/sci/ - Science & Math

They're probably being realistic.

They're not in a hurry really.

>>4954166
>rushing a nuclear reactor
there are plenty of BWR/PWR designs that are proven and working right now, and long term testing is a long term process, so why should China be rushing into something with low potential benefits.

Where did /sci/ first learn about thorium reactors? Because I have yet to come across a single mention of the technology in popular science publications.

>>4954228
> low potential benefits
A 100% safe 95% more efficient reactor that generates waste heat that can be used for industrial chemistry and desalinization after that the heat can actually go into 45+% efficient gas turbines to generate electricity.

I WONDER WHY THEY SHOULDN'T RUSH IT.

>>4954232
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG1YjDdI_c8

http://nextbigfuture.com/search/label/molten%20salt

>>4954237
Cool, but that video was posted six months ago and I doubt that blog gets many views.

Where did all of you guys FIRST learn about thorium reactors?

>By around 2035,

Holy fuck caution is nice but that's just dragging your damned feet.

>>4954250
>Where did all of you guys FIRST learn about thorium reactors?

I probably heard about it here first but I don;t remember

>>4954250
That blog.

I visit it daily.

If you have a better blog or anything. I'd LOVE to see it.

I learned about throium circa 2010 or something?

I am a electrical engineering student. And like a lot of people I wonder why the fuck aren't we nuclear like 90% yet. Then fukushima came and I was going full frontal nuclear explaining whats actually happening to my dimwitted friends. Now I'm actually looking to maybe go into nuclear physics or something related to this.

>>4954250
Thorium Remix is from 2011.

This is the video I watched from 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdRJqi__Z8

>>4954250
I don't remember exactly but it could have been this article.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1

>>4954250
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw

This was probably a turning point for a lot of people.

>>4954237
100% safe for who?

>>4954275
For the public. For the workers. For nature. Everyone wins.

Do you even know how it works?

What maybe a few people get killed if the shit spills next to them but seriously thats one in a quadrilion. The design is fucking ridiculously safe.

>>4954264
> I wonder why the fuck aren't we nuclear like 90% yet.
Radioactive accidents are the scariest kind of accident. Blame President Truman and the military leaders of the Empire of Japan for showing the world the ravages of radiation poisoning.

>2mw research reactor in five years
>100mw in 23
doesn't sound quite right. by 2025 would make more sense, unless there are ENORMOUS challenges to scaling up LFTR that i'm not aware of, or they're just being super cautious and super conservative with their estimates.

>>4954283
Yeah look at the casualty figures.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/04/washington-post-compares-coal-oil-and.html

Do you even fucking know that a coal power plant releases 2000 times more radioactive waste into the air then any nuclear power plant.

Go and fucking get a geiger counter and get near a coal plant exhaust.

>>4954285
I think it's a simple question of China.

China never had an actual LFTR design or anything. A lot of info is probably really classified and the Chinese can't just make it out of thin air. Maybe thats the barier for them?

Comparing to liek Flibe energy that can access that data?

>>4954295
possibly?
china sent an envoy of their sciences department (led by the actual chair of their sciences association, basically analogous to the president's science adviser) to Oakridge, and politely asked the oakridge folks for copies of EVERYTHING they had related to molten salt research.

so china is starting precisely where we left off

of course i'm going to be a bit racist; and assert that the chinese engineers are better at imitating than innovating, so they can get to where we left off quickly, but are getting hampered by actually thinking up new things

FLIBE energy probably has a few of the oakridge veterans on their actual team, which is more useful than just the notes

>>4954295
>>4954237
there is no 100% reactor, anyone who thinks that is encouraging lax watchstanding (reminder that every nuclear accident that has resulted in a leak and or core damage is the result of bad watch stander action combined with design, Chernobyl, TMI, and even the Fukshima incident ). Treat reactors with the respect and care they deserrve, not like MAGICAL SUPER ENGERY sources. Also, waste heat is trivial to generate, I'd rather have cheap ELECTRICAL power which is hugely in demand, you can generate heat in industrial regions easily (turns out large processes produce waste?)

>>4954250
>bored on patroll
>reading books on physics and reactor design
"Thorium reactors were proposed designs, but due to expensive cost and marginal benifit canceled by the Department of Energy.."

Then I went to college, and learned about them, Thorium reactors just feel like they are trying to steal money from proven designs on an experimental design which has never been done (Oak Ridge's reactor was a simulated process which had Uranium feed into it, so don't bring that up!). I'd go for some G4 designs which we know work and can produce electrical power safely.

>>4954293
the problem is though a nuclear power plant accident lasts a very long time, which is why they must NEVER be allowed to happen. Also, massive core breaches release large ammounts of radation quickly, which is sort of a bad thing. Nuclear casualties are nightmare mode on PR as well, I mean the tsunami caused half of the George Washington's helicopters to require decontamination, and thank god we didn't have more breaching.

>>4954313
>"Thorium reactors were proposed designs, but due to expensive cost and marginal benifit canceled by the Department of Energy.."
...in the mid 1960s..
if nothing else, materials research has advanced by orders of magnitude. Hastelloy probably isn't necessary anymore.

also this was back when they thought liquid metal fast breeders would be available in the next ten years. that didn't quite work out

>>4954281
I think that it might be very unsafe for the workers. We've had educated posters doing graduate work in nuclear engineering make very convincing points about safety, describing how current plant designs put the worker's life in great danger.

>>4954342
hey nuka-cola, what happens when your RUSHED reactor has metal fatigue you didn't test for? Bad day when your core melts through its protective layer. This is why you have a small research reactor which is easily controlled, before you go into larger scale reactor design, before mass production.

>>4954306
The Chinese do imitate much more than they innovate, copying everything that they can get their hands on. There is a massive amount of industrial espionage going on, with information pouring into China from the US and Europe. Racism was the wrong word to use though, since nothing about this is racist.

>>4954353
>what happens when your RUSHED reactor has metal fatigue you didn't test for?
uh
it melts into a puddle and the reaction immediately goes subcritical due to the heat lost from phase change?
it's a pretty forgiving design.
i'm WAY more worried about breaching of the processing systems, uranium tetrafluoride sucks ass. fluorine in general sucks ass

>>4954370
yes and you still have to deal with radioactive waste, which is the point, I mean you will be paying millions just to move it out since the limits for exposure will be reached in hours, or minuets depending on the concentration of material.

(also the long term liability but that's another ball of wax).

The point being that any breach is unacceptable, you must test, test, train, test, and repeat for the life of the plant.

>>4954363

>>4954370
granted, i understand the concern
i just don't think the jump from test reactor to full power reactor is as crazy as you might think, at least for the graphite reflector design (i don't like the moderator-in-salt designs specifically because they're more runaway prone)

>>4954384
true, but at least in a LFTR breach scenario, it's all nicely contained. you still have to scrap most of the plant but at least it sits around waiting to be cleaned up instead of contaminating everything.
also, if the chemical reprocessing works right, you won't even have to worry much about long term waste in the fuel salt. all that comes out is pure fuel salt and you could probably scrape it off the floor and reprocess it right there.

>>4954350
>how current plant designs put the worker's life in great danger.

You mean in conventional reactors? Well yea they're about as safe for workers as going to bed with a tank of nitrogen under the pillow.

>>4954285 unless there are ENORMOUS challenges to scaling up LFTR that i'm not aware of

NOTHING scales up easily.

>>4954313
>Also, waste heat is trivial to generate, I'd rather have cheap ELECTRICAL power which is hugely in demand, you can generate heat in industrial regions easily (turns out large processes produce waste?)

You are just stupid.

Waste heat yeah no fucking big deal right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process

Yeah it's not like we could power the whole world with this right?
Or desalinate water? Create fucking Hydrogen? Create super cheap industrial chemicals. AND AFTER YOU DID THIS. YOu still have enough HEAT for a fucking 35~40% efficiency GAS TURBINE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine#Industrial_gas_turbines_for_power_generation

Do you understand now? PISS CHEAP electricity. Way more power generated because of the efficiency of gas turbines compared to classic turbine? Do you get it now? More electric energy per thermal watt power. Better conversion. From High Heat > Gas Turbine Mechanics > Electricity compared to Low Heat > Low Temperature Water turbine Mechanics > Electricity.

>>4954431

especially not uncontrolled, flowing, nuclear reactions

>>4954313
>"Thorium reactors were proposed designs, but due to expensive cost and marginal benifit canceled by the Department of Energy.."

Yes you know why? They were building NUCLEAR PLANES. Watch the damn Thorium Remix 2011 DVD version.

You also know they couldn't make nuclear bombs right?

>(Oak Ridge's reactor was a simulated process which had Uranium feed into it, so don't bring that up!)
Really? You're going to bring in the starting Uranium to start the reactor? So we couldn't use fucking neutron beams right to fire it up?
Do you even know nuclear physics? FUCK.

Molten salt becomes solid in hours or minutes depending on the temperature. If it leaks it drains into a fucking underground tank. The real nuclear waster for like 100 years underground in concrete and it doesn't react with water.

Did I mention LFTRs eat old nuclear fuel as fuel?

>>4954350
You do realite this is an Air pressure reactor right?

And every reactor today is high pressure water reactors right?

But they don't have shit on magnetized target fusion, right?
...Right?

>>4954384
Yeah like 95% less then what you have now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3EGOL4J6yI

>>4954431
Except you could just build 250 mW reactors and place like 5 of them in a building and you have a 2.5 Gw reactor.

>>4954313
>there is no 100% <safe> reactor

Nothing is 100% safe, a GRB could hit us tomorrow and wipe out all life on the planet. Any structure (not just reactors) could sustain damage from natural forces that can't be planned for and fail as a result. The point is that LFTR has none of the inherent risks that come with conventional reactors (the biggest one being pressure that would just love to scatter nuclear material all over the countryside).

No one who says they're 100% safe is suggesting that toddlers could operate them.

>Also, waste heat is trivial to generate, I'd rather have cheap ELECTRICAL power which is hugely in demand, you can generate heat in industrial regions easily (turns out large processes produce waste?)

LFTR will be the cheapest source of electrical power when it's when development is complete. The waste heat is value added and you're retarded for thinking it's even comparable to attempt to gather up all the diffuse heat in an industrial zone versus having it all available in one small building.

>>4954459
>>4954459
> you could just build 250 mW reactors and place like 5 of them in a building and you have a 2.5 Gw reactor
wat? does power scale exponentially or something?

>>4954450
MTF looks cool
7/10 would fund

>>4954459
oftentimes easier said than done. lots of equipment. lots of maintenance, lots of cost

>>4954459

Ralph, pls go.

>>4954472
>LFTR will be the cheapest source of electrical power when it's when development is complete
>knock on wood
the upfront cost might end up being comparable to a light water reactor, but the over-time cost is almost guaranteed to be extremely low.

i don't like lftr because it's cheap, i like it because it's very hard to have catastrophic disaster scenarios with one

>>4954477
I'm sorry I should have said 10.

My mistake when writing it.

The point is a lot of Nuclear powerplants work like that today. They have more then one reactor in one building. For example Chernobil as you know had 4. The V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station (Russian: Чернобыльская АЭС им. В.И.Ленина) as it was known during the Soviet times, consisted of four reactors of type RBMK-1000, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electric power (3.2 GW of thermal power), and the four together produced about 10% of Ukraine's electricity at the time of the accident.

>>4954459

Higher operating costs.

>>4954477

He scales his reactor design like he scales his power figures.

>>4954492
Right.

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

Because no powerplant uses more then 1 reactor right?

>>4954488
that still wont get you from a milliwat to a gigawat

China has no real interest in Thorium, China constructs the equivalent of two, 500 megawatt, coal-fired power plants per week . If any breakthrough in Thorium is to occur it will be in the west, don't place your hopes on China

>>4954503
Miliwatt?

>>4954504
actually china has like 125 reactors under construction right now, they recognize that coal is cheap, but nuclear is cheaper over the long term.
but i'm a little concerned since china's version of the NRC isn't very good. bribes ahoy!

>>4954500

Reactors are typically limited in size due to transport and manufacturing constraints on some of the larger equipment.

>>4954508

mW

>>4954489
>the upfront cost might end up being comparable to a light water reactor, but the over-time cost is almost guaranteed to be extremely low.

Yea but he was saying he'd rather have cheap electricity than waste heat. I was point out that he was retarded because LFTR will provide both.

Hell with the applications of the waste heat and the medical isotopes that might be able to be extracted they could probably give out the electricity for free and still turn a profit.

I don't know how much cheap he's expecting electricity to be.

>>4954521
Electricity is still going to cost as much as Fuel+Maintenance of the powergrid+ upfront costs .


It's never going to be free. Even if the fuel is pisscheap and the reactors cost little to nothing to run. You're always going to pay for the powergrild maintenance, salaries and such.

>>4954522
Splitting hairs, point still stands.

>>4954532
No I'm just adding to your argument.

Your point is 100% valid I'm just reinforcing it.

>>4954538
k misread your intent

>>4954489
>>4954441
>random youtbe video
And why is this not the Thorium version of Alex Jones garbage again, also so do breeeder reactors, which are more proven (if slightly crazy) designs, for one thing.
>>4954472
Find the worst possible earthquake in history, add the worst possible hurricane, add in a twister at the worst possible factor. Multiply by 50.

Also, Japan proves that this step isn't even done NOW fucking idiots didn't put up a seawall which is a simple protective means.

Pressurized reactors have multiple safties in case of loss of pressure, but that is why you have people in the plant as well!.

The waste heat is useless though because nuclear power plants require isolation from other major industrial t hings just due to the fire risk alone, so any heat transfer would be useless as the heat would be LOST to radiation.

>>4954521
>>4954521
medical reactors are a highly specialized reactor design due to the isotopes required, you can't just say "hey this is my Westinghouse . lets get some Technetium out of this bitch!"

>>4954601
Random video done by a proven NASA engineer that was tasked to design Nuclear vehicles and propulsion for NASA. Gives information you can get from any good science book if you looked into the facts.

>Pressurized reactors have multiple safties in case of loss of pressure, but that is why you have people in the plant as well!.
Yes they do. LFTR is air pressure and no explosion or significant leakage dangers outside of the reactor building.

>The waste heat is useless though because nuclear power plants require isolation

And with the thing I just said earlier you can build a huge industrial complex on it.

I imagine LFTRs if ever designed are going to be at first used mostly to get Shale oil and Coal>Diesel processes going without even giving a fuck about electricity. Because sustained 24/7 high temperature heat is just that valuable.

Do you even realize how they generate heat in the industry? COAL. TONS OF IT. Heat does is not a byproduct. It's a very valuable product. And you need to spend money to generate it. Tons of IT.

>>4954608
Actually yes you can.

That how it works...

Thorium decay chains sir.

>>4954628
there will never at least in the States or any first world nation be a nuclear plant in any reasonable distance from an industrial complex just because of the risk of fire spreading to non nuclear components of the power plant (transformers).

I'm used to natural gas power generation/heat cogeneration, but you can't simply plop down a nuclear power plant is what I am saying. It wont' be approved for one thing, and there will be protests on both sides of the isle.

>>4954643
I'm talking about DESIGN, because the uranium decay chain leads to thorium (not sure if this is more chemistry or physics 101)

>>4954654
You do realize they can build 100 mW thermal reactors just for the High heat right and use them in the industry.

These reactors are compact as fuck. You can fit one on a truck. They're actually doing this with fucking reactors right now. Theres a few companies designing reactors for the US military mostly using liquid metals as coolants. The military wants to get a reactors to power a base of operations anywhere in the world. This would cut down the HUGE maintenance costs. And after they leave the reactor could generate heat/electricity for the country it is in.

Also oil companies are looking for 24/7 non refuelable almost zero maintenance heat source because they want to dig/refine shit in the Arctic regions of Canada and Russia and maybe even Antarctica one day.

>>4954643
nuclear physicist graduate student here

decay chains is precisely the problem

we've been studying u235 for almost 70 years, so there's a lot of understanding of all the different ways it can decay and all the different elements it can produce... in which amounts, when, and what they might decay to. all the practical nuclear science anybody knows and anybody is taught is based on what we know about u235.

thorium is virtually undiscovered territory in comparison.

don't even get me started about "breeder" reactors, they're a decay chain nightmare.

>>4954674
military reactors (i work on them), are a pain in the ass to take care of, and unless its a very small ultra tiny boat (NR-1), have actually had massive issues (the reason why we didn't use them was because the fucking Army is retarded and can't be trusted, SL-1 incident), and no portable reactor is currently in production or being used outside of a few think tank proposals and experiments.

>>4954677
and this is why the whole "medical isotopes from thorium decay yay!" thing doesn't click with me
i mean, it's a nice redundant design with passive safety and cheap fuel, isn't that enough?
again, mostly i like it because it's so comparatively safe and contained.

>>4954306 politely asked

I don't know how they asked, but I would like to point out, by international treaty, all nations who do not make nuclear weapons get all other nuclear information for free.

>>4954856
true enough
but i just know they aren't even going to add much to the design, and just cold copy everything
PLUS they have a high chance of removing safety features or just straight up slacking on safety altogether

Bumping because this thread has some nice discussion in it (FOR ONCE)

>>4954601
>Find the worst possible earthquake in history, add the worst possible hurricane, add in a twister at the worst possible factor. Multiply by 50.

>meterorite hits plant during an earthquake during a tsunami
>the yellowstone supervolcano simultaneously erupts wiping out half of the US
>tiny amount of leakage from nuke plant
>Headlines: OMG11!!!!1 NUCLARE IS DANGROUS TRYING TO KILL US ALL WITH TOSIC RADIOTION

What I want to see is a big fast-breeder facility built in a remote location, and heavily supervised by the same people who take care of the nuclear arsenal, where they do nothing but burn up nuclear waste and manufacture solar panels.

What is thorium?

>>4954654
>there will never at least in the States or any first world nation
That's fine, China and India will gladly take the missed opportunity.

>>4956287
The thing about China and India is that they're not too good at doing stuff, as a general rule.

>>4954166
> Estimated date for a prototype reactor. 2035.

That's their way of saying "never", but it sure does give those guys decades of paychecks, eh?

The same thing is happening in the West with "fusion" (i.e. the perpetual boondoggle). Oh, they're gonna make a reactor within 20 years. It's ALWAYS just 20 fucking years away. And in every one of those perpetual years, all these "researchers" (i.e. con artists) gets a paycheck. THAT WAS THE POINT.

>>4956293
>The thing about China and India is that they're not too good at doing stuff, as a general rule.

It's not the 70s any more sir.

>>4956272
>Watching the news when the earthquake hit.
>" This is exactly why we need to get rid of all nuclear power stations. "

Its so perfectly retarded it actually makes sense. I love how they took full advantage of that disaster in order to re enforce the usage of fossil fuels.

>>4956301
>to re enforce the usage of fossil fuels.
you mean solar and wind power

>>4956285
An element. One of two naturally-occurring fission fuels, together with uranium.

Advantages: Superior thermal neutron economy, making thermal breeders feasible. There's more of it in the Earth's crust, in total.

Disadvantages: Contains no fissile isotopes. Can only be used in breeder reactors. No real ore available anywhere. Most of it is distributed evenly in trace amounts through the Earth's crust.

Summed up: Mostly considered important by kooks.

>>4956301
enjoy your avatar ban

>>4956310
Which won't actually support the grid, thus ensuring that fossil fuels are neccessary for years to come.

>>4956311
thorium does have some decent concentrations in certain places
and it's considered a waste metal for mining, specifically certain minerals contain decent amounts of it, it's just sort of a pain to extract since there isn't any demand for it. seriously, it isn't use for jack shit right now

>Is Flibe being unrealistic or is China being too realistic.

Probably both.

>>4956300
Have whatever fantasies you like, shit remotely approaching 1st world standards only gets done in China and India under the supervision and management of 1st world corporations.

They started to have economies worth mentioning only when the "globalization" trend got underway (i.e. multinational corps moving using the shithole countries as pollution toilets and slave pits).

>>4956365
And they pulled in the multinational corps intentionally, by controlling worker salaries and material supply chains.

>>4956434
Sure. They "lured them in" rather than transportation, communication, and production (i.e. versatile, high-precision factory equipment not requiring skilled operators or maintainers) technology advancing to the point of making it feasible for the multinationals to exploit them.

>>4956365
At what point does a "1st world corporation" lose that designation and start being considered a "world corporation"?
I mean, yeah, the 1st world created the corporation and the idea that made it possible, but if all the grunt work is done by locals anyway and the C.E.O. was born in Singapore and the shareholders are Russians...

not /sci/ I know but just a thought. pic unrelated.

>>4956551
>if all the grunt work is done by locals anyway and the C.E.O. was born in Singapore and the shareholders are Russians...
...and all of the market research, research and development, product design, process engineering, testing, quality assurance, and other non-grunt-work work is done by first-worlders, to sell to largely first-world customers...

Also: Singapore is part of the first world.

The 1st/2nd/3rd world paradigm is anachronistic.

Use developed/developing/undeveloped

>>4956574

but developed, developing, undeveloped are Eurocentric. Well, both are really, we should probably not be using either.

>>4956574
No. Fuck your euphemisms. They are "first world", "corrupt and backward", and "utter shithole".

>>4956591
How the fuck is that Eurocentric? Like at all? What the fuck are you talking about?

>>4956599
because you end up using your term in your definition.

I.e. by saying that a nation is developed you are defining what it means for a nation to be developed. I've often times heard social science fags from modern prestigious universities throwing around the terms with definitions like "a country that is capitalist, democratic, and supports free trade".

Here's a question: Was the soviet union a first world nation/developed nation during the cold war?

>>4956610
I don't know, but it was certainly European. (regardless of Siberia)

>>4956619
>Asia
>European

Even the most western ex-soviet countries that are referred to as "Eastern European" are often times blamed for many of the problems in the rest of Europe. I don't think the average European really even identifies with them at a continental level.

I figured it was a bit too good to be true. Always cons....the startup fuel (U233) is still incredibly toxic...also, apparently it does not do so well with water...one of the biggest "pros" is the avoidance of water due to the lack of heat output...but inline with that is the fuel salt disintegrates quite quickly and would become "free" (exposure to environment).

>>4956651
>the startup fuel (U233) is still incredibly toxic
The startup fuel of most proposed designs would be Pu239, although U235 is an option. U233 is the isotope that the thorium (Th232) would need to be transmuted to by neutron absorption and two steps of beta decay before it could be used as fuel.

what about nuclear fusion tokamaks? all fucking uranium reactors should have been upgraded to these about 20 years ago !

how many time did it take for the nuclear energy to create an experimental reactor and then build more for commercial/industrial purposes? way less than these and we started from fucking nothing.

it's been over 30 years we can have a relatively controlled fusion, but now we're dealing with one thing : energy lobbies and brainless ecofags who thinks nuclear reactors produces gigatons of "C-02" not even knowing what it means.

>>4956737
...what?
magnetic confinement fusion (tokomak) is a pipedream, and will be for probably another 50 years. shit just doesn't work.
they have yet to have a sustained fusion reaction for longer than one second, and that's after who knows what amount of funding.
ITER looks a little more promising, but i suspect it'll be a logistical nightmare.

>>4956461

First world countries are the manufacturers of the latest manufacturing technology. Low costs in China due to weak currency, abundant workforce and minimalist red-tape in areas such as Health & Safety enable their implementation a lot more cost effectively than at home.

This is changing because of the falling currency value in the west, companies are finding new areas where they can be competitive again and have a new chance at implementing and developing their latest technology at home.

China is learning quickly and has plenty of cash to burn. Over the next few years we will see a noticeable decrease in Chinese manufactured products and a massive increase in spending on crazy research projects. Look forward to a moon base because they're seriously going to do it.

>>4956610
>because you end up using your term in your definition.
What?

>by saying that a nation is developed you are defining what it means for a nation to be developed.
I'd be a pretty poor definition otherwise.

>I've often times heard social science fags from modern prestigious universities throwing around the terms with definitions like "a country that is capitalist, democratic, and supports free trade".
That definition didn't use the word 'developed'. What's wrong with it anyway?

>Was the soviet union a first world nation/developed nation during the cold war?
It was a second world country, like all communist countries.

I still don't see what this has to do with Europe.