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To: george76

Thorium nuclear.


11 posted on 12/01/2020 5:20:05 PM PST by ecomcon
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To: ecomcon

A fabric impervious to weather that stiffens into a shape tailored to the owner’s preferences and capable of unguided transport at any speed from 1-500 mph and altitudes from 0 to 5,000 ft. Collision avoidance included. Travel coordinates subject to restriction. Wheels optional.


36 posted on 12/01/2020 5:43:50 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew (I'd rather have a rude President than a polite tyrant.)
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To: ecomcon

Thorium was originally proposed to fix the proliferation issues. But U-233 works pretty well for making “Big Boom”.

And Thorium reactors make it, just like Uranium reactors make Plutonium.

I prefer the Uranium cycle. At least until we run out of it. Then I will prefer the Thorium cycle.

Ideally, at some point, we have fusion mastered, long before we dig all the heavy metals out of the ground, and burn it up in fission reactors.

Also, many people don’t realize that Chernobyl was running on “dirt”, which is to say, unenriched natural U238. Though some reports still say it was (at a level of 1 to 2%).

But you can do that with Graphite or Heavy Water. But when you do it with graphite, and you boil away all of your water, the reaction doesn’t stop, until the reactor undergoes self disassembly and the fuel assembly geometry is disturbed. There are reports that indicate Chernobyl may have been operating in uncooled, fully exposed, criticality for at least a few seconds after the lid came off (fishermen told stories of seeing actinic light beaming upward, just after the explosion, before they died a few days later).

At least in Heavy Water reactors, like the Candu reactors, they slow down from lack of water, or when they boil their coolant. They won’t even rupture since they can’t exceed a maximum power output, since when voids form in the heavy water, the reaction also slows down.


79 posted on 12/01/2020 7:20:38 PM PST by Aqua225 (Realist)
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