/sci/ - Science & Math

>How to pee with an erection.png

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Because humans aren't on our A game, we're more concerned with frivolities than survival.

>>2359313
And why, exactly, have I never heard of sodium reactors in my life?

Must use salt on food

>>2359493
>Because humans aren't on our A game, we're more concerned with green shit than advancement.
ftfy

The hippies have one, feels bad man

Mostly because it's still be researched... It's a Generation IV reactor. You can't just have an idea for something on that grand of a scale nowadays and be like "K, time to build it".

Unless you're an evil villain. Then you need a cape.

>>2359520
but why did they stop? It had so much potential, then, after the accident they just said "fuck it". They could've kept going and made it safer.
>>2359512
>sodium chloride
gtfo, this is manly salt. It will explode if it touches water burn if in air.
MAN SALT

>>2359516
Green shit (solar power) is the end goal. Nuclear is just to buy us time while we develop more efficient panels. Otherwise, uranium will just end up being the next oil.

>>2359584
Actually anti-matter should be the end goal.

>>2359584
But that's my point. Sodium reactors don't deplete the uranium rods. It can use the same rods indefinitely, so there is no need to mine any more for the same plant.

>infinite source of power

Joking aside, liquid sodium under pressure makes the bean counters nervous. That's why you'll find them on nuclear subs but not in the civilian industry.

>>2359543
Mostly because other ideas came along, such as Supercritical-water-cooled reactors.

But honestly? All the red tape involving anything with the word Nuclear in it. You wouldn't believe the amount of shit you have to go through even in hospitals because we have to manage isotopes. I was up at the nuclear power plant up at Chalk River after they fixed the giant football sized hole in their shielding... All they did was fix it. Not improve it. Because no one wants to write new protocols.

It's also the whole hippy thing with nuclear waste, etc. We do need to find a way to make it more degradable (if possible).

>>2359606
Fucking Jane Fonda and the China Syndrome. As far as degradation, there are things called "Synrocs" that essentially cut down the half life... not sure the status of them though.

hey fag, quit engineering all over the place.

you wouldn't try to talk to a mortal about the inverse relationship between scale of damage and cool factor now would you?

quit spewing eng-guild trade secrets all over the place. we're working on it, brother, and you can too if you so desire.

>>2359594
>Implying we have vast reserves of antimatter easily accessible to us.

>>2359621
We will. I said it was and end goal.

>>2359617
Pretty much. I remember hearing my prof talk about that movie and I was thinking to myself... It wouldn't go more than like... 10 meters into the earth.

But yea, fuck Jane Fonda and her pseudo-science advertisement. Seriously pisses me off.

>>2359619
>mfw nuclear would be so fun to do
>mfw I proably couldn't sit still long enough to actually do lab work
>mfw I'm in mechanical engineering
>mfw I can't afford to go mechanical/aero like I wanted at an out of state university
>mfw any nuclear talk excites me but makes me hella depressed
>mfw I have no face
/self ;_;

>>2359602
>nope.jpg
First off, quit calling it a sodium reactor; that's just the coolant which is hardly relevant to the actual nuclear reaction going on. It's a breeder reactor. Secondly, you're wrong; this isn't a perpetual motion machine. Breeder reactors just let you use U-235 as well as U-238 for fuel. The fuel is still consumed, and you still have to keep mining for it.

>>2359657
I thought breeders pulled fuel out of the air.

>>2359670
Nope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor

>>2359656
No one does nuclear research anymore. Pretty much, people only apply there to get accepted into a grad school then immediately switch to a different specialty.

>>2359670
Trolololoooooo

>>2359683
So.. would mechanical get me the ability to do nuclear stuff? say, the cooling systems, turbines and whatnot? I mean, that's all thermodynamics.

>>2359676
Then what made the radioactive boyscout's experiment grow in size?

>>2359694
Really don't know. I went into Medical Physics myself mostly because it still dealt with nuclear technology but was actually applicable for a job.

>>2359694
There'd be a good amount of overlap. The NucE stuff you'd need to learn would be neutronics, activation, embrittlement, that sort of.

>>2359695
You're missing the point. And most likely trolling *but*:

The main goal was to take non-fissible substances and make it possible to use it in reactors. That's all they did.

>>2359723
mayhaps you have some good links to said concepts?

>>2359313
>SO, why are we not using, or at least developing, sodium reactors?
Because sodium spontaneously combusts when exposed to water. Molten lead-bismuth reactors have all the benefits of sodium with fewer risks.

>>2359738
http://iron.nuc.berkeley.edu/~bdwirth/Public/NE120/schedule.html
http://iron.nuc.berkeley.edu/~bdwirth/Public/NE120/schedule.html

I didn't take these classes, and I'm not a NucE, but you should be able to find similar stuff from other schools by searching around.

>>2359793
whoops
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/dept/Courses/NE101/F10lectures/