The Nuclear Green Revolution

I'm as anti-nuclear war as the next man, but t...

2012-05-24T16:23:25.711-05:00

I'm as anti-nuclear war as the next man, but then I've seen how the understandable flurry to abolish nuclear bombs (explosives) have denied us, via international bans, of using nuclear explosives for mining and light terraforming and for deep space applications. The irony is that one of the most popular peace-niks around, Carl Sagan, was very much for using nuclear explosions to drive the Orion spacecraft concept, which could literally push spacecraft with the mass of WWI destroyers around the solar system within mere months, and even be applied interstellar -- and this could've been done with the technology of the 1970's weren't for the U.N.'s space nuclear test ban treaty's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which is overdue to be rewritten if we're to make serious progress in the solar system.

James Greenidge
Queens NY

Pete Miller is top class. That is exactly why he ...

2012-05-12T00:54:08.759-05:00

Pete Miller is top class. That is exactly why he resigned. He disagreed with the president's ideology.

really !!! this was very interesting. using natura...

2012-05-09T12:17:34.328-05:00

really !!! this was very interesting. using natural gas would be nice. aside from conserving our natural resources it helps us adapt during climate change. thanks for the information
natural gas heaters

When can we purchase a copy of the book? Definatel...

2012-05-03T00:56:19.458-05:00

When can we purchase a copy of the book? Definately a good book on MSR is much needed at the present. Best part is that you can self publish on Kindle or Amazon. Many people will see it there. Much exposure.....

Dr. LeBlanc has an interesting fact buried near th...

2012-05-02T21:36:49.775-05:00

Dr. LeBlanc has an interesting fact buried near the end of his 2010 Nuclear Engineering and Design paper: The DMSR works almost as well with no Thorium! See sect. 7.2 & 7.6: http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/download/file.php?id=727

It turns out that most of the DMSR benefits arise because of the liquid fuel. The thorium does improve fuel economy, pushing down the 30 year U ore requirement from 1500 to 1000 tons (still a 4x improvement of LWRs), by LeBlanc's calculation assuming recycling.

The no-thorium DMSR also makes an interesting first generation MSR, which can use regular 5% LEU (unlike the standard DMSR with 20% LEU, which might require specialized enrichment facilities). Also, it could make fuel recycling simpler, as the spent U will have low fissile content, and could be simply discarded, rather than requiring a dedicated re-enrichment facility (the spent fuel from the standard DMSR has about 10% enrichment: too valuable to discard, but needing re-enrichment for DMSR).

Dr. LeBlanc also cites the possibility of higher power density (leading to lower startup fissile requirement) without thorium, because with thorium protactinium losses increase with power density.

Researchers and fans of Alvin Weinberg will find a...

2012-05-02T11:03:31.589-05:00

Researchers and fans of Alvin Weinberg will find a wealth of materials in the collection ranging from personal and published papers, correspondence, multimedia, laboratory notebooks, declassified material, manuscripts, typescripts, articles, memorabilia, and more. My favorites are his college notebook from the University of Chicago, personal files from the Metallurgical Lab years, and the hundreds of photographs from his years at ORNL.
http://bakercenter.utk.edu/modern-political-archive/archival-collections/alvin-weinberg/

I've never actually been an either/or kind of ...

2012-05-01T12:54:31.116-05:00

I've never actually been an either/or kind of guy on the uranium/plutonium v. thorium/U-233 cycle.

The real reason for using thorium in fuels has nothing to do with proliferation issues, which are in fact, essentially a tempest in a teapot.

The real reason involves faster fissile growth with the existing infrastructure, as well as an impetus to phase out mining.

I have a rather long commentary on this topic that I partially finished a long time ago, but I abandoned it for time reasons.

I may publish it yet.

What makes subjects of the USA unsafe isn't th...

2012-05-01T02:24:30.862-05:00

What makes subjects of the USA unsafe isn't the presence of nuclear reactors within the USA. It is the presence of US armed force in other people's countries. It is the interferences made by the US in other people's countries (don't you remember Pres Washingtons warning?). It is the centralised and insolvent banking system with its crushing debts and the titanic destruction of wealth it has been and remains responsible for (crickey! some of your best warned you all about that for years, right from Jefferson onwards, even Warren's father Howard Buffett issued many, many warnings- then there was Peter Schiff et al...). It is the common practice of US subjects to be consuming more than they produce and save over generations (so much for a "great" society).

Until this is remedied the US is going to remain a nation most hated by the majority of the world's peoples. The US subject is going to remain threatened and unsafe both at home and abroad, not only from the "foreigners" his govt so effectively stirred up (giving them the reason and the motivation to hate the US) but also from his own govt and authorities (any of you read the new laws on any of this this?).

Nuclear reactors based in the US generating a relatively tiny amount of electricity are not so threatening in the overall scheme of things (although a few non-generating ones in Japan may well turn out to be a different matter).

See you on the news!

Zarconium? Zurconium? What else might be incorrect...

2012-05-01T01:46:16.798-05:00

Zarconium? Zurconium? What else might be incorrect?

Sione

Good issue! I'd really like to see a (however...

2012-04-29T22:06:02.890-05:00

Good issue!

I'd really like to see a (however fanciful or whimsical, whatever) feature examining how a current nuclear plant might be retro-fitted to use thorium as opposed the costs and siteing issues of a whole new plant and decommissioning. I'm sure there are sincere and over-the-top schemes that might fly!

James Greenidge
Queens NY

I made this point in my blog a couple times over t...

2012-04-29T16:08:02.587-05:00

I made this point in my blog a couple times over the past 4 years...
http://crowlspace.com/?p=145
http://crowlspace.com/?p=393
http://crowlspace.com/?p=906
...the 32,000 tons/year figure being a direct quote. But it wouldn't be "yellow cake" (UO8) massing that much, but straight uranium. The energy potential of the oceans is even bigger, though its renewal time is several millennia. There's at least 4 billion tons presently dissolved in the ocean.

Reblogged here: http://thoriumforum.com/uranium-or...

2012-04-29T13:29:40.807-05:00

Reblogged here: http://thoriumforum.com/uranium-or-thorium

Thanks for the great post.

Bernard Cohen argued this ages ago in the
2012-04-29T08:06:21.850-05:00
Bernard Cohen argued this ages ago in the following article.

Dennis, Thank you for alerting me to the problem. ...

2012-04-26T15:42:43.477-05:00

Dennis, Thank you for alerting me to the problem. It has been corrected.

Blogger says I don't have rights to access tho...

2012-04-26T14:56:30.595-05:00

Blogger says I don't have rights to access those reports...for anyone in the same fix, this looks like the same document:

http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/energypmp/2009_Tamada.pdf

Coal Terminals and additional infrastructure are r...

2012-04-26T10:06:30.131-05:00

Coal Terminals and additional infrastructure are required in the coal supply chain. Coal newsletters and coal prices show developing economies are more likely to increase their investment into & their use of thermal coal & metallurgical coal in coming years because of its affordability and to meet increasing demands for electricity and steel. www.coalportal.com

2012-04-26T08:38:36.120-05:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

Ron, Thank you for tour kind words.

2012-04-26T08:38:35.248-05:00

Ron, Thank you for tour kind words.

I read somewhere that enough dissolved uranium flo...

2012-04-26T06:26:45.721-05:00

I read somewhere that enough dissolved uranium flows down the Rhone river into the Mediterranean each year to have kept the Superphenix reactor going indefinitely - if anyone could be bothered extracting it ,of course

Charles: Another way of looking at Seawater sourc...

2012-04-26T05:44:44.862-05:00

Charles:

Another way of looking at Seawater sourcing of Uranium is that once enriched this Uranium can be used to start a Thorium MSR/LFTR. Abundant and cheap a thorium MSR/DMSR/LFTR once started will leverage the more expensive Seawater Uranium.

Skipping Thorium altogether the MSR will operate more efficiently than in a LWR as we have seen your many postings.

As an aside to this post 'Welcome back Charles '. When I saw your postings stop for the period of your medical crises I was unaware as the other regulars readers of your blog until you returned. If I can speak for your readers I'm glad you back typos and all.

I'm indebted to you for all the knowledge I've gained thru your frequent postings.

I'll become a resident of Knoxville/Maryville when I retire in three years and would be glad to join your proposed East Tennessee Molten Salt Reactor Association.

Best Wishes
Ron

Another cost advantages that MSRs will have over L...

2012-04-23T22:29:41.868-05:00

Another cost advantages that MSRs will have over LWR is for the specific case when reprocessing is added. Society might decide that putting TRU in the waste stream is no longer desirable. Reprocessing is much cheaper for the DMSR than for LWRs because there is no re-fabrication requirement, and even the fast reactor for incineration is not required. Plus, the mass of material that must be reprocessed per GW-year of power output is much less too (5 vs 20 tons/ year).

I have come to think that maybe a fast spectrum MS...

2012-04-20T15:07:04.072-05:00

I have come to think that maybe a fast spectrum MSR would be the best initial and perhaps longterm approach. Although less further along developmentally I think they would have advantages in cost and scaling.
The S-Prism and pyro-processing seem to be the next most probable new nuclear tech to see commercial deployment. Fast spectrum MSRs would be directly competitive and offer significant advantages and could likely be coupled with pyro-processing in a limited ad-hoc way to lower costs and risk.

Anon, both closed Gaseous Diffusion Plants, have b...

2012-04-20T07:47:37.666-05:00

Anon, both closed Gaseous Diffusion Plants, have been stripped of their nickel. K-25 is in the final stages of its dissembly. The answer to the High cost of Nuckel problem is to use cheaper materials, and accept what ever limitations they place on reactor designers.

Charles: Adding to the low cost of LFTR/MSR scena...

2012-04-20T06:10:51.327-05:00

Charles:

Adding to the low cost of LFTR/MSR scenario is finding cheaper Nickel. Start with U238-235 Gaseous Diffusion enrichment Plants at Oak Ridge Tn. and in Kentucky. Ken Sorenson commented in his LFTR Plan the reclamation of Flourine if these plants are decommissioned and replaced with Centrifugal enrichment plants. The Gaseous Diffusion Plants are expensive to operateThe installed base of these same plants have a lot of Nickel thru out (Plumbing,Pumps and Diffusion Screen/Filters). The Nickel can be reclaimed. If my memory is correct there may be a lot of Nickel Plating in use at these plant, I'm not sure. Maybe the the Yucca Mountain storage facility funds can be diverted to a Chloride Fast MSR Plutonium/Actinide waste burner.

Exewacting protactinium from the one MSBr was pote...

2012-04-18T11:09:26.351-05:00

Exewacting protactinium from the one MSBr was potentually a big headach as my father knew from experience. He clearly prefered the two fluid aproach. The two fluid approach avoided most of the problems. The one fluid approach works well with the DMSR.

The Nuclear Green Revolution

I'm as anti-nuclear war as the next man, but t...

Pete Miller is top class. That is exactly why he ...

really !!! this was very interesting. using natura...

When can we purchase a copy of the book? Definatel...

Dr. LeBlanc has an interesting fact buried near th...

Researchers and fans of Alvin Weinberg will find a...

I've never actually been an either/or kind of ...

What makes subjects of the USA unsafe isn't th...

Zarconium? Zurconium? What else might be incorrect...

Good issue! I'd really like to see a (however...

I made this point in my blog a couple times over t...

Reblogged here: http://thoriumforum.com/uranium-or...

Bernard Cohen argued this ages ago in the 2012-04-29T08:06:21.850-05:00 Bernard Cohen argued this ages ago in the following article.

Dennis, Thank you for alerting me to the problem. ...

Blogger says I don't have rights to access tho...

Coal Terminals and additional infrastructure are r...

Ron, Thank you for tour kind words.

I read somewhere that enough dissolved uranium flo...

Charles: Another way of looking at Seawater sourc...

Another cost advantages that MSRs will have over L...

I have come to think that maybe a fast spectrum MS...

Anon, both closed Gaseous Diffusion Plants, have b...

Charles: Adding to the low cost of LFTR/MSR scena...

Exewacting protactinium from the one MSBr was pote...

Bernard Cohen argued this ages ago in the
2012-04-29T08:06:21.850-05:00
Bernard Cohen argued this ages ago in the following article.