Slashdot Mirror
Nuclear Power Could See a Revival
shmG writes "As the US moves to reduce dependence on oil, the nuclear industry is looking to expand, with new designs making their way through the regulatory process. No less than three new configurations for nuclear power are being considered for licensing by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The first of them could be generating power in Georgia by 2016."
honestly, this is 20 years overdue.
Maybe nuclear power just needed time to reach critical mass...
Now, if we could only reprocess the damn fuel we'd have a clean method of power generation with very little overall waste for a couple hundred years at least.
The beauty of some of the new reactor designs is that they use old radioactive waste as their fuel source. By some people's estimates we have about two centuries worth of fuel for the energy needs of the entire United States just in our existing stockpiles of nuclear waste. Not only would we not have to mine additional fuel, we would be significantly reducing the amount of waste that we need to store.
Here's a TED talk that covers the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I
By the end of life of these new reactors, solar should be cheap, efficient and plentiful.
The biggest issue I have with using nuclear energy for power in a widespread fashion is that it is the most dense source of energy known to man by far, and once used it's gone. Future space exploration and colonization will probably require nuclear fuel, especially if it's beyond the solar system.
Meanwhile we have deserts that are receiving orders of magnitude more solar energy than the world currently uses, that could be harvested using technology we have today.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Actually, thorium should not be anymore complex (probably simpler) than a uranium/plutonium based reactor. But all the years of the cold war and the lure of nuclear weapons has prompted all the engineering to be spent on uranium/plutonium reactors. It's not a physics problem. It's just that since all the current reactors are uranium/plutonium, the engineering is far more developed. From a physics standpoint, thorium is well understood. But from an engineering perspective it is mostly still experimental. If energy production is your only motive, eventually thorium has to win over current conventional reactor designs. It's just a matter of time. Heck, even with the current reactors, the main reason we have nuclear waste is because we do not reprocess fuel. You can thank Jimmy Carter for that decision too. But fast breeders that would have used the waste make it easier to get the resources to build weapons too. War sucks. We need LFTR's!!!!!!
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
Following hot on the heels of, "American manufacturing is dying because of the unions," we'll see, "America lacks nuclear reactors because of the environmentalists."
America lacks nuclear reactors because we have a strong oil lobby tied with government, and America lacks manufacturing because it's cheaper to outsource somewhere with lower CoL and a glut of desperate workers. In each case, precisely as is logical, it's the people in control who get to make the decisions and not some group convenient to demonise.
They take so long to build... and they're so bloody expensive.
Name me one nuclear power station that actually went into operation and stayed within budget while it was constructed, operated and shut down agian. Generally speaking, those things become 2-3 times more expensive, and the shutdown and waste treatment and storage are almost never included in the financial picture before construction starts.
I agree that it seems sustainable. I agree that it's good to consider it - but at least include the entire life-cycle of the damned things before you build them.
A lot of people talk big on Nuclear Energy as a solution to our energy needs, but when it comes to actually deciding where to build the reactor, or where to put the waste, no one wants any part of it. I don't see any cities or counties volunteering to house a Nuclear power plant or nuclear waste any time soon...
CANDU can already use spent fuel (along with dismantled warheads)
(according to wiki)
*CANDU fuel can be manufactured from the used (depleted) uranium found in light water reactor (LWR) spent fuel.*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candu#Fuel_cycles
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Now, if we could only reprocess the damn fuel we'd have a clean method of power generation with very little overall waste for a couple hundred years at least.
Integral Fast Reactors
On-site reprocessing of fissile materials to feed the reactor, with only minor extra fuel input required (almost 1.0 ratio reacted fuel, after reprocessing) and can be used to "burn" waste products of other reactors.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Nuclear power is one of the cleanest sources of power we have so far. Now if Obama will correct the damn stupid mistake Carter did, things will be a heck of a lot better. Yes, we have a nuclear waste problem and it's a large one. But it's not a technical problem, it's a political problem. President Carter back in 1977 issued a directive that stopped reprocessing of civilian nuclear waste. Mind, the US nuclear industry was built with the assumption that waste reprocessing would be available. So the result is that we have more waste than planned for being stored for longer periods than planned for, all because of a decision to change the way things were done. And said decision was made without putting into place an alternate method of handling the waste. Yes people, we have a nuclear waste issue, and if Obama can reverse the brain dead stupid decision made 33 years ago, that would be one of the best possible things he could do for the United States. But some people still hear the word "nuclear" and suddenly their brains and reasoning turn off and they start thinking worse case issues and problems ignoring the fact that many of the problems are political and not technical. What about cost overruns? Well, stop dragging them into court attempting to stop construction. What about the nuclear waste? See the beginning of this post people. What about Three Mile Island? Your point is? The safety measures worked and the public never was in danger. During TMI, they debating for *three days* about whether or not to evacuate the area. Next time a damn bursts, be sure to take three days to come to the decision about heading for high ground. The safety measures *worked* even though the operators practically did everything they could to screw things up.
Highlights in the past 4 years:
Source
And of course, the article that was for this story has more information. But who reads that?
Except there WAS a demonstration LFTR reactor built at Los Alamos and operated for several years back in the 50s and 60s.
LFTR has several advantages over Uranium based reactors.
We don't have to change EVERYTHING for Thorium RIGHT NOW, but maybe we should be start investigating LFTR technology again so that a decade or two from now so we WILL HAVE a safer, more reliable alternative to Uranium based reactors.
Yeah, I know, LFTR reactor is redundant.
Captainpanic wrote :
Name me one nuclear power station that actually went into operation and stayed within budget while it was constructed, operated and shut down agian.
Sizewell B, a PWR that I was involved in building in the UK, was built within its time and cost budget. Hasn't shut down yet so I can't answer the last part.
Name me one nuclear power station...
I hereby christen thee "Sir One Nuclear Power Station."