Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The nuclear future that never arrived

My latest column on Scitizen entitled "The Nuclear Future That Never Arrived" has now been posted. Here is the teaser:
Understanding how the great hopes of early nuclear power advocates eventually turned into great disappointment may shed some light on nuclear power's future.....Read more

3 comments:

  1. You can have breeders set up to not produce weapons material, specifically IFR's. IIRC, an IFR wil burn prety much anything you throw into it - from Plutonium to Thorium, nd it slowly "burns" the fuel into ever less radioactive materials.

    Of course, it's never been built, and submerging radioactive fuel rods in a pool of liquid sodium strikes me as rather risky, but hey - I'm not a physicist...

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  2. Anonymous1:40 PM

    It is not risky. Liquid Flouride/Molten Salt breeders are basically eltdown proof... they run hot and when they start to breech, they freeze and the reaction stops (I am simplifying).

    And they HAVE been built in the 70s and run as pilots. They were canceled precisely because they did not produce weapons grade material for the Cold War.

    Andrew

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  3. Anonymous1:41 PM

    http://www.energyfromthorium.com/

    Please see.

    Andrew

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