You're welcome,
Ironically I happen to live on Thoria Rd. but
I'm just not sold on Thorium... yet.
The operating temperatures are just so high,
it makes me skeptical that material science has advanced sufficiently
to allow a core to be designed that can withstand the heat for
the expected life of any significant power plant.
7
Here it is!
Dig in!!!
Everything you wanted to know.
It would look nice in the open area west of the windmill!
Fascinating old technology. I once worked at the origional sight near 16th and Meyers Rd.
Contrasting old/new.
https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/4S.pdf
The 4S operation without on-site refuelling is one of the keystones for the reactor application
in rural areas, for a variety of reasons. The core and fuel lifetime as well as the plant lifetime
would be approximately 30 years; the fuel in the 4S does not need to be reloaded or shuffled
during the plant lifetime. The fuel is just installed when the 4S is constructed at a site.
Therefore, the concept of “annual flow of fuel and non-fuel materials” is of somewhat limited
meaning for the 4S.
...The 4S is a sodium cooled reactor; therefore, its primary system is “non-pressurized”. Hence,
if sodium leakage occurs, the leak rate is quite small and the leaked sodium is retained by the
second boundary, i.e., by the guard vessel, in all cases provided by the design; therefore, the
core is always immersed in sodium. In case of a failure of the first boundary, both shutdown
and normal shutdown heat removal systems operate