/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11268936

LFTR.

Whatever happened to LFTR and other alternate nuclear technologies? I don't see any mention of them in the media any more.

>>7497151

>>7000106
talk about Thorium reactors of course!

>>6927990
LFTR threads used to be all over the place. Kirk Sorenson is the big spokesman, but he's gone quiet recently. Probably ran out of funding.

>>6927995
how can something that still isn't developed after 50 years of research be more than something that was developed and put aside in the 1950s?

>>6927998
Remember "Pirates of Silicon Valley", where the Apple engineers descended on Xerox and stole their window+mouse UI tech to make the first Macintosh? That's what China did to the Oak Ridge LFTR research. They'll be pumping out modular thorium reactors to solve their energy and pollution crises within five years.

>>6928005
Corrosion is an issue, but there are solutions, like Hastalloy-N, removing fission products, and sacrificial anodes. Pumping isn't so much of a problem, because the salt fluids move slowly.

>>6928015
I wish people weren't so scared of breeder reactors and the unlikely thread of proliferation.

>>6778105
It is pretty fucking good. Back in the 50s, it was the road not taken.

Good:
* burns thorium, which needs no expensive refinement, unlike the uranium fuel in current power reactors.
* burns it up 100%, unlike the few percent in solid fuel rods, leaving the rest as waste.
* liquid fuel salts make certain problems like trapped gas fission products easier to deal with.
* lower pressure/higher temperature, makes energy extraction more thermodynamically efficient and requires less accident shielding

Challenges:
* needs billions in development funding, just like the beginnings of the LWB reactor age.
* the salts are corrosive, needs plumbing in special alloys, may need a decade to qualify
* needs a fissile slug of uranium or plutonium to start the breeding process

>>6012296

b-but... the Chinese..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor#Chinese_Thorium_MSR_project

>>5810178
thorium shitposting? yes please!

>>5032571
lftr4lyf!

...

sorry, I'll never do that again.

(The hype does seem to have died down. There have been no substantiative progress reports from any of the LFTR organizations in the last year.)

>>4842050
DO YOU EVEN LFTR?

>>4817523
All the mentioned technologies are developed. They can be deployed now. LFTR has potential, but still needs millions to develop into a product. Fortunately, China has a LFTR development program, and the US is providing them a steady cashflow. All the other world's efforts are pure paper studies scrambling for venture capital and regulatory changes to get started.

Here's the love, all happening this year!

Long time advocate Kirk Sorensen started a company, Flibe Energy, which is going to develop a small scale LFTR for military bases. (Military first, to do an end run around the NRC, same as when the first LBRs were developed.)

The Weinberg Foundation will be developing LFTR plants in Britain.

They are being looked at not just for alternative power generation, but also for nuclear waste disposal, desalination, and ammonia generation for fertilizer.

Guys, we are finally on the cusp of an energy revolution!

Yes, simply because existing plants are aging and need to be replaced. Would you rather every existing plant is retired because of the inevitable disaster, or an orderly shutdown and replacement with tech that is 40 years newer?

Also we need to develop more economical power plants, like LFTR.

>>3108634