tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post3430529549392167749..comments2024-02-16T17:52:44.944-06:00Comments on The Nuclear Green Revolution: What are the problems with LFTR technology?Charles Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-41831263056129508332015-08-30T14:09:36.551-05:002015-08-30T14:09:36.551-05:00Need שורשים בביוב go my websiteNeed <a href="http://www.a-plumber.info/" rel="nofollow">שורשים בביוב</a> go my website<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16867520022390764424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-81400874884957992862011-08-30T09:35:50.832-05:002011-08-30T09:35:50.832-05:00Great summary of things Charles. I'd chime in...Great summary of things Charles. I'd chime in that you raised one issue without really further commenting on it. That being the concern of positive reactivity effects of graphite. <br /><br />Without going into details, this issue is of concern only for Single Fluid Thorium breeder designs (and a solvable problem). For Two Fluid (or what's called 1 and a half Fluid) there is no such problem. As well, for Single Fluid converters that have U238 in them (i.e. the DMSR), there is also no concern here.<br /><br />The last commenter had good points about salt costs. A couple things to point out, first the study he quoted assumed a huge cost of 3000$/kg for Li7 but this was just ORNL being super conservative since that was the price Light Water Reactor folks were paying at the time for tiny amounts of Li7 to help their water chemistry. Most other studies assumed 120$ a kg. This is a big unknown though but I'd also add that in most designs, even breeders but especially converters, we can get by without enriched lithium. For example NaF-BeF2 or NaF-RbF work just fine and are relatively cheap. I have a hard time convincing people of the merits of non-Li7 salts but a group in Europe has done neutronic modeling to back me up on this (not published yet).<br /><br />David LeBlancDavidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05346195080684720140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-41701493150562544582011-08-29T16:57:57.659-05:002011-08-29T16:57:57.659-05:00Molten Salt Initial Construction Costs
In 1980 th...Molten Salt Initial Construction Costs<br /><br />In 1980 the Oak Ridge group proposed the Denatured Molten Salt Reactor, DMSR. This clever design is a single fluid reactor with 20% LEW as the initial fissile inventory and 110 tons of thorium as the breading stock. About 80% of the fuel is derived from the thorium making this a burner rather than a breeder. I like this design because no processing is required. No protactinium capture. No uranium distillation. Here is the link to the 1980 design paper<br /><br />Since this topic is about molten salt problems, I want to focus on the cost-of-the-salt problem. The DMSR paper lists the construction cost of the plant to be $660,000,000 with the initial fuel cost being $220,000,000. The plant cost was estimated to be about the same as a light water reactor. This blog has presented ideas that the authors under estimate the cost of a light water reactor but let's concentrate on the 1/3 of plant cost is initial salt cost. That looks to me to be a show stopper cost problem.<br /><br />However, the 2015 cost of the initial salt may be much less than 1/3 of the 2015 plant construction cost. The three largest component parts of the $220,000,000 were:<br /> - Separative work (805,000 SWU at $80) = $64,000,000<br /> - 7LiF (30 metric tons lithium at $3/g) = $91,000,000<br /> - Uranium (804 metric tons U3O8 at $35/lb) = $62,000,000<br /><br />It is interesting that the projected SWU cost for 2015 is right at $75. The reduction in price is due to switching from diffusion to centrifuge technology. Since the inflation difference between 1980 and 2010 is about a factor of 5.5, the separative work is really only about 20% of what is was back then. Ain't technology great!<br /><br />The cost of lithium 7 is the big question. In bulk lithium costs about a dime but the real cost will be the separative work to get pure lithium. Here I will make two assumptions that someone hopefully will refine for me. The first assumption is that the bulk cost of lithium is small both in the 1980 cost and the current cost. The second assumption is that the separative work for lithium 7 will be 5.5 times less that it was in 1980 due to the use of centrifuges. In other words, the same cost as in 1980 just like for uranium. Of course, this would be the price for the nth plant not the first-of-a-kind plant.<br /><br />The spot price of uranium is $50 dollars. I'm not aware of what contract prices would be. So uranium is only 50% higher than 35 years ago.<br /><br />If the initial fuel charge was 34% of the plant cost 35 years ago, in 2015 with centrifuges the percentage would drop to 7%. That change is really good for the DMSR design, but it still costs 1/4 of a billion for the initial fuel. If anyone can point me to a better way to estimate the salt costs, I would appreciate the pointer.<br /><br />Unrelated to the cost of flibe, has anyone talked about the following:<br /> - what part of the salt preparation would take place in a factory?<br /> - what and how will the salts be transported to the site?<br /> - what part of the initial salt conditioning will be done on site?<br /><br />Initial costs of the plant and the salts is the key factor in the acceptance of a liquid fluoride reactor.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-38999409074537587352011-08-29T16:25:57.624-05:002011-08-29T16:25:57.624-05:00Great summary Charles, and very illuminating. Anon...Great summary Charles, and very illuminating. Anon is dead on - we need some engineering test beds and research reactors. Right now.Andrew Jaremkohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07781060305332803073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-43672461596568764292011-08-29T16:06:03.655-05:002011-08-29T16:06:03.655-05:00This is an argument I have been making for some ti...This is an argument I have been making for some time. Proiferation is a political issue, it is not about arms control. I favor arms control and nuclear disarmiment, but the nonproliferation community is trying to sell us ideas that are plum loco. They want to tell us that if we build and sell LFTRs in the united States, even ifwe don't sell them abroad, regel in the congo are going to be able to build nuclear weapons.Charles Bartonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-30452870424016199822011-08-29T15:44:51.110-05:002011-08-29T15:44:51.110-05:00At 13:28, on this video: http://vimeo.com/1654221...At 13:28, on this video: http://vimeo.com/16542211 Brian Wang states that in virtually every case, countries get nuclear weapons before they get nuclear power plants.<br /><br />Nuclear proliferation from civil power plants is a distraction that should not affect optimisation of LFTR designs.LFTRs to Power the Planethttp://lftrsuk.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-70265543870084121732011-08-29T10:37:51.119-05:002011-08-29T10:37:51.119-05:00Of course the biggest problem is that we don't...Of course the biggest problem is that we don't have any yet.<br /><br />Someone had to say it.<br /><br />That aside, I suspect that the political and public opinion problems aren't going to be made much easier by going to a different type of reactor (though it might help get a few fence sitters on our side).<br /><br />I would also suggest that proliferation resistance doesn't damn well matter for reactors sold to stable democracies (or existing nuclear weapons states).Anonnoreply@blogger.com