China creating clean nuclear power with Thorium nuclear reactors

[ShawnD1]

Wait, what? Are you saying you'd like to dump the water out? That's the very definition of melting fuel.

Sorry I worded that wrong. You don't dump the water to stop it, but it will stop if you dump the water. People always ask what happens if the tank leaks or if terrorists blow it up, and stopping is what would happen. The thing stops, there's no meltdown explosion, and your biggest concern is that a bunch of questionable water is leaking all over the place.

That's definitely a good thing. I too would not want a nuclear power plant anywhere near my house if causing a meltdown explosion was as easy as some kind of act of god rupturing the tank and letting all the water or coolant out.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety#Examples_of_passive_safety_in_operation

Current pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors are systems that have been designed with one kind of passive safety feature. In the event of an excessive-power condition, as the water in the nuclear reactor core boils pockets of steam are formed. These steam voids moderate fewer neutrons, causing the power level inside the reactor to lower. The BORAX experiments and the SL-1 meltdown accident proved this principle.

So basically the thing needs the water to work properly. If the water turns to steam, it stops working. If the water is dumped out, it stops working. Excellent design :thumbsup:

No way. That's what happened at TMI and caused the meltdown. The reactor had already been shutdown for some time, before the water level dropped. Once the fuel was uncovered, it melted.

no no no I mean it doesn't blow up if you remove the water. Nobody cares if some metal melts. What people care about is the plant exploding in their community and releasing radiation everywhere. The problem with chernobyl was that an incident caused a massive release of radiation and the whole area was left uninhabitable for a while.
TMI was not a big deal because nobody died and the amount of radiation released in generally considered not a big deal. We don't see major problems with cancer around TMI. Extremely high cancer rates are seen in areas like Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

 

[rcpratt]

You're still not making any sense. Yes, the fuel would (mostly) stop fissioning. No, it would not stop creating heat. Yes, it would melt down.

LOCAs (loss of coolant accidents) are the primary risk assessed in nuclear reactors.

And yes, obviously there are multiple levels of safeguards to protect and cool the reactor in the case of a LOCA.

no no no I mean it doesn't blow up if you remove the water. Nobody cares if some metal melts. What people care about is the plant exploding in their community and releasing radiation everywhere. The problem with chernobyl was that an incident caused a massive release of radiation and the whole area was left uninhabitable for a while.
TMI was not a big deal because nobody died and the amount of radiation released in generally considered not a big deal. We don't see major problems with cancer around TMI. Extremely high cancer rates are seen in areas like Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

Lots of people care if some metal melts because of the possibility of radionuclide release. A meltdown does not by definition mean radionuclide release, but it's certainly possible.

Not to mention the indirect result of a meltdown. Another TMI would destroy the nuclear industry.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Isn't this basically the technology ("breeder reactor" or nuclear reprocessing) that President Carter banned because of fears of nuclear proliferation?













__________________

Nice try though.....

 

[ShawnD1]

You're still not making any sense. Yes, the fuel would (mostly) stop fissioning. No, it would not stop creating heat. Yes, it would melt down.

Sorry but I keep using common (incorrect) words to describe safety features. When people say meltdown, they mean Chernobyl style accidents where things start on fire and release huge clouds of radioactive smoke that cover hundreds or thousands of square miles.

A "meltdown" in a high quality reactor is a local incident similar to having maybe a boiler explode or when a power transformer explodes. People working with the material may be killed when this happens. No it will not contaminate the environment, it will not increase cancer rates for the surrounding area, and it will not be anything like Chernobyl.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Yes, I have family members and friends who own property in the Ft. Worth area. Same story...it's amazing to me to be able to buy property with mineral rights included in the deed: is that typical in Texas?

On all land in Texas, the mineral rights are automatically associated with the deed (or title) of the land unless explicitly seperated by the seller. Typically, with the 15+ year old homes, the mineral rights weren't seperate from the deed. On newer homes it depends on if the developer of the land remembered to separate the mineral rights from the deed. In our area the developer forgot to separate the mineral rights from the land on about 100 lots out of 700+ lots, so we were lucky and get royalty payments. I'd be pissed if I were one of the other 600+ who don't have their mineral rights and have a drilling rig cranking away and making all that noise at all hours of the day and night.

 

[NaughtyGeek]

The term - Meltdown - refers to melting of the fuel in the reactor. Unfortunately, the term has been loosely applied to refer to any case of fuel melting, however minor. Only in several events - Three Mile Island 2 and Chernobyl - has there been significant fuel melting and only in the case of Chernobyl were there significant offsite releases.

Overheating of the fuel typically can be caused only if there is an inability to remove heat from the fuel. Two situations are the only likely causes:

Loss of coolant in the reactor cooling system followed by a failure of the emergency core cooling systems to operate
Failure of the reactor protection system to shutdown the reactor down when required for a major fault

Such conditions are considered to be outside the design basis for nuclear plants and are referred to as Class 9 accidents. The design of the plants is intended to assure that such conditions do not occur - due to the redundancy and diversity of the reactor protection, emergency core cooling, and containment isolation systems, as well as the containment structure itself.

http://www.nucleartourist.com/events/meltdown.htm

One of the prime benefits of the pressurized water reactor design is that as water temperature rises, rate of fission decreases. This does not mean you don't require water. Without water, the reactor WILL melt down causing a MAJOR environmental issue.

 

[bruceb]

Cherynobyl did not melt down. That was more of a small explosion.
This was also a carbon moderated reactor pile. Hard to control as
compared to a Pressurized Water Reactor, which all of them in the US
are, except maybe the ones built explicitly to generate plutonium.
Three Mile Island did experience a small meltdown due to cooling
system problems, resulting in a partial core exposure.

 

[rcpratt]

The US has plenty of commercial BWRs that aren't used to generate plutonium.

 

[Moonbeam]

Never create even a little poison that will kill for thousands of years. Even the dumbest person knows that is evil and that you will only do that if you are an asshole who cares more about making money then they do about children. Fuck all of you who want nuclear power because it's your message to us dumb people.

An excellent way you can go about fucking yourself, by the way, will be to pass around a petition in your neighborhood to long term store nuclear waste there. I am sure you'll fine a neighbor or two who will beat you to death.

It's not that I don't sympathize with pin head childish engineers whose big toy ideas get crushed by Sockerball Mommy, but genius little Moonbeam figured this out a long time ago when he melted Mommy's stove top making Aqua Regia.

 

[bfdd]

Never create even a little poison that will kill for thousands of years. Even the dumbest person knows that is evil and that you will only do that if you are an asshole who cares more about making money then they do about children. Fuck all of you who want nuclear power because it's your message to us dumb people.

An excellent way you can go about fucking yourself, by the way, will be to pass around a petition in your neighborhood to long term store nuclear waste there. I am sure you'll fine a neighbor or two who will beat you to death.

It's not that I don't sympathize with pin head childish engineers whose big toy ideas get crushed by Sockerball Mommy, but genius little Moonbeam figured this out a long time ago when he melted Mommy's stove top making Aqua Regia.

You have a set amount of time to live and there are tons of things in this Universe that could wipe us out in the blink of an eye. To hinder ourselves so we don't pollute our home planet is beyond stupid because you hold back progress by holding back resources. Energy is a resource and we need it in abundance so we can drive new technologies so we can get the fuck off this planet. I don't plan on living that long, but I hope sooner rather than later our species has more than one "safe haven".

 

[ShawnD1]

It's not that I don't sympathize with pin head childish engineers whose big toy ideas get crushed by Sockerball Mommy, but genius little Moonbeam figured this out a long time ago when he melted Mommy's stove top making Aqua Regia.

So you just happened to have nitric acid in your basement. Are you sure you're not a terrorist?


(explosives are easily made by mixing nitric and sulfuric acid with organic material)

 

[NaughtyGeek]

Never create even a little poison that will kill for thousands of years. Even the dumbest person knows that is evil and that you will only do that if you are an asshole who cares more about making money then they do about children. Fuck all of you who want nuclear power because it's your message to us dumb people.

An excellent way you can go about fucking yourself, by the way, will be to pass around a petition in your neighborhood to long term store nuclear waste there. I am sure you'll fine a neighbor or two who will beat you to death.

It's not that I don't sympathize with pin head childish engineers whose big toy ideas get crushed by Sockerball Mommy, but genius little Moonbeam figured this out a long time ago when he melted Mommy's stove top making Aqua Regia.

So you would rather run on the current poison rather then investing/exploring things that are less caustic to our planet? You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Quite certain that computing device you're using to post here is full of several environmentally toxic materials that required poison producing processes to create never mind the electricity that powers it has a high probability of coming from a nuclear generation facility. The point of these reactors is to drastically reduce the toxic waste generated by today's nuclear generating stations.

 

[Throckmorton]

If they're breeder reactors that create fuel, does that mean we have a source of infinite power? And infinite waste?

And which is it-- do they run on thorium or do they run on nuclear waste? Maybe I can get a gas engine for my car that runs on garbage, not gas, even though it's called a gas engine... Man this is confusing stuff.

 

[ShawnD1]

If they're breeder reactors that create fuel, does that mean we have a source of infinite power? And infinite waste?

Pretty much. Humans will go extinct before we run out of nuclear power

 

[Moonbeam]

You have a set amount of time to live and there are tons of things in this Universe that could wipe us out in the blink of an eye. To hinder ourselves so we don't pollute our home planet is beyond stupid because you hold back progress by holding back resources. Energy is a resource and we need it in abundance so we can drive new technologies so we can get the fuck off this planet. I don't plan on living that long, but I hope sooner rather than later our species has more than one "safe haven".

In the set amount of time I have to live, I will live with honor and justice as my aim, and part of that will be to never allow anything I can try to stop that would create poisons that kill for thousands of years progress on my short watch. I would rather my children live by a campfire, like 4 million years of my relatives did, than become genetic monsters living by toxic waste created by assholes thousands of years before. Fuck you and your progress. Thanks.

 

[Moonbeam]

So you would rather run on the current poison rather then investing/exploring things that are less caustic to our planet? You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Quite certain that computing device you're using to post here is full of several environmentally toxic materials that required poison producing processes to create never mind the electricity that powers it has a high probability of coming from a nuclear generation facility. The point of these reactors is to drastically reduce the toxic waste generated by today's nuclear generating stations.

Why do the fucking brain dead always invent my alternatives? Ask me what I would prefer, you dumb ass.

 

[Moonbeam]

So you just happened to have nitric acid in your basement. Are you sure you're not a terrorist?


(explosives are easily made by mixing nitric and sulfuric acid with organic material)

Yeah, a neighbor just brought me a petition to store nuclear waste under our local little league park.

 

[Darwin333]

I just rewatched one of the lectures at google on Thorium and the detractors in this thread are way off base with their reasons.

A thorium LFTR reactor uses 1 ton of thorium fuel for a gigawatt of power a year. When that ton of thorium is used up after a year 83% of the spent fuel must be stored for 10 years before the radiation is at a safe level. It is the other 17% though, right? The remaining 17%, or 340lbs per gigawatt a year requires 300 years of storage not 10's of thousands, thousands, or even a thousand years.

Lets compare that with the reactors we currently use. For the same gigawatt a year, they require 250 tons of uranium with 35 tons of enriched uranium. At the end you are left with 215 tons of spent uranium and 35 tons of spent fuel. The latter must be stored for 10,000 years.

 

[Genx87]

I just rewatched one of the lectures at google on Thorium and the detractors in this thread are way off base with their reasons.

A thorium LFTR reactor uses 1 ton of thorium fuel for a gigawatt of power a year. When that ton of thorium is used up after a year 83% of the spent fuel must be stored for 10 years before the radiation is at a safe level. It is the other 17% though, right? The remaining 17%, or 340lbs per gigawatt a year requires 300 years of storage not 10's of thousands, thousands, or even a thousand years.

Lets compare that with the reactors we currently use. For the same gigawatt a year, they require 250 tons of uranium with 35 tons of enriched uranium. At the end you are left with 215 tons of spent uranium and 35 tons of spent fuel. The latter must be stored for 10,000 years.

Our storage problems could be partly alleviated if our idiotic govt would lift the ban on enrichment.

 

[bfdd]

In the set amount of time I have to live, I will live with honor and justice as my aim, and part of that will be to never allow anything I can try to stop that would create poisons that kill for thousands of years progress on my short watch. I would rather my children live by a campfire, like 4 million years of my relatives did, than become genetic monsters living by toxic waste created by assholes thousands of years before. Fuck you and your progress. Thanks.

so you're selfish and think short term.

 

[rcpratt]

Our storage problems could be partly alleviated if our idiotic govt would lift the ban on enrichment.

Reprocessing you mean?

 

[Throckmorton]

so you're selfish and think short term.

What? That's the opposite of what his post says.

 

[Moonbeam]

so you're selfish and think short term.

No, you are stupid and don't think at all.

 

[Brigandier]

Why do the fucking brain dead always invent my alternatives? Ask me what I would prefer, you dumb ass.

What would your prefer? We could always dump or waste on the enemy du jour.

 

[Moonbeam]

Our storage problems could be partly alleviated if our idiotic govt would lift the ban on enrichment.

Yup, if uranium was a vitamin or Mothers didn't care about their kids, or people weren't pigs that never clean up their messes, or if nuclear reactors couldn't melt down and poison the water supply, or didn't make bomb materials, of if they were cheap to make, or about a hundred million other ifs you always hear when the subject turns to nuclear, then it would really be great. So take all your ifs and fuck yourself with them. If, fucking if. If Grandma had whiskers she'd be Grandpa. If only shit didn't smell you could crap in the kitchen sink.