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Fusion and Fission/LFTR: Let's Do Both, Smartly
TheRealHocusLocus writes: Disaster preppers have a saying, "two is one and one is none," which might also apply to 24x7 base load energy sources that could sustain us beyond the age of fossil fuel. I too was happy to see Skunkworks' Feb 2013 announcement and the recent "we're still making progress" reminder. I was moved by the reaction on Slashdot: a groundswell of "Finally!" and "We're saved!" However, fusion doesn't need to be the only solution, and it's not entirely without drawbacks.
All nuclear reactors will generate waste via activation as the materials of which they are constructed erode and become unstable under high neutron flux. I'm not pointing this out because I think it's a big deal — a few fusion advocates disingenuously tend to sell the process as if it were "100% clean." A low volume of non-recyclable waste from fusion reactors that is walk-away safe in ~100 years is doable. Let's do it. And likewise, the best comparable waste profile for fission is a two-fluid LFTR, a low volume of waste that is walk-away safe in ~300 years. Let's do it.
Why pursue both, with at least the same level of urgency? Because both could carry us indefinitely. LFTR is less complicated in theory and practice. It is closer to market. There is plenty of cross-over: LFTR's materials challenges and heat engine interface — and the necessity for waste management — are the same as they will be for commercial-scale fusion reactors. To get up to speed please see the 2006 fusion lecture by Dr. Robert Bussard on the Wiffle ball 6 plasma containment, likely the precursor to the Skunkworks approach. And see Thorium Remix 2011 which presents the case for LFTR.
All nuclear reactors will generate waste via activation as the materials of which they are constructed erode and become unstable under high neutron flux. I'm not pointing this out because I think it's a big deal — a few fusion advocates disingenuously tend to sell the process as if it were "100% clean." A low volume of non-recyclable waste from fusion reactors that is walk-away safe in ~100 years is doable. Let's do it. And likewise, the best comparable waste profile for fission is a two-fluid LFTR, a low volume of waste that is walk-away safe in ~300 years. Let's do it.
Why pursue both, with at least the same level of urgency? Because both could carry us indefinitely. LFTR is less complicated in theory and practice. It is closer to market. There is plenty of cross-over: LFTR's materials challenges and heat engine interface — and the necessity for waste management — are the same as they will be for commercial-scale fusion reactors. To get up to speed please see the 2006 fusion lecture by Dr. Robert Bussard on the Wiffle ball 6 plasma containment, likely the precursor to the Skunkworks approach. And see Thorium Remix 2011 which presents the case for LFTR.
It doesn't matter how safe modern fission designs are; the public fears it after several high profile disasters and that isn't likely to change.
What the hell am I reading?
>Disaster preppers have a saying, "two is one and one is none," which might also apply to 24x7 base load energy sources that could sustain us beyond the age of fossil fuel.
How does a non-nonsensical saying apply to energy? Explain yourself.
> I too was happy to see Skunkworks' Feb 2013 announcement and the recent "we're still making progress" reminder. I was moved by the reaction on Slashdot: a groundswell of "Finally!" and "We're saved!"
How did we move from crazy people sayings into nuclear energy? This is the worst written summary on /. in a very long time.
Also, learn what a comma is and how it's used. For the love of god, this reads like stream of consciousness passed through google-translate a few times.
The problem with Fission energy is that a "screwup" at any point means a run-away problem. We've had no less than 3 of these accidents, two of them were in recent memory (Chernobyl and Fukushima) where we will be having to deal with the consequences of "cheap" reactors.
Let's do things right, if any new nuclear facilities come online, they have to be "expensive" solutions that can not meltdown. If a reactor fails, be it from natural disaster, employee incompetence/training, corporate greed, or government beauracy, it must self-shutdown, even without power or cooling, otherwise it should not even be considered at all.
Fusion is considered a holy grail of energy production because it produces no waste, and has no risk of meltdown (but that doesn't mean that it's risk-free, if it explodes it will rain down radioactive parts just like a fission reactor would.)
I'm not entirely of the mind that fission plants should never be done, but past experience has shown that "capitalist" and "communist" ideas around nuclear energy are horrible "lowest bidder, highest risk" plans that should be thrown away and never have been considered. Just where are we going to bury all the existing radioactive nuclear reactor parts that are in operation right now? Launch them into space and hope they don't blowup on the launchpad?
If you've got a valid business plan, then get investors like any other business.
Nobody has built a large-scale reactor of this type. What we had and have is THTR300 and CANDU converting Thorium. What we figured was that is IS HARD, ENGINEERING-WISE. I am not saying we should not do it, quite the opposite. But -
Now we have a bunch of folks claiming that an unproven-in-reality concept is "easy". What year do we have ? 1317 ???
Better look at the record of CANDU and the Russian fast breeder. These things ACTUALLY WORK.
Fission is only "super-dangerous" if you compare it with unicorn fairy energy sources. REAL ones badly compare to fission in terms of people killed/TWh. Just figure how many people fall off roofs installing solar panels and divide that by the funny leccy you get from that. Or better, dont get in rainy days and need coal backup. Or better Gazprom-based backup like we Germans idiots do it.
screw you. Fusion has the potential to fuel all energy needs and future ones with minimal waste. How do you plan on creating solar panels with no energy? it costs a mountain of coal/gas/oil to produce. Solar has some big issues involving night time, scaling and expanding to meet future needs.
How will you launch rockets using solar? You won't. You'll never reach that level of energy production. You can with a fusion reactor.
Look at the three big reactor failures: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. All three were caused by human error. For Chernobyl, it was a dangerous design and running dangerous tests. For TMI, it was a less dangerous design, and they still screwed it up with bad procedures. For Fukushima, they made a series of globally bad design choices because they refused to consider realistic worst case external events. Plus they uncovered a flaw in the containment structure design that lead to the hydrogen explosions.
All of these are human error.
And it's not just reactors. The British Petroleum oil platform blowout in the Gulf of Mexico was human error. The sinking of the ferry Sewol in Korea was human error, as was the sinking of the Concordia off of Italy. BP also had a refinery blow up in Texas because of bad operations and ignoring a known problem with volatile fume leakage.
So no matter how secure a technology looks, it will still suffer a complete worst case failure. Assuming anything else is wishful thinking.
What's the worst case for LFTR? No one seems willing to even talk about it. It's remarkably like the head in the sand attitude that lead to the Fukshima disaster.
So here's a question: what happens when a molten salt containing fluorine, uranium, thorium and other miscellaneous radioactive elements comes in contact with water? Does it explode? Does it burn in air? How toxic are the substances entering the environment? (Trick question: both uranium and fluorine are very toxic elements. Fluorine forms many toxic compounds with carbon.) What is the equivilant explosive energy of tons of molten uranium salts?
If it is burning, how do you put it out? (Note: with fluorine compounds water is a bad idea. It's explosive.) How do you build a containment vessel that will withstand all of that? How will the cost of proper containment and emergency planning and equipment impact the economics of power generation?
A burning LFTR makes a burning graphite reactor seem like a campfire for a marshmallow roast. Good luck with that.
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