Posted on 06/15/2016 10:36:50 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Launch unlikely to boost uranium prices in near term
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The U.S. saw a nuclear reactor come online this month for the first time in 20 years, and more are set to follow—proving that nuclear power is alive and well in a post-Fukushima disaster world.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Good news! Next-gen nuclear is essential going forward...
fyi
Is this a thorium reactor?
That’s great!
Now let’s hope that the emergency generators are above the high water level.
Watts Bar was an unfinished Gen III reactor that was mothballed 25 years ago. While it is good news it is hardly Next Gen. If they ever complete Vogtle 3 and 4 then we will have the the next gen here.
It's hardly well. Fukushima is still poisoning the Pacific and yet we don't hear about it.
With all of our natural gas reserves we should use more natural gas plants. They are cheaper to build & maintain and don't produce waste that remains dangerous for thousands of years.
The generation beyond that - Thorium-fueled Molten Salt reactors, which have a MINIMAL production of radioactive “ash”, and more importantly, consume existing stockpiles of unreprocessed nuclear waste from uranium-fueled atomic power plants.
The process has gone far beyond the experimental stage, and the technology is being developed in India, which has an abiding and growing need for relatively inexpensive electrical power generation, as they lack adequate fossil fuel capacity or developed hydroelectric capacity.
“Watts Bar was an unfinished Gen III reactor that was mothballed 25 years ago. While it is good news it is hardly Next Gen. If they ever complete Vogtle 3 and 4 then we will have the the next gen here.”
I was actually referring to true next-gen reactors which companies like Thorcon and Transatomic are designing. No water cooling needed, completely meltdown proof, and able to utilize almost all of the nuclear fuel rather than just a few percent. In fact, they will be able to use “nuclear waste” to produce power, converting almost all of it to inert matter and eliminating the “but what do we do with the waste?” objection. Thorcon expects its design to produce power for 3-5 cents per KWH.
In many designs the nuclear (Uranium) fuel is dissolved in molten fluoride salt coolant as uranium tetrafluoride (UF4).
Put one in Vegas and dump the waste ay Yucca.
Nuclear Power. Like garlic to a vampire, nuclear power is to every “true believer” global warming hypocrite.
“It’s hardly well. Fukushima is still poisoning the Pacific and yet we don’t hear about it.”
Nonsense. The Bikini Atoll tests alone put FAR more radioactive material into the Pacific, with no lasting effects.
“With all of our natural gas reserves we should use more natural gas plants. They are cheaper to build & maintain and don’t produce waste that remains dangerous for thousands of years.”
The natural gas reserves won’t last very long in the big scheme of things, and nuclear will be cheaper going forward. The waste “problem” is very solvable, both by more completely using the fuel and with a better approach to disposal. I favor the mid-Pacific subduction zone myself. Deposit the material on the sea floor in suitable packaging and let subduction take it into the mantle. Simple!
What is next generation about that reactor? Unit 2 construction began in 1973 and was halted until a few years ago.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors are the future. They operate at high temperatures, are fail safe (quit reacting above normal operational temps) and consume nuclear materials quite unlike the Unit 2 reactor just started up.
Nothing new either. We developed the tech in the 60’s and went with breeder reactors instead to support DoD requirements for materials.
China is investing heavily in LFTRs. Meanwhile, we waste time & money in solar and wind.
Truth is that the waste "problem" is not an engineering problem: it's a POLITICAL problem. The nuclear waste that is now submerged in pools could be reprocessed, except for federal regulations that ban reprocessing. And the amount of waste that's left over after reprocessing could easily be sequestered for millennia in Yucca Mountain, if not for the NIMBY effect.
There's only one reactor that that meets this criteria: the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, a reactor where the fuel is commonly-found thorium-232 dissolved in molten fluoride salts. And both China and India are building test reactors to see if Alvin Weinberg's research done in the 1960's could be scaled up to a commercial reactor.
Worked there a while back.
We were refurbishing the turbine blades for the reactor 1 unit turbine while standing in the reactor 2 unit turbine floor.
(Outside the radcon barriers this time.)
New Vogtle 3 and 4 units on-line in Georgia to be followed by VC Summer 2 and 3 next door in SC in a few years. Not exactly a resurgance, but definitely the right direction.
And by the way, the Yucca Mountain fiasco, de-railing a final repository for nuclear reactor spent fuel, was yet another example of the 0oobomma administration unconstitutionally trashing a duly enacted law (Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982). A NRC Chairman (formerly Harry Reid chief-of-staff) was selected just to accomplish this goal, he brought a suitcase full of wrenches to throw into to that before driven out of office for incompetence.
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