/sci/ - Science & Math

>inb4 Energy Catalyzer, fusion, overunity, related trolling, etc.

I'm excited for clean, renewable energy. Nuclear is outdated shit that is only allowed to be conducted because old people grew up playing with Uranium toys as kids.

>>3081581
>implying renewable energy sources produces anywhere near the power throughput of fossil fuels, nuclear, and related non-renewable resources

>>3081603

You're right! I guess we'll just give up and ride that horse until it dies. Then we'll all sit around the last pile of burning wood and go "Gee, at least we did the sensible thing and burned through all out fuel because it didn't require as much work!"

I'm excited about the super-cheap electricity I get every year thanks to hydropower.

>>3081539
so just to get back to reality, look at what cost how much, and what does it take to get a technology competitive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQY2z0ecIzY#t=38m04s

Yes solar can be cheaper than natural gas

>>3081581
>nuclear provides everything the greenies want, and then some
>greenies want solar panels and wind farms and to force everyone to live like a hermit

god damnit

>>3081655
and take up an order of magnitude more land, and require more grid dependence. just accept that solar is a long term goal, and focus on nuclear right now when it's rip roarin' ready to go

>>3081655
also his argument is "the fuel is expensive", but traveling wave and liquid fluoride drive that fuel cost into the fucking floor and then some

>>3081713
According to some the solar fields would take up less space than what we use RIGHT NOW for coal mines.

looked up the reaction chain for a TWR. i think it's something like;
U238 + 1n -> Pu239 + 1n -> fission products.
and the excess neutrons from the Pu239 fission keep everything going. The fission products have like 14 billion year half lives so they're basically harmless in terms of radioactivity. the best part is that you can use the nasty Transuranics in this thing, and they'll be transmuted all into Pu239 and fission with everything. it's a garbage disposal that produces just as much energy as a LWR and runs nonstop for 60 years, fucking awesome

>>3081742
that's not proper nuclear chemistry notation, nuka.

MHP reactors are the future.

A MHP is self-regulating and will give continuous steady output for billions of years without refuelling.

It's power too cheap to bill for. So cheap that when you set an MHP up, you can just make it to provide billions of times more energy than you think you'll ever need, and just radiate the rest into space until you think it's worth expanding the collectors.

Mark my words, you'll be seeing a LOT of Massive Hydrogen Piles soon.

>>3081804
i have never heard of this and google isn't returning anything
what are you blabbering about?

>>3081818
oh yes, now you're rocking with the best

>>3081581
Although it is true that nuclear is not renewable (in most respects is it clean and is quite obviously the best option.

>>3081804
Have you heard of PBRs? They are essentially the same thing and with a passive security system.
It's orgasmic,

>>3081539
MOLTEN SALT BREEDER REACTORS.

Problem solved.

Not only do they breed fissile material from thorium, they burn radioactive waste from other reactor types, as well as highly radioactive material from dismantled warheads. They also are self regulating and do not allow for runaway reactions.

>>3081846
There's no such thing as renewable energy, only direct use of nuclear energy and non-nuclear storage of nuclear-source energy.

>the sun is nuclear powered.
>the light/heat given off is nuclear energy.
>solar power is just an indirect inefficient form of nuclear power.
>people still think it's in any way useful.

Face it, nuclear power is the only reasonable choice for long-term energy production.

>>3081875
Solar power is plenty efficient if you put the collectors in low solar orbit.

Then you can do things like microwave power transmission or accelerator-based production of antimatter or convenient isotopes such as helium-3.

>>3081581

I'm guessing you're a butthurt liberal wind / solar fag.

First, wind power doesn't work and never will. Use Google, it's pretty useful.

Second, solar power isn't where it needs to be in terms of efficiency and even if it were much more efficient there's still the problem of developing battery technology effective enough to store the energy required to function during times when the sun isn't readily available since those are generally the times when it really sucks not to have power (light during the night, power during intense storms). This is not to say solar power isn't the future, certainly it is the eventual future. Undeniable it is. But nuclear IS the immediate future. You need to get over it and accept this fact.

Minerals like Uranium aren't renewable.

Next.

> what else is everyone excited about?
Well, does "nuclear" include low-energy nuclear reactions? If so, I'm excited about the news from Greece about cold fusion. It actually might be legit this time.

>>3081920
>nuclear power is infeasible and expensive
>let's make space elevator fed solar panels

>>3081920
I agree with this except that there's no realistic way (yet) to transmit the power back down to Earth.

Also, OP, stop being butthurt about anyone mentioning anything other than LFTR. If LFTR is so wonderful, they'll catch on without needing you to evangelize them constantly. You actually make them seem more like crackpot science.

>>3082014
given their energy density, they's almost renewable due to very very small volumes of it providing enormous amounts of power. it's VIRTUALLY a renewable

>>3082027
Energy catalyzer bullshit is not nuclear.

GTFO

>>3082053

Is this the real Nuka?

>>3082051
>If LFTR is so wonderful, they'll catch on without needing you to evangelize them constantly
in the post-fukushima age, not really. After talking with ORNL and the NRC and a few universities...fission funding is basically nonexistent. few know about this, and it's difficult for the idea to spread on its own

>>3082014

Yes, uranium is the only feasible nuclear fuel in existence.

Dumbass.

>>3082065
yes, i just change the second half of my name for comedic effect

>>3081980

Here's a thought, if everyone were to switch to electric vehicles that were plugged in whenever not in use (major overhaul of American homes and parking lots would be required, and pricey). The cars would store electricity all day, and put it back "into the system" during the night. Americas fleet of vehicles, which now cause untold amounts of pollution; would be the solution to the wind/solar availability problems. Just throwing that out there, I support nuclear as a stepping stone towards greener and more efficient energy in the future.

>>3082083

I just read an ad for the 2011 Kuwait Prize. It recognizes distinguished accomplishments in the arts humanities and science and they're looking for nominations right now. One of the areas chosen for this year is Nuclear Technology.

I though since you were working on building your own reactor you might be interested in it. The prize is 100,000 US dollars, among other things.

>>3082014
Hydrogen isn't renewable either. Once the sun burns it up, it's gone.

Random dirt is something like three times better fuel than coal in terms of energy density due to the miniscule trace amounts of uranium and thorium in it. Hell, coal is far better nuclear fuel than chemical fuel for the same reason. Granite is about a hundred times more nuclear-energy-dense than coal is chemical-energy-dense, and that's not even granite chosen (as any sensible energy-miner would do) for high uranium and thorium content.

And none of this touches on the very large amounts of good, high-density uranium ore available (which is enough to fuel our current economy for thousands and thousands of years), or the relative ease of extracting uranium from sea water.

Nuclear energy may not be "renewable" but it is inexhaustible.

>>3082101

Yup. It's abundant and energy dense. Thorium has about 3.5 million times more potential energy per unit of mass than coal.

>>3082051
>no realistic way (yet) to transmit the power back down to Earth.
Why transmit power back to Earth when you can move industry to space?

>>3082130

This is NOT the thread to discuss that, start your own space industry thread.

>>3082087
>I support nuclear as a stepping stone towards greener and more efficient energy in the future.
pretty much everyone does. and i also support the "electric fleet" idea.
the problem i have is this insane push for solar and dumping billions of funding into it for marginal bonuses right now. far better plan is for nuclear right now, and solar to continuously improve in the background.

and let's face it, TWRs and LFTRs beat the pants off all modern renewables in efficiency and cost and footprint

>>3082150

Yup, the general green "cultist" doesn't understand that the technology just isn't there yet. Research should be heavily funded so that one day it will be a viable option, but using it now is inefficient, and more or less a waste of money.

Well, if you want clean, reliable, safe, unobtrusive power on Earth, you should be looking at geothermal.

That is something you can count on for at least another billion years, pretty much as much as you want of it, with no pollution or changing anything on the surface of the planet.

It's kind of expensive to install, but once you've got it you're set.

>>3082097
well i could, but here's basically what would happen
-the NRC shows up at my door asking for licenses
-the FBI swap team shows up thinking i'm breeding dirty bomb material
-the EPA gets in a huge hissyfit
-the state tries to tax it
-the federal government tries to tax it

>>3082179
i rather like geothermal actually, there are a few cool ideas to make it feasible, but it has the same problems as solar in terms of being very long term

can anyone in here explain to me how LFTR and LFR reactors work? and comparisons and contrasts between them?

>>3082202

I remember seeing a documentary about geothermal once, I think they found a slight (and I mean slight) correlation between geothermal use and increased seismic activity. It seems stupid, I admit it, but if California were to invest heavily in it, there could be unknown consequences. I'm not saying it shouldn't be used, just that it shouldn't be used in seismic hotspots until we know if there can be ramifications.

>>3082205

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk

>>3082205
LFTR is a breeder reactor, with the primary fuel being Thorium 232 and the primary fissile material (the stuff in the core) being uranium233 breeded from the throium

a plain old LFR uses U235 probably, but that runs into the whole enrichment issue.

LFTR is an evolution of the LFR idea

>>3082242
that sounds a little silly, yes, but kind of unnerving. there's plenty of heat coming up from the mantle, and the local cooling from even large scale geothermal plant is relatively small. i'm not sure how it would cause problems. but the problems which get you are often the ones you don't suspect

>>3082242
>it shouldn't be used in seismic hotspots
No, it shouldn't.

Anyway, earthquakes or volcanoes could destroy your expensive geothermal collectors. You want a nice safe stable place in the middle of a tectonic plate.

Either that, or on the ocean floor, where you can take advantage of water cooling.

/sci/, we should make a copypasta letter to congressman for easy sending. Something that briefly describes the advantages of thorium reactors and then links to more details.

Anyone want to help?

>>3082300

This picture sums it all up pretty well. Not implying it's the proper format for a letter to be taken seriously by a representative but it does a pretty good job of condensing the whole situation into size that's easy to understand for a non-scientist.

>>3082338
Yeah, it does, but we need something respectable that would be taken seriously.

>>3082347
...and something that doesn't imply that Thor is an orc.

>>3082300
>>3082338
>>3082347
>>3082358
Anybody? I'm not an expert by any means and don't think I could provide a professional-sounding explanation that your average senator or congressman could understand, but I think we would have more people writing their congressmen and senators if we had a convenient pre-made message.

>>3082338
this doesn't really emphasize the fantastic advantages of the design form an engineering standpoint
-passive safety due to the fuel only being reactive within the core
-very low square footage requirement with a brayton cycle turbine
-scales well
-responds to load demand like a gas throttle
ect

The bigger issue here is that if we have nuclear power that is too simple, too cheap, and too all-around good, it becomes very problematic to argue that all of the little struggling countries shouldn't be allowed to have lots of nuclear reactors of their own.

And once they have them, they can easily make nuclear weapons of their own.

And then everything goes completely to shit.

Thanks no, I'll stick with expensive, dirty energy rather than a nice clean nuclear paradise that gets all blown up in the first decade.

>>3082358
this too. it makes it sound like a picture book from the get go

>>3082383
already doing something like this with my planned "nuclear chemistry for dummies" videos. I still need to get used to adobe after effects and find an illustrator

I know how to make a very small, inexpensive, and efficient fusion power generator that you can construct from materials available in any Wal-Mart.

But I'm not telling anyone how to do it because fuck you.

>>3082522
you mean a fusor?
yeah, everyone can do that. and why use walmart when you can use ebay

>>3082553
Fusors aren't fusion power generators, they're fusion power wasters.

>>3082560
>thatsthejoke.jpg

>>3082470
i dont think you can make nuclear weapons with thorium... but im probably wrong

>>3082682

Won't change anon's mind. Then those little countries will have cheap energy and be able to develop economically and challenge his cushy export oriented job.

The only potential 'green' power sources I know of that can sustain humanity's current power usage and beyond without covering a substantial part of the world with solar panels is:

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors
Geothermal
Space-based solar power

With price from lowest to highest with current technologies.

>>3082682
You can.

Take thorium reactor. Use as source of neutrons. Place thorium outside of reactor, but in its leaked neutron flux. Some atoms of thorium become U233. Chemically separate U233 out of thorium with simple, inexpensive chemical process: now you have weapons grade fissile material. Make a bomb.

That's the cheesiest case, the existence proof. You can do it even more efficiently if you have the confidence to tinker in the guts of the reactor. After all, the whole point of it is that it makes its own U233 fuel from thorium. Having it make exactly as much as it burns is much trickier than having it make an excess.

In fact, I'm sure they'd be designed to make and extract a large surplus of U233 fuel, at the operators' option. Otherwise you'd keep having to go to a regular nuclear reactor when you wanted to build a new thorium breeder reactor.

When you hear "breeder reactor" you should immediately think "nuclear weapons proliferation", because there's no such thing as a breeder reactor that isn't fan-fucking-tastic for mass-producing nuclear weapons.

>>3082300

Dear (Insert name of representative)

The disaster in Fukushima has many people afraid for their safety. The word "radiation" has become synonymous with "poison" and the notion that nuclear power is unsafe and should not be used at all is seemingly attractive to an unsettling number of people. This is unfortunate and demonstrates very well the tendency for the fear of what we don't understand to be irrational and unfounded. In the fire-fight against ignorance the facts are our water and we must be quick to douse the flames.

As a person on the forefront of public policy, you know better than anyone else that our society is being forced to confront an impending energy crisis. Someday, the efficiency of solar panels and battery technology might be such that we can power whatever we need with the sun. Until that time, we need a clean, safe and efficient means of producing energy, the fuel for which must be abundant. By any reasonable evaluation of our current technological progress and resource levels, Thorium nuclear power is the answer.

Thorium is four times more abundant than gold. According to the U.S. Geological Survey's 2006 Mineral Yearbook there are approximately 300,000 tonnes of Thorium in the U.S. This accounts for roughly 20% of world's supply. One tonne of Thorium is as energy rich, with respect to nuclear power, as 200 tonnes of Uranium or 3.5 million tonnes of coal.

With a 50% thermal to electric conversion efficiency, Thorium reactors require only half the cooling of today's reactors and can hence be cooled by air, making them feasible for water-scarce communities.

>>3082769

cont'd

The design of the reactor and choice of moderating medium render meltdown a non-issue. The chemical properties of the Lythium and Beryllium salt coolant prevent a wide dispersal of radiactive materials in the event of a plane crash or an attack by terrorists using explosives. The continuous removal of radioactive gases in Thorium power generation ensure that in the event of a leak there would be little to no solid fission product released and only small amount of radioactive gases. Additionally, coolant leaks do not lead to fires or explosions. The safety of Thorium reactors is such that a zone of low population surrounding the reactor is not required. Simply put, had the reactor at Fukushima been powered by Thorium the earthquake would almost certainly have not posed a threat to its safety.

The cost of a Thorium reactor is, by all estimations, much lower than that of a Uranium reactor. Thorium reactors require much less land and the small size is such that the reactors can actually be factory produced.

Thorium reactors generate between 1000 and 10,000 times less nuclear waste and 4000 times less mining waste than traditional reactors. The efficiency of the use of fuel in a Thorium reactor is such that 83% of the waste products are safe within ten years and the rest become safe within 300. Uranium reactor waste takes at least 10,000 years to achieve the same level of safety. It is also of note, with respect to products and byproducts that Thorium fission is not an effective creator of weapons grade material. The Uranium 233 that's produced as a byproduct of fission needs to be separated from the Uranium 232 contamination but this is exceedingly difficult because isotopes are not chemically different.

>>3082774

cont'd

Thorium reactors can also be used for many other things. The excess heat can used to desalinate water, making such reactors even more useful to water-scarce communities. They can generate ammonia for fertilizer, separate hydrogen from water for fuel cells and are a source for rare elements.

As responsible representatives I'm sure you are constantly searching for new and innovative ways to improve the lives of your constituents. The current economic downturn and irresponsible biofuel plans have resulted in the rise of energy and food costs, respectively. Many people are struggling to meet the basic needs of their families. There's no greater gift you can give them than cheap, efficient and clean power from an abundant source of fuel, the extraction of which will create mining, construction and plant management and maintenance jobs here at home, rather than overseas.

Thorium is right here waiting. It is our immediate future.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
(Insert name)

>>3082768
yeah, it makes U233
too bad that U233 has a decent bit of U232 in it from parasitic neutron capture. and it's basically impossible to enrich it out since the atomic weight is so similar, at least i think.

the real problem is that U232 decays into a long line of hard gamma emitters, which fuck up your electronics and easily kill anyone working on the solid core.

in addition to the fact that you only need .16% u233 in the core, the rest is carrier salt. Any country attempting to make a bomb would need to have very specialized reactors and all kinds of equipment to assemble to weapon without getting raped by the gamma. all of this is really easy to spot by international investigation bodies.

i would just like to make known...

nuclear power plants CAN be used to create desalinated drinkable water.

beat that solarfags/windfags

nuclear ftw

Any thoughts on my copy pasta letter? Does it make the grade?

>>3082777
>>3082774
>>3082769
oh, i like it.
i might grab it and tweak the explanation a little bit in order to really drive home WHY it's safe rather than just saying "it's passively safe!" which does not mean much. i like the statistics usage

>>3082862
Agreed. Post the end result here.

I would also attach sources and/or further reading so you don't seem like you're pulling it our your ass.

>>3082852
hell yeah
cogeneration fuck yes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Cogeneration

>>3082852
they ARE used to do that shit

>>3082878
funny story; using a brayton cycle turbine on a LFTR core wouldn't actually extract all the energy you want in one pass, meaning you have waste heat for condensing the refrigerant in the brayton turbine back into liquid form. this stuff would be crazy hot, and PREFECT for water desalination by way of distilling. actually, any process which requires high (200-500 degrees C) temperatures at a continuous rate would marry perfectly with a lftr

>>3082835
>herp derp
This is pure wishful thinking bullshit.

First of all, the entire practicality of the design is based on the convenience of processing uranium and thorium in and out of the solution.

Secondly, the U232 content is small and has proven only a minor inconvenience to bomb makers. (the first thorium-sourced U233 bomb was made in the mid-50s)

Thirdly, there is nothing very mysterious about nuclear bomb construction anymore. Calculations that were tricky in the 1940s can be done now by a bright high-school student with a computer and a textbook. The actual construction is trivial. The entire anti-proliferation effort centers around keeping nuclear materials out of the wrong hands, and above all this means keeping them in very few hands.

If you give someone an LFTR, you're giving them a nuclear bomb factory.

>>3082905
to be fair, this can be said about just about any other type of nuclear reactor. you act like proliferation control is nonexistent or incompetent.

>>3082924
The point was, this is why we don't WANT a so-simple, so-efficient, so-safe, so-cheap nuclear reactor. It's wouldn't be politically feasible to deny its benefits to all the poor fucked up countries, and thereby also give them bomb factories. (although it is should be pointed out that non-breeder reactors with poor neutron economy such as LWRs are MUCH poorer at producing nuclear weapons material -- the whole fucking reason there are so few breeder reactors is the proliferation danger)

Why do you insist on dragging this around in circles?

>>3082969
because the benefits, i think, immensely outweigh the risks. Nothing is proliferation proof, and glancing over this solution just because it itself isn't is retarded.

obviously, policies would need to be made for this reactor design specifically. Perhaps the reactor could only be produced by certain countries, and the materials needed to produce it could be heavily regulated and watched?

your fictional country that went through the significant trouble to make a bomb like this would still have to launch it without the thing being shot down by the newly emerging laser defense arrays, and a suitcase bomb would again be impossible from the gamma emissions killing the carrier or making the device easy to detect.

it's like saying solar panels shouldn't be produced because you could plant a bomb on one and the glass shards COULD fly far enough to kill the president while he's sleeping.

>>3083011
and another thing. the reactor isn't even needed to make a U233 bomb. just shoot neutrons at thorium. Ta-da! no LFTR required. should we still bury this technology even a reactor isn't required for bomb production?

i modified the congress letter. it's in a google doc and fully editable by anyone right now. feel free to modify it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pLMBWV-pCk77mbfVESmIVFk62h25HjnW-WcRX8XEA84/edit?hl=en#

>>3083044

You might need a "reactor" of sorts you just would need to convert the heat into electricity. You'd need a reactor chamber, moderating substance, control rods to control the rate of fission, a system to vent the heat generated, sufficient protection from the radiation of the fissile material and its products, etc. You'd basically need to make a reactor.

>>3083044
>just shoot neutrons at thorium
Neutrons are not that easy to come by. If they were, we'd get our energy from neutron activation of radioisotopes.

You need like a quarter-pound of neutrons to transmute enough thorium to make a U233 bomb. That's a theoretical minimum to make one bomb. For practical purposes, you'd need actual pounds of neutrons.

Nothing makes that many neutrons but a nuclear reactor, and even most conventional nuclear reactors don't make that many excess neutrons in a reasonable timeframe and allow them to be collected in a reasonably compact sample.

>>3083136
eh, true enough.
but solid fuel thorium reactors can essentially do this already. it's one of those cases of "it's going to happen anyway", and attacking or removing the source in this case robs the world of a fantastic power source. There are other ways to prevent proliferation should the evil party have the funds and expertise to build a weapon from it, it just filters out 90% of the people who would want or be able to make a bomb from this

>>3083119

Thanks for the additions. I like it.

>>3083163

I agree, though. I didn't mean what I said as an argument against Th power. I'm all for it. Over all it will make proliferation much more manageable.

>>3083205
eh, sorry bro. That other anon is just rustling my jimmies slightly by manufacturing this exotic scenario in order to make it sound like any two bit country with a lftr could easily make a nuclear weapon in complete secrecy, and thus lftr should be ignored

>>3083163
>it's one of those cases of "it's going to happen anyway"
Nope.

Thorium reactor technology can't pull itself up by its bootstraps. You have to start it off with conventional uranium reactor technology, until you've made at least a critical mass of U233. This takes a major industrial effort which is very hard to hide.

There are relatively few players in the nuclear power game, and all of them are very concerned about proliferation risks. A few rogues can be dealt with, one way or another.

Avoiding nuclear war is important. Powerful people are willing to get their hands dirty. Things can be done.

People around campus have been putting up those stickers similar to OP's but it says:

NUCLEAR POWER?
NO THANKS!

I wish I had OP's image available as stickers. Fucking uninformed hippies.

>>3083231
you meant his one?
notice how they symbol those chose to use was the sun, the largest NUCLEAR fusion reactor for a few lightyears.
>fullretard.jpg

>>3083221
>jimmies status: rustled

How small could you make a Thorium Reactor, and how many pounds/how big is the radiation shielding?

Basically I'm asking if it could be used to power small (Under 500lb) vehicles.

>>3083243
just make badges/stickers using their logo, but with the words "you obviously aren't a science major"

>>3083243
>they symbol those chose
>the symbol they chose*
how did that even happen?

also, i seem to be making up 75% of this thread, fuck. not ideal.

>>3083263
not small enough for a car, sadly.
but a 1 giggawatt plant (enough to power 1 million homes) would fit within a 4000 square foot house very easily.

it's better to have two or three small (200 megawatt) LFTR plants within a city, and just have all electric cars with cheap-as-shit electricity bills.

>>3083272
i'm still here, i just have nothing to contribute to except my rage at solarfags/windfags

>>3081619

The United States alone could fuel world demand for electricity, with coal alone, for like the next century.

>>3083294
"Tell me again how we blackened the sky, father."

>>3083272

Hilarious ironies are so often born out of ignorance.

>>3083332
and if the reporting on and response to the fukushima incident is any indication, ignorance is high these days

>>3083316
Well son, we ground up billions of tons of coal into fine soot particles then blasted them into the atmosphere, continually replenishing the soot that was lost due to it settling on the ground. Why did we do this? As part of Al Gore's plan to blot out the sun and counter global warming. He's a super serial super hero.

>>3083316

That's wholly different from admitting that solar and wind suck massive dicks compared to fossil fuels, in fact you're implicitly agreeing with me that the benefit to these technologies is purely environmental and has absolutely nothing to do with how good they are as energy producers.

And solar and wind are terrible for energy production unless we develop an overnight mastery of wireless energy transmission in which case all bets are pretty much off.

>>3083337

Yup. And fyi, wind doesn't work and never will.

>>3083337
well, if you exclude the carbon problem entirely;
all fossil fuels require an immense industry and expense for extraction. the only reason fossil fuels are comparatively cheap is because the extraction process has been so refined. why not switch over to something that's far easier and cheaper to extract (thorium) and can only get more efficient with time? (as fossil fuels did).

again, it's back to the comparative energy density issue.

>>3083371

Nuclear is neither something I pointed out as sucking in terms of power generation nor is it a renewable resource, merely so amazingly prevalent that it's unimaginable to think that you could deplete it. How is work on the thorium reactor going, thought India was gonna have a prototype out this or next year?

>>3082768
>now you have weapons grade fissile material

No, you don't. There is no such thing as weapons grade U233 because sufficient isolation from U232 is impossible, which prevents you from making a weapon out of it.

>>3083231
>campus
Print shop motherfucker. OP has provided your image.

>>3083382
oh, india's seed and blanket reactor? i haven't heard much about it since they're a little tight lipped on the details.
i thought they were still working out issues, having a very small nuclear base to begin with, and not many experienced engineers?

>>3083399

This is something we should all start doing. If you don't have the energy / time / balls to publicly advocate the use of Thorium the least we can do is push it into the public consciousness as much as possible.

Also, I think if we simply make them aware of the term their own research will provide them with its safety information, which they'll be more likely to believe since it wasn't coming from someone on a megaphone, as it were.

>>3083395
1955 called. They want to show you the bomb they made with U233 and successfully tested.

U232 contamination is seriously a very minor problem. It was only even remarked on because plutonium was so safe to handle that they did work on the core using only a glove box for the technician's protection, so they had to change their procedures to work on U233 (which requires gamma shielding if you don't want to take a big risk of your technicians getting cancer).

>>3083417

India and North Korea are the only two industrialized countries that did not sign the global nuclear disarmament treaty, so it's a fair bet their secrecy is weapons-related.

>>3083435

Can't weaponize a thorium reaction to my knowledge, and India has had nuclear weapons for close to 40 years now.

>people still mistaking the steam stacks for smoke stacks
i don't want to live on this planet anymore

>>3083429

Operation Teapot's experimentation with U233 was also failure, had you bothered to read that far. The devices rapidly fucked themselves up and made detection trivial. Making any sort of delivery system proved impossible. Teapot is the series of tests that conclusively demonstrated to the military U233's unsuitability for weapons.

>U232 contamination is seriously a very minor problem

I don't think you appreciate just how energetic that shit is nor how readily it forms in a sample.

>>3083429
>They want to show you the bomb they made with U233 and successfully tested.

That would be a neat trick, considering they never detonated a U233 bomb.

Oh, they certainly planned to (MET/LASL) but had to replace the bomb's core with U235 instead prior to the test.

Next time you search wikipedia for references, at least fucking read them.

>>3083539
That is a plain lie.

But I'll do you the courtesy of assuming you are just parroting it rather than making it up yourself.

U233 weaponry was indeed judged to be not worth pursuing, since they already had fully-developed U235 and Pu239 weaponry and U233 has significant disadvantages on top of the difficulty of making U233.

That it is an *inferior* choice, however, does not make it an *infeasible* choice. You can still make a nuclear bomb out of it that will blow up cities. You can still put that bomb on a rocket, drop it out of a plane, or (especially) smuggle it into another country in secret.

>>3083581
Who is making this shit up?

Are you doing it right now, on the spot?

This is Nuka-cola, isn't it?

>>3083600
>U233
>smuggle it into another country in secret

Speaking of lies...

Do I even need to go into detail about what's wrong with this statement?

Do you think this bullshit is funny or something?

>>3083581
>Oh, they certainly planned to (MET/LASL) but had to replace the bomb's core with U235 instead prior to the test.
This is the exact opposite of what happened.

The decision to use the actual U233 core was a last-minute one which ruined several of the test's other purposes due to lower-than-predicted yield.

>>3083620
Do you honestly believe that gamma radiation can't be shielded?

That heavy shielding would be a direct reduction of payload on a bomber or rocket, but it's not a big problem when you're hiding it on a ship.

The way you combine laughable ignorance with this pose of being some kind of expert disgusts me.

>>3083653
again, you're manufacturing this incredible scenario, and assume that none of this would be picked up at any step of the process.

hell, i probably have a file in the FBI simply from my calls to the NRC

>>3083619
not me. and i don't know where anyone is getting these sources on the inner workings of the u233 bomb test

Let me just pop in here and say that although this thread isn't innocent of bullshit and trolling... it's so so so much better than 90% of the bullshit /sci/ is riddled with.

Thank, you good OP. And bless you, nuclear enthusiasts.

>>3084507
i haven't seen any trolling in here yet
>....super subtle troll...?

>>3084515
TBH, I didn't read the thread. I just assumed someone would be raising three mile island etc etc.

I'm fairly tired right now, and I thought it would be a safe bet that someone was up to no good. Or just being dicks. 'cause, you know... 4chan.

>>3084522
well, there was that guy who verily rustled my jimmies, but he was bringing up a perfectly rational point.

and people who point out Chernobyl or three mile island are necessarily trolling, just uninformed. nuclear energy is one of those rare industries where 99% of complaints against it are totally invalid in some way.

>>3084531
>aren't necessarily
i need to sleep