a good plan to get to market quickly. It is a good idea to not solve every possible problem if a decent product can be produced sooner, while leaving minor projects for later solutions. You have very respectable neutron economy, even if it might be possible to improve it if you take several more years. That is what David LeBlanc and Mark Massie seem to be doing.Charles Bartonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-31429788781976925092015-12-12T13:45:48.092-06:002015-12-12T13:45:48.092-06:00Charles, Plutonium generated inside the reactor s...Charles, Plutonium generated inside the reactor supplies about 25% of the fuel in the baseline design. In the thermal spectrum thorium/uranium cycle is more neutron efficient than the uranium/plutonium cycle. If you have technology to separate plutonium from fission products we can consume all our own generated plutonium. But such technology has proliferation concerns that will slow deployment so we don't depend on it for now. IN fifty years the plutonium will still be there waiting for us to make productive use of it. Once we start recycling the plutonium and re-enriching the uranium and use FLiBe our fuel efficiency will be like others who make similar assumptions.<br />But the main point is that there is good reason to get started now before those things are available and even without assuming the long lead items we still have a very interesting proposal.<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11913671942837828009noreply@blogger.com