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/sci/ - Science & Math

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3095307

Rapture Party Anonymous Sat May 21 02:17:41 2011 No.3095307 [Reply] [Original]

So, I just returned from a rapture party. The Rationalists of East Tennessee had an informal one at a local beer garden. We hung out, laughed, drank beer, and played cornhole (if you know what the game is, you love it).

I post about this not because there was clearly no apocalypse but because I learned something about one of our members. He's a guy in his mid-late 60's, really spry, southern-accented, and has worked at Oak Ridge national lab since the 60's. It turns out, this guy is a nuclear engineer and was the youngest PhD attached to the original MOTHERFUCKING ARE (Aircraft Reactor Experiment) and MSR (Molten Salt Reactor). Another Oak Ridge old-timer and physical chemist backed it up, as he started at the lab in the 70's on a different set of experiments.

MOTHER OF GOD, the guy knew his shit and started raving about thorium reactors. He said he refuses to retire anyway and it's his life's dream to finish what he started in the 60's.

Just thought /sci/ would have opinions on that.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 02:22:41 2011 No.3095324 what a boss

>>	Nuka-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI Sat May 21 02:24:41 2011 No.3095329 if that's the case, he's got some work cut out for him

>>

Anonymous Sat May 21 02:31:41 2011 No.3095341

>>3095324
Dude is. Though I generally find rationalist or atheist societies somewhat obnoxious, it's difficult to meet intelligent people in the South. Being near Oak Ridge, we have a lot of people from the lab. The old time scientists are less famous Feynmans. These guys are in their 60's (the average age at the lab is like 50-something) but they drink like fish and love to party... it's fascinating to hang out with these guys and hear their stories. Presence of giants.

The inherit stability of the molten salt reactors is really a pretty elegant example of self-regulating cooling.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 02:37:41 2011 No.3095351 OP is lucky. Most people don't even know what thorium is.

>>	Nuka-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI Sat May 21 02:55:41 2011 No.3095385 >>3095341 question was his name Ted or bill? i might have talked with him over the phone he mentioned how the glass tubes they used for beryllium extraction make great bottlenecks fo playing guitar

>>

Anonymous Sat May 21 03:08:41 2011 No.3095429

>>3095385
No, Guy is his name.

The guy started out doing health physics but moved into nuclear power. Some of these old time scientists are pretty amazing guys. One hunts in Mozambique and South Africa every winter, another has a PhD in anthropology in addition to an MD and makes canoes from different tribal styles, yet another is a cave diver/argentine tango instructor. Is it just me or is the image of the scientist as a crotchety, antisocial egghead completely misconstrued? We seem to have quite the joie de vivre.

>>	Nuka-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI Sat May 21 03:22:41 2011 No.3095452 >>3095429 it's the nuclear engineering profession. it makes you get super creative. and once that's triggered it's hard to turn off. lots of the old timers pick up weird ass hobbies

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 03:28:41 2011 No.3095462 >>3095429 When you believe that you only have one life to live you tend to make the best of it.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 03:29:41 2011 No.3095465 >>3095351 Please. Everyone knows what thorium is since the movie came out. It's the element used to power Thor. [Spoiler]But that is quite the cool story OP. [/spoiler]

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 03:36:41 2011 No.3095472 There's a lot of cool people at top universities and national labs. It just comes with the territory.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 03:40:41 2011 No.3095478 Did you tell him about what happened in Japan?

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 04:02:41 2011 No.3095514 >>3095462 Well said. I'm going to make another thread next time I'm likely to run into him if anyone has questions for one of the original thorium men.

>>

Nuka-Cola my trip is on my other comp Sat May 21 05:03:41 2011 No.3095713

>>3095514
I got a couple
1) did they ever think up a way around the graphite tolerance issue?
2) did they test any designs with the salt as the moderator, and neutron reflectors?
3) how bad was the gamma radiation off the MSRE from the u232?
4) how far along were they to a commercial plant? Like, is funding suddenly appeared to the tune of a billion or two annually, how quickly could they rig up a commercial 1gigawatt reactor?
5) how well could this scale down? Could you get a 25kilowatt version to run your house? Or is there a lower limit?

>>	Anonymous Sat May 21 06:06:41 2011 No.3095849 >>3095713 Saved, I'll be sure to ask them next time I see him. I figured that /sci/ would be thrilled to get information from a proper nuclear engineer involved in some of the original thorium/MSR research.