Gen IV Nuclear General

[Anonymous No.4321215]

Hey /sci/, /g/ here.
We had a thread earlier about what you'd do with 100,000$ with OP posting a picture of a windmill farm which eventually devolved into a Climate Change Debate and the viability of other energy sources and somebody mentioned breeder nuclear reactors which I'd heard of in the past but never got around to Google'ing.

So I just got finished reading a boatload about the Nuclear Power debate along with Fast Breeder and Molten Salt Nuclear reactors which led me to Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs "Lifters").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

They seem to be solving a bunch of the problems we have with traditional light and heavy-water nuclear power.
- Passive vs Active Engineered Safety by Design through low pressurized operation
- Uses vastly more abundant Thorium compared with elementally rare Plutonium and Uranium deposits in the Earth's Crust making it a cheaper fuel source
- Can be manufactured smaller and cheaper
- Can burn up to ~99% of the usable fuel leaving little in the way of transuranic waste
- What little that does transmute has shorter half-lives and is not the appropriate isotopes for "weapons-grade" nuclear material reducing risk of nuclear weapon proliferation and being safer to manage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4
After watching this thing I'm pretty sold, but since I don't know crap about science I'm pretty sure there's catches here. The guy in the video apparently is the head of the small company trying to R&D commercial small modular reactors of this type so he's gonna be singing a high tune.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flibe_Energy

However, China apparently doesn't see a downside and it going full-steam ahead with LFTR development using some public domain patents originally sourced from research here in the US at Oak Ridge National Laboratory back in the 50s & 60s.

So discuss.

[Anonymous No.4321226]

>LFTR

[Anonymous No.4321265]

>>4321226
A don't regularly visit /sci/
Can you elaborate more on how these thread discussions usually turn out if they are an item here?

[Anonymous No.4321277]

>>4321265
Like every other thread here. Shitstorms based on the argument that "we're not doing it right now, therefor it's impossible"

[Anonymous No.4321284]

>>4321277
.................Well at least China thinks it's possible..

[Anonymous No.4321671]

>>4321265 A don't regularly visit /sci/

Yeah well that's a lie, poor disguise is poor.

>Oh I've just been reading about Gen IV reactors so I'll jump into the same extensively reposted spiel about LFTR with zero mention of anything else.