/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3948593
A bit from NextBigFuture

The only real problem with LFTR is that it needs to be tested in a larger scale.

MSRE was fine and all but that was less than 10 megawatts, we need to see and test a gigawatt+ reactor.

>>3948606

>NextBigFuture

Why not use Integral Fast Reactors?

>>3948606
Here's a video that provides most of the rhetoric surrounding the LFTR in five minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P9M__yYbsZ4

If you want it more indepth here's the sixteen minute older version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk

>>3948616

>gigawatt+

Let's start slow, captain. A fully functional 100 MW reactor would be fine. Then you build a 300 MW. Then a 500 MW.

>>3948593
> he can be spotted by being a volatile DERP DERP DERP proponent DERP DERP DERP of Peak Oil and the Resource Wars

There's a vast difference between predicting a future and advocating it. Peak Oil is a fact. World discoveries peaked in the 1960s. U.S. production peaked in the early 1970s. World production peaked in the middle 2000s. Observing peaks are not advocacy, but observation.

I believe in nuclear power, since I'm not a fucking moron. And this Thorium stuff is definitely promising. But we'd better get hopping on it FAST, since the Cheap Oil is totally gone, and Not-So-Cheap Oil makes it harder to perform any industrial development, and it's not going to take very long at all (with about 90M barrels of irreplaceable oil consumed each day) to transform into the Expensive Oil stage, when it will be fantastically harder to perform industrial development.

Fusion (hot or cold) are boondoggles. They should be summarily abandoned. Solar and wind development should be ramped up hugely. And this Thorium stuff needs to be pursued with all vigor. Alas, there's very little chance of anything like that happening.

I must encourage those in colleges and universities to read up on Thorium-based power production and approach their professors of the hard sciences in order to under-raise a consensus. At some point, academics in the economics departments will have to be brought in, too.

>>3948698
>I must encourage those in colleges and universities to read up on Thorium-based power production and approach their professors of the hard sciences in order to under-raise a consensus. At some point, academics in the economics departments will have to be brought in, too.
I entirely agree. Most people involved int he 'Nuclear' world don't even know about the LFTR.
This is such a recently recovered technology there hasn't been enough time to get the word out yet.

>>3948698
> Peak Oil is a fact.
Not denying that. It's true, and humanity will deal with it, either the easy way or the hard way.

>> he can be spotted by being a volatile DERP DERP DERP proponent DERP DERP DERP of Peak Oil and the Resource Wars
So is that bit unnecessary, or did I just word it poorly?

>>3948698

>Fusion (hot or cold) are boondoggles.

Pretty much yeah. Maybe when we aren't in such awful trouble.

I don't think wind or solar can provide for large cities, maybe supply small commune-like areas, but we've been pushing the development and commercialization of these machines and they are still not economical. 20% efficiency, 30% efficiency, 60% efficiency, doesn't seem to matter. Take away the drip feed and they're gone.

Does anyone have links to the documents of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment? OP's pic says they were released, I'd like to read up on it personally.

>>3948741
I'm haven't found them either.

>>3948736
>drip feed
What's that mean in this case?
In any case, I find Stratosolar to be a sensible alternative to current methods of solar power, however I heard words that its a scam business front, and while I've been unable to find anything, there is truth in that they refuse to respond to any questions about actual engineering details.

LFTR wiki page, few days old:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

>>3948751

>there is truth in that they refuse to respond to any questions about actual engineering details.

Yeah, scam.

>>3948759
>Yeah, scam.
I dearly hope not. The idea is so very feasible, I want it to be real.

>>3948741

Somewhere here:
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/

>>3948779

But you can't escape reality to make your dreams happen, you have to work with what reality gives you.

And if 'reality' are shady calculations from a bunch of secretive folks who deny to give out anything, well, yeah.

>>3948757

Very cool. But needs to mention advantages like hydrogen / artificial fuel production, desalination and medical isotopes production. And needs LFTR schematics.

>>3948801
If you can find those I'll add them.

>>3948698

Developed world already produces 15 % of all its energy needs from nuclear, despite neglecting its development. We can quite easily satisfy all our energy needs from nuclear when the need comes.

>>3948810

Here, but its not public domain, which may be a problem for wikipedia use.

>>3948593

I took a course on energy and society, which touched on thorium-based nuclear reactors.

The only real problem it seems we have is finding viable, cheap fuel for transporting goods that can utilize existing infrastructure.

>>3948741
moltensalt.org/

Can anyone explain to me in simple terms the 'breakthrough' needed to start effectively utilizing thorium as a fuel? What is stopping us doing so currently? Not as in 'societal breakthrough', more on scientific terms concerning the use of thorium itself.

>>3949120
There's no breakthrough needed. Any progress needed is purely incremental.

>>3949120
they already had a working thorium reactor in the 1960s that run for five years, until it was shut down because it did not produce plutonium for nukes.

>>3949126

So we could in effect be using this as a fuel now, assuming society was being acceptive of nuclear energy?

ITT we discuss whether the National Ignition Facility is science fiction.

>>3949154
Correct.
All that needs to be done is set up the licensing and funding to mass produce them and we are set.

>>3949165

Proceed.

>>3949165
Fusion at NIF? Sure, they built the thing to get around the Atomic Test Ban Treaty, so it'll do fusion.

As for it being a source of net fusion power, not so much. NIF is an "indirect drive" system where the impinging laser light is converted to xrays by the Hohlraum, a small structure that holds the DT ice pellet. The Hohlraums are pricey bits of engineering, and you need one per second in a power-generating reactor. That's why everyone (including NIF, supposedly) is going to "direct drive", where the laser smashes the pellet directly. But even with direct drive, you still have to fire your frickin lasers at a good rate, and not eat too much energy doing so. And then there's neutronics issues common to all fusion concepts, so we'll leave that aside.

I think we ought to be working on accelerator-driven subcritical assemblies, which will burn existing "waste" and perhaps be politically more tenable than new fission reactors. In a perfect world, we'd be building n-th generation nukes, but that's water under the bridge.

>>3949510
What I had read suggested that fusion wasn't even possible at NIF's energies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/science/26fusi.html?pagewanted=all
and others.

It's got a pretty interesting history: to test the theory that lasers could induce fusion--before they built the lasers--they exploded small nuclear bombs and directed the xrays at a tritium pellet.

Isn't it also true that tritium is more dangerous than originally thought?

Bump for LFTR discussion!

>>3950553
thoriumfags = cancer

captcha: inuarted soldier

>>3950557
You're right, you've shown that you post far more science in that one post than the entire thread combined with that immaculately conceived rebuttal.