Re: Thoriom powered nuclear energy projected for 2017
- From: "Puppet_Sock" <puppet_sock@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 3 Apr 2007 13:12:28 -0700
On Mar 29, 11:31 am, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
[re a Thorium breeder reactor]
Could be great news. Last time I read about thorium power (two decades ago),
the idea was that you could have a breeder reactor without the nuclear-weapon
proliferation issues. Plus the geographic distribution of thorium reserves
is a bit nicer from a geo-political standpoint than is the case with uranium.
Trouble, of course, is that thorium reactors are half a century behind
uranium on the the safety learning curve.
Nah. Most of the "learning curve" has been in building containment
buildings, disposing of spent fuel, understanding control systems a
bit better, and getting better nuclear and thermal hydraulic data.
All of that applies quite handily to any new design.
Any new design reactor can be popped into a modern containment
and get the same benefit. And spent fuel from any new design can
easily go in the same repository. Any new design can benefit from
advances in understanding of fluids. And so on.
For example, faster and cheaper computers with easier to use
development systems has made a lot of difference to how safety
is analysed at nuclear reactors. This makes any design easier.
As to proliferation problems: Building a particular design in country
A is not going to have much effect on whether whack-jobs in some
other country try to build a bomb. You can't "nice" whack-jobs into
behaving other than as whack-jobs. To get a whack-job to change
you have to use force.
Socks
.
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