Really good idea? or really goofy one? widespread small fission reactors

[blou04]

I recently watched this: http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors

It appears a really safe and reasonable idea. 30years of co2 free energy, without byproducts and virtually no pollution risks.

My question to you is this: Would it really be a good idea to use those reactors?

Please discuss.

English isn't my native language, please forgive any misused word.

[xenomorph555]

I wouldn't call it goofy, but I guess the main thing to look for is economics. Would you like a small, cheaper reactor to power a city or a big one to power several citys? it's mainly opinion based.

[blou04]

I only called goofy because i think laying nuclear reactors all over the place seems strange. The host lengthy explain why his reactor is so safe to operate. But what happens after those 30 years? Is there gonna be a radioactive junkyard in every spot there was a reactor? Because even if there is no leak risk. Multiplying the location where you store(or use) nuclear fuel doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

[xenomorph555]

I only called goofy because i think laying nuclear reactors all over the place seems strange. The host lengthy explain why his reactor is so safe to operate. But what happens after those 30 years? Is there gonna be a radioactive junkyard in every spot there was a reactor? Because even if there is no leak risk. Multiplying the location where you store(or use) nuclear fuel doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

I guess you could remove the reactor vessel if its built as a single frame, then you take that away to a site. Although that's jut me speculating.

[Wesreidau]

You'd remove the sealed vessel and replace it with a new one, then recycle the spent fuel. Its economically viable to boot.

[lajoswinkler]

More thorium pipedreams made by young "managers" with instant solutions.

[Kerbart]

This idea has been toyed with for many decades. My main objection against it is: why bother? By the time we have them in working other we'd have controllable fusion reactors, after all (another "never coming to fruition plan")

[lajoswinkler]

We have more than 50 years of uranium fission development that yields enormous power at high energy density. Infrastructure is there, experience is there, technology is incredibly advanced, and now we should just throw that in the bin? Yeah, right.

[Brethern]

Cars powered by nuclear reactors? Nuclear power being miniaturized?

Beginning of Fallout real life?

[Aghanim]

I think the biggest obstacle to this is not the technology, as it is possible to build self controlling nuclear reactor. But we have peoples that are claiming wifi is dangerous for our health, so they will go nuts if they hear about this

Then there is the environmentalists complaining about leakage and waste management, then peoples afraid that terrorists can use the reactor for dirty bomb... and so on

[Streetwind]

We have more than 50 years of uranium fission development that yields enormous power at high energy density. Infrastructure is there, experience is there, technology is incredibly advanced, and now we should just throw that in the bin? Yeah, right.

That's also 50 years of development and infrastructure that has no solution to dispose of the waste, besides burying it deep underground and letting the next generation deal with the inevitable reality that even that isn't working properly, as numerous cases have shown. And no solution to dispose of the reactors and buildings themselves once their operational lifetime has ended, besides letting them sit there for a century and, again, letting the next generation deal with it. Out of sight, out of mind - how convenient!

Straight uranium fission is a dead end technology useful only to people with no ability to think ahead more than five years. What we need instead is a kind of reactor that can consume the products of uranium fission, or run a kind of fission that does not leave dangerous byproducts anywhere in the decay chain. Unless those issues are cleared up, fission will never be all that it could be.

[lajoswinkler]

That's also 50 years of development and infrastructure that has no solution to dispose of the waste, besides burying it deep underground and letting the next generation deal with the inevitable reality that even that isn't working properly, as numerous cases have shown. And no solution to dispose of the reactors and buildings themselves once their operational lifetime has ended, besides letting them sit there for a century and, again, letting the next generation deal with it. Out of sight, out of mind - how convenient!

Straight uranium fission is a dead end technology useful only to people with no ability to think ahead more than five years. What we need instead is a kind of reactor that can consume the products of uranium fission, or run a kind of fission that does not leave dangerous byproducts anywhere in the decay chain. Unless those issues are cleared up, fission will never be all that it could be.

There is a solution, it's called breeding, but nobody is really concerned about it because the volume of the waste is incredibly tiny and the danger is so easy to mitigate for thousands of years. Nuclear waste is not a problem, whatever Greenpeace or any other loopy people say.

And yes, we do have reactors that can use some of the waste. Ever heard of MOX fuel? It uses plutonium. It's recycling.

Using short lived radioisotopes for anything except specialized usage is not a technological obstacle, it's how the universe works. They are not fissile or fissionable so the solution is to either bury them in impenetrable caskets or to render them less dangerous in breeder reactors.

So yeah, breeding and MOX. Read about it. It's common nuclear energy knowledge.

None of these issues are mitigated by using thorium.

[magnemoe]

There is a solution, it's called breeding, but nobody is really concerned about it because the volume of the waste is incredibly tiny and the danger is so easy to mitigate for thousands of years. Nuclear waste is not a problem, whatever Greenpeace or any other loopy people say.

And yes, we do have reactors that can use some of the waste. Ever heard of MOX fuel? It uses plutonium. It's recycling.

Using short lived radioisotopes for anything except specialized usage is not a technological obstacle, it's how the universe works. They are not fissile or fissionable so the solution is to either bury them in impenetrable caskets or to render them less dangerous in breeder reactors.

So yeah, breeding and MOX. Read about it. It's common nuclear energy knowledge.

None of these issues are mitigated by using thorium.

This, however using multiple smaller reactors has some benefits, one is safety the reactor will cool down faster, scaling is another, probably easier to certify.

However you will bundle them together in an pretty large plant as you still want the infrastructure to handle the nuclear material also to generate power more efficient.

[jwenting]

I think the biggest obstacle to this is not the technology, as it is possible to build self controlling nuclear reactor. But we have peoples that are claiming wifi is dangerous for our health, so they will go nuts if they hear about this

Then there is the environmentalists complaining about leakage and waste management, then peoples afraid that terrorists can use the reactor for dirty bomb... and so on

This.

Small self contained nuclear reactors (based on various principles) have been viable technically for decades but always blocked from entering production by politics (mostly fueled by the irate fear induced by environmentalists that every nuclear reactor is a bomb waiting to go off at the slightest touch).

- - - Updated - - -

That's also 50 years of development and infrastructure that has no solution to dispose of the waste, besides burying it deep underground and letting the next generation deal with the inevitable reality that even that isn't working properly, as numerous cases have shown. And no solution to dispose of the reactors and buildings themselves once their operational lifetime has ended, besides letting them sit there for a century and, again, letting the next generation deal with it. Out of sight, out of mind - how convenient!

Wrong.

I've worked in nuclear waste management. The technology exists and has existed since the 1970s to refine the waste, separate out those components that can't be reused, and reuse the rest.

What would have to be stored are tiny amounts of materials with short half lives, storage times for these would be measured in months to years, not decades.

You're talking about a few test tubes of materials per year from an average size nuclear power station.

But we're prohibited by law from doing that, law created as a knee jerk reaction in response to environmentalist fear mongering in the 1980s that drummed up the image in peoples' minds that all nuclear power stations are nuclear bombs, that nuclear waste is pure raw material to make nuclear bombs from and that the only way to prevent countries from doing that is to prohibit the refinement of nuclear waste into nuclear fuel and other useful materials.

These laws have made nuclear energy massively more expensive, both directly by removing a very viable source of raw materials for nuclear fuel (and making countries without Uranium deposits far more dependent on those that do have them, especially the USSR (now Russia), and indirectly by massively increasing the cost of waste disposal.

It is now known that those very protests and disinformation campaigns were in fact instigated and paid for in large part by the KGB as part of their anti-nuclear weapons campaigns in the west designed to weaken NATO.

[blou04]

To sum up, it's a viable idea that's just no going to happens because of the stigmatization of nuclear power?

[fairytalefox]

What would stop a suicide welder with a cutting torch from digging a hole to such reactor and gaining access to a mixture of highly active isotopes?

[SciMan]

I would imagine that even being close enough to the core to do damage to it would expose someone to enough gamma radiation to kill them before they even got out of the reactor building. If they did manage to create a core breach, the jet of superheated steam that comes from it would kill them. Kinda like boiling a lobster, but much quicker. It would literally cook them.

Additionally, the core breach created by one person with a cutting torch wouldn't cause the reactor to catastrophically fail. At most, it would make the control systems SCRAM the reactor, shutting it down until power plant workers can figure out what happened and fix it.

I forgot to mention, nuclear power plants are also surrounded by a big fence with video monitoring and armed guards, too. So any single person attacking a nuclear power plant on foot will almost certainly be caught or killed by the guards before getting anywhere near the reactors.

[blou04]

That's the question. Large power plants like today's are well protected(in most cases). Here, the idea is to put a encapsulated nuclear reactor underground where it's needed (factories, data center, and whatnot). If those reactors become widespread, some dumb suicidal person might access one. As it would work on nuclear waste, there would be no potential bomb material(as i understand, but not exactly sure) the only threat would be a voluntary radiation pollution. In french, it's "bombe sale", it's an explosive device containing radioactive material.

[jwenting]

To sum up, it's a viable idea that's just no going to happens because of the stigmatization of nuclear power?

Big part of it, yes.

The initial financial layout to develop them is also a big problem. Unless there's a company that's not driven by short term profits and/or there are massive subsidies to fund the development nobody's ever going to fund the R&D phase even if there were no other hurdles.

As you know most corporate funding is dictated by the interests of shareholders expecting a payout in at most 6 months, not 5-10 years. And most government funding is dictated by politicians expecting a payout (in votes...) in at most 4 years.

[blou04]

Big part of it, yes.

Unless there's a company that's not driven by short term profits and/or there are massive subsidies to fund the development nobody's ever going to fund the R&D phase even if there were no other hurdles.

Can someone please mail Elon Musk ?

[Reddragon]

On the TED site under the video it sais: "...and why it could be the next big step in solving the global energy crisis". Wow, a global energy crysis? I don't think the situation is dramatic with producing electicity...

[blou04]

On the TED site under the video it sais: "...and why it could be the next big step in solving the global energy crisis". Wow, a global energy crysis? I don't think the situation is dramatic with producing electicity...

In Belgium, we have fears of blackout during winter. But we still use our forty-years-old nuclear power plants (they were designed to work for 30 years). Medias keeps making fun of the decision of the government to keep using reactors that have 18cm (micro)-cracks. For those the other side of the ocean, it's 7 inches.

Having a reliable and carefree nuclear energy would be a solution to the energy crisis we are currently in.

PS: even if you think energy is still cheap enough no to call it energy crisis, wait 50 years when we'll be out of petrol.

Edited May 20, 2015 by blou04
typo

[PB666]

I recently watched this: http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors

It appears a really safe and reasonable idea. 30years of co2 free energy, without byproducts and virtually no pollution risks.

My question to you is this: Would it really be a good idea to use those reactors?

Please discuss.

English isn't my native language, please forgive any misused word.

I like nuclear if used in the right hands. Course you don't put a nuclear reactor on the San Andreas fault line or in Tsunami or Stormsurge prone area.

Nuclear has fewer overall deaths associated with it relative to any other form of power (excepting the chernobyl accident which was the result of really bad design and bad management). The problem with waste is more of a psychological problem that it is a real problem. We have several good storage sites, the problem is that people blow the risk out of proportion.

What does this have to do with space?

[fairytalefox]

I like nuclear if used in the right hands. Course you don't put a nuclear reactor on the San Andreas fault line or in Tsunami or Stormsurge prone area.

Nobody here said nuclear energy was bad. I just don't like this "let's put 10,000 little unguarded boxes full of hot isotopes everywhere and hope nobody is smart enough to snatch one of them" idea.

What does this have to do with space?

It is discussed by us wannabe rocket scientists in a proper wannabe rocket-scientific manner. According to the subforum rules, it's enough for it to be allowed here.

Edited May 20, 2015 by fairytalefox

[AngelLestat]

Yeah I dont like this idea.

They might be more safe than big nuclear reactors, yes.. but you also need many of these to remplace one big.

Big reactors are "safe", but still they have issues once over time. All the waste/fuel management is still a problem.

They might be safe from direct attack or accidents in the surface, the radiation can not escape to the atmosphere.. But the water we drink or the one that we use for irrigation still comes from underground.

This is not the energy solution for earth, because is still fission which it comes with many flaws, so they never will reach mass production, so the cost would not drop much.

This is not like solar panels or wind turbines, where they are really made with mass production techniques, that is why they drop so much the cost and they keep doing it.