/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3903932
>Making a mockup would probably still get your shit slapped just on principle, though.
i sort of doubt it, since that would have a rather high chance of going into the newspapers as "university student accused of being a terrorist after making harmless model". Regulatory bodies do not like bad pr

>>3903589
indeed, and anon was right
anon didn't really have any good reasons why not though, but i eventually found quite a few

making a mockup might be cool though, like lay everything out and set up the safety systems and whatever, but not use any of the expensive materials or actually put fuel in there.

>>3903463
>Either way, I think you'd have to give up hopes of profit from electricity production with a small reactor
i'd also have to give up hopes of ever having money ever again

this thing could easily cost more than a house, even at small scale

now, it ight be fun to make a mock up, but one with actual materials is a no.

>>3903403
when i learned a sheet of the stuff would cost like $1k, and the cost to forge it into the specific shapes and configurations would be ten times that, and it'd need a shitload of it, i sort of gave up calculating an exact cost

also, 10-25kw is not possible, you can only have a bare minimum fuel salt of something like five tons thanks to needing less than .03% u233 in your fuel salt by volume, and the bare minimum critical mass of u233 sitting at like 16kg
the absolute smallest you can get is like 2.5 megawatts, which is what MSRE was.

but still, 2.5 megawatts is about 2 thousand homes worth of power, which could supply a decent sector of a town

>>3903131
>http://www.gizmag.com/alloy-converts-heat-into-electricity/19025/
that actually sounds pretty ballin', i'd like to see some conversion efficiencies and the specific properties of the metal itself

hastelloy is really good mostly because it takes fluorine corrosion like a champ, and can also take the intense neutron flux without becoming brittle

>>3903038
i was considering that, setting up a reactor with EVERYTHING except the fuel salt

even then, it'd still be outside my price range unless i just weld aluminum together. Hastelloy is the only thing that can take the fuel salt, and you need nuclear-grade graphite (boron scarce graphite) in the core, which is also super expensive.

the rest of the parts probably aren't that bad though, the vacuum distiller would be kind of pricey maybe.

way outside my budget, sadly

>>3902873
is this that weird thinly polythene stuff that is a good nuetron filter but doesn't do much else?

or something different?

because the biggest problem with a lftr is gamma decay from u232, and that shit blasts through _everything_

>>3902622
oh, i have no idea if this is their ACTUAL plan but this is what i HOPE they do

>>3902583
well, FLIBE isn't necessarily US based so i'm very much hoping they'll build their prototype reactor in something like france, which is way more nuclear lenient and encouraging of innovation.

once they have an honest to god 20-30megawatts electrical plant running smoothly, the NRC might loosen its anus a little

>>3902065
this was back when i was trying to build my backyard lftr, this is where i learned about the other couple guys who tried it and either got busted by the FBI or badly irradiated

i had a nice chat with them, but the last guy i talked to laid it down straight that it'd pretty much impossible to build a reactor in your backyard under any circumstances due to licensing waiting periods and fees and whatever.

>>3902052
again, not out of my ass, out of the mouths of three nrc consultants (even though they probably weren't quite that official) over the phone

>>3902031
that's true, Tide looks kind of interesting
it's just that everyone and their mother supporting wind power seems to assume you can just plop down ten windmils and power a city, and the only thing preventing that from happening is that wind doesn't get enough funding or something

>>3902020
i keep referring to it as a waiting period, when indeed it's a licensing period
i just refer to it as a waiting period because i hate the NRC with a burning passion and it might as well be a waiting period

>>3901959
this is information based on an actual phone call to the NRC about these kinds of things. the two or three people i talked to all mentioned a 20 year minimum waiting period. it can be longer if your design has to be further approved

>>3901644
>is nuclear energy safe?
>well, is a car safe? which one?
ok, that was pretty nice

>>3901937
>Tickell says thorium reactors would not reduce the volume of waste from uranium reactors. ‘It will create a whole new volume of radioactive waste, on top of the waste from uranium reactors.
this is actually true, U233 has some similar fission products to U235, but its usually the very long lived stuff, like 10 billion year half lives. that's really not much of a health risk to be honest. Thorium has a comparative half life, and that shit is EVERYWHERE

>and cannot effectively connect to smart grids.
now that's just a straight up LIE

>0 cited sources.
seems legit.

he does have some accurate information, but it seems buried under this sense of "the nuclears are bad and its subsidies are preventing research into wind farms so they can make 2% extra electricity! My waifu wind power will be market viable some day!"

>>3901180
>http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/952238/dont_believe_the_spin_on_thorium_being_a_g
reen
>er_nuclear_option.html

i need to break this down piece by piece
>article immediately uses india as an example. Wrong, india's using solid thorium, which is way way messier since it has a much higher propensity to make gamma-hot U232. You'll get some U233 for additional fuel for sure, but a shit ton of waste

> it is still a next generation nuclear technology – theoretical.
it's just a theory, a guess

>rely on extensive taxpayer subsidies; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater, which is why no government has ever continued their funding.
i like the cost benefit analysis he quoted here, it really makes this guy's claims not seem lik-ohwait

>In his reading, thorium is merely a way of deflecting attention and criticism from the dangers of the uranium fuel cycle and excusing the pumping of more money into the industry.
what, i don't, what, how could, that doesn't, what.
what.

>Oliver Tickell, author of Kyoto2, says the fission materials produced from thorium are of a different spectrum to those from uranium-235, but ‘include many dangerous-to-health alpha and beta emitters’.
i have a feeling he doesn't know what alpha and beta emissions means

cont

>>3900967
>in a country that isn't the US
the NRC has a 20 year waiting period on the construction of _any_ commercial power plant. and that's 20 years from idea to breaking ground

>>3900924
10 ppm actually, it's comparatively abundant and evenly spread out

>>3900204
the most interesting man in the world is based on an ex-fermilab researcher from texas

>>3900182
holy shit, i remember your thread about that a few months ago!

but
>thorium skeptic
>skeptic
don't use that word, this isn't like evolution or something, it's just a power plant design

>>3900177
they don't
they'll build one lickety split, then get the designs stolen by tons of countries who then use it as a breeding plant. china doesn't give a flying fuck but we do.

>>3900163
>greedy
more like cautious
LFTR is a bad bet currently. Sure the MSRE worked well, but nobody really knows how well this thing would work in real life.

and again, public opinion is against any and all nuclear, except fusion because it gets such great press from everyone forever

i think a lot of posters on this board have taken the LFTR koolade. i support the fuck out of it, i think it's the future, but it has a lot of work cut out for it.

>>3900149
i still masturbate to the thought of boron-boron fusion
mmmmmmm, dat pure thermal output and basically no waste