Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Small Nuclear Reactors - Natrium
You Tube ^ | 24 June 2021 | Prof David Ruzic

Posted on 07/04/2021 7:44:36 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT

This video tells about the new exciting sodium-cooled, high-assay-low-enrichment-uranium (HALEU) fueled small nuclear reactor that was one of the winners of the DOE Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program competition and will be built over the next few years. It utilizes molten-salt storage of the heat generated by the nuclear reactor, so it can "follow-the-load". This type of system could be the future of nuclear power. The demonstration reactor is planned to be constructed at a retired coal power plant site in Wyoming, so the electrical generation equipment can be re-used.

(Excerpt) Read more at youtu.be ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Education; Science
KEYWORDS: infotainment
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-52 last
To: ckilmer

It’s been my experience, rich people who venture away from the industry that made them their fortune are very likely to lose a lot of their own money on things they don’t know much about. They are cocky and think they can accomplish anything they want.

A few get lucky and lightning strikes twice.


41 posted on 07/04/2021 9:55:25 AM PDT by toast
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Ozark Tom

Fast spectrum reactors must not have lots of materials with atomic numbers under 16 in them. The lower the number the better the neutron moderation effect measured in Barns. Hydrogen is the best, lithium, carbon and nitrogen all are also great moderators which must be avoided to keep the spectrum of the neutrons above 100ev. Fast spectrum reactors have the ability to breed more fuel than they use with U238 being fertile in a fast spectrum in addition to being fissile at the very hard end of the fast spectrum. Barring ocean uranium recovery which is in the lab stages today the World uranium reserves will only last 36 years if nuclear power was to replace fossil fuels in a 50% rate less if they replace 100% the math works out that if the world builds 6000 one gigawatt scale reactors of PWR , BWR or thermal spectrum gas cooled which would replace 50% of primary fossil fuels use on a direct BTU to BTU basis the world runs out of uranium in 36 years. Using high converter reactors such as CANDU heavy water reactors with a conversion ratio of .8 vs .6 for PWRs extends that time to 58 years.

Thermal reactor by their physics can only use 0.7% of the energy in natural uranium in a once through throw away cycle that the USA is forced to use. France and Japan reprocess their used fuel into MOX but again in a thermal spectrum GWD/THM is under 1.5%. Only fast spectrum reactors can use 100% of natural uranium energy content with reprocessing even a once through breed and burn cycle would approach 40% fission consumption of heavy metal in place. That’s at least 40 times the length of time or centuries of power. With integrated reprocessing that extends to millennia with not a single gram of newly mined uranium the amounts in storage around the world today will drive fast reactors for thousands of years with integrated reprocessing. This natirum reactor is the logical next step in nuclear power. Sodium is well suited for fast spectrum reactors, it has high thermal mass and a high boiling point so in a pool reactor there is no risk of loss of coolant by venting or boiling. Sodium also keeps the spectrum very hard allowing breed gains of up to 1.8 no other fluid comes close to that breed ratio. That means every fuel cycle nearly twice as much fissile fuel is created than is consumed generating power. One reactor in its 60 year life will spawn a daughter of equal size every 8 years or less. The reactor can and is passive safe with natural convection decay heat cooling. By removing the steam cycle and putting in inert salt then removed the one flaw of sodium it burns with water in the tiniest amount. Having salt next to sodium eliminates that issue completely. The pool itself is under triple layers of concrete and stainless steel with helium and argon cover gases. Molten sodium is handled in the millions of tons by industry every year it’s a well used and valuable industrial metal. The salt itself is not water soluble so in the event of a salt to steam generator break water cannot contaminate the salt. At 600+C you should not be using steam generator at all at those temps supercritical CO2 brayton cycles are 20% more efficient than Rankin steam cycles. CO2 being inert to the salt as well as molten sodium. They are using steam simply to repower the existing coal plants turbines on the cheap. A Greenfield project should use supercritical CO2 turbines which need no liquid cooling they use dry tower heat sinks so desert use is not limited by water for cooling. SCO2 also heat dumps at above 100C at the tail end of the turbine train this is perfect temps for vapor compression desalination tech.

Fast spectrum reactors are a must for the future of humanity. Unless fusion becomes a net energy producer in the next 30 years fast spectrum will be needed. Fusion hybrids make sense as well use the 14Mev neutrons to drive a uranium blanket into fast fission and breed huge amount of PU for use in daughter reactors. UT Austin has a design for a fusion fission breeder that could power 15 daughters with it’s fuel output all being 1 gigawatt electric in size.


42 posted on 07/04/2021 9:56:06 AM PDT by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Salamander

—”This post smelt of elderberries.”
Clearly impossible!

Because that is a FAKE hampster!
That appears to be pining for the fjords.


43 posted on 07/04/2021 10:10:12 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (("The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last message)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: JD_UTDallas

Nice write-up. Thanks.


44 posted on 07/04/2021 10:11:14 AM PDT by webstersII
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: JD_UTDallas

—” A Greenfield project should “

...Include district heating/ cooling.
IIRC some NYC district steam lines are over 100 years old!
Use every possible Btu. I heat most of my house with <100F water in radiant floor heating.
One problem, as the cost of energy drops, the cost of common pipelines no longer look to have pay back in a few years.

Like a Christmas tree, keep hanging more stuff on it.


45 posted on 07/04/2021 10:29:31 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (("The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last message)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: DUMBGRUNT

Absolutely, heat and cold can both be piped economically up to 50km. Most people think AC is the largest consumption of energy in the USA or the EU they would be wrong. Heating consumes more BTUs on an annual basis in both unions. Nuclear district heating could cut fossil energy consumption by 20 to 30% of the total energy consumed on an annual basis. The answer is physics heating is typically done with boilers, furnaces or electric resistance elements<<(60% of all Texas heating is electric resistance) all by the immutable laws of physics have a BTU in to BTU out less than 100%. HVAC is a reverse Carnot process and has a coefficient of performance based on its heat rejection temp and sink temp. For a typical HVAC with a output temp of 20C and an air heat sink at 33C the COP is 4 to 5 this means for every BTU of primary energy used 4 to 5 BTUs of heat is removed from the output stream. This is the reason AC will always be more efficient than heating. Heat pumps are the only way to have a COP with heating for a 10C outside to 25C heat pumping up hill the COP will be 2 to 3 at best.

Nuclear bottoming cycle heat should be used directly for district heating at 100 to 75C which at those temps 50 km runs are possible. 100C is more than enough to drive adsorption chillers or ammonia Rankin cycle coolers delivering 2C brines to a 50km cold pipe route.

Fast reactors have an advantage in load following they do not suffer from Xenon poisoning on power ramps due to xenon being nearly transparent to fast neutrons where as it is a huge thermal spectrum poison. You could cycle a fast reactor from 10% to 100% in a few tens of minutes if you didn’t care about thermal stress on the fuel cladding given metallic uranium sodium bonded cladding that a sodium fast reactor uses you can ramp up and down much faster than a PWR with no need to have a reactivity reserve to over come the xenon effect. This is why military sub reactors use HEU above 80% they must be able to ramp at will from near idle to flank speed and back to near idle many times and with no limits on the time.intervals between them. Fast reactors use high assay but still technically LEU or MOX in the 11 to 20% range well inside the IAEA limits for proliferation resistance.


46 posted on 07/04/2021 12:04:25 PM PDT by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: JD_UTDallas

THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

So many simple and proven (old) technologies for cooling, and more so when the cost of energy is low.

Years ago I toured a facility with then state-of-the-art absorption chillers, producing chilled water, heating water, and domestic hot water. Rated high 90% efficient. A big deal at the time.

Yes ~.9 COP but not as many moving parts as a heat pump/ lower cost.

The problem is that long-term planning is thought to be the time until the next election cycle in the USA.
Then subject to change.

Adding pipes or wires in an established city is massively expensive, and no one knows for certain what is under the streets.
A slow expensive process.


47 posted on 07/04/2021 2:24:29 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (("The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last message)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: DUMBGRUNT

“ —”I’m still saving up for an F-15.”

This guy recommends you purchase from a country that is hot and dry, like Australia. Low rust!”

—————————————————————————————————-

Graphite draws water vapor from the atmosphere and incites corrosion when used around aluminum. Hexagonal Boron Nitride, the “white graphite” has no affinity for moisture, does not promote corrosion.

Graphite use is banned around aluminum aircraft. HBN film deposition is suitable for use in vacuum for lubrication and limiting vacuum welding in aerospace applications.


48 posted on 07/04/2021 3:36:47 PM PDT by Ozark Tom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: DUMBGRUNT; All

Frankly Scarlett I hardly know where to start.

I guess I’ll start with my big problem.

That would be the Governor of WY buying into a Bill Gates program that is as yet in my opinion unproven, and a dream.

Number two would be the fact WY the energy State, home to the collapsing Coal industry.

Number three would be the 500 or so shuttered coal fired generating facilities. Many of which are not just shuttered, they are closed and torn down to the dirt they were built on.

It is Government and bureaucracy at all levels and the morons in the environmental industry that are driving the insanity, hoping so called renewables will fill the energy void.

It doesn’t take much sense at all to see the nonsense that is destroying the reliability of the electrical grid nationwide.

So, Mr Governor, why is it you are urinating on the industry your State was built on in the wild hope that Mr Gates and a yet to be named city and shuttered powerplant will offer something you seem excited about though a dream in someone’s head. It is not yet constructed nor has it produced one KW hour of electricity.

Oh, by the way the shuttered plant produced far more energy than the Gates plant is even forecast to produce.

The Governor in my opinion should be getting the Liz Cheney treatment.


49 posted on 07/04/2021 5:36:45 PM PDT by wita (Always and forever, under oath in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wita

==”Frankly Scarlett I hardly know where to start.”

Shirley, you jest!


50 posted on 07/04/2021 7:08:47 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (("The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last message)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: wita

The days of burning coal without massive expansive as in $100 million per plant or more in emissions control are over in the USA. It is almost assured that this plant lacked the triple layers of scrubbers. Even with scrubbers the emissions are not zero where as natural gas emits ZERO lead,Mercury,or particulates. Natgas does have some NOx from high temp combustion the levels are so low they meet EPA limits via specially designed combustion chambers or SCR is used down stream of the turbines. Natural gas has zero sulfur dioxide when burning sweet gas which all pipeline grade gas must be by law. Only gas plants burning flare gas or Y gas before the midstream plant will have any sulfur in it and Only if the gas source it self was sour.

Coal is a dead end technology best left in the dust bin of the 19th and 20th century. The simple fact is that even with millions in scrubbers coal will never be as clean as natural gas and gas will never meet nuclear power level of air cleanliness.
The costs to meet the emissions for coal to just barely pass the limits is exuberant and natural gas will meet and exceed those limits as will Nuclear without hundreds of millions in extra scrubbers. The days of burning coal at atmospheric pressure and letting the stack gasses go unfiltered into the air are over forever accept it and move into the 21th century.

As always peer reviewed science.

https://www.epa.gov/mats/cleaner-power-plants

Coal can be zero emissions oxy fired combustion can meet or beat the EPA regs for not only coal but natgas as well.

https://observer-reporter.com/business/consol-hoping-to-build-coal-fired-plant-with-zero-emissions/article_e1718c04-3a36-11eb-826b-e3287b12b0e2.html


51 posted on 07/05/2021 1:30:30 PM PDT by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: JD_UTDallas

Shirley ain’t no Jester.

Coal is a God given resource for the benefit of mankind. It serves no purpose sitting in the ground while the criminally insane revel in that position.

You are making my case with comments such as this: Coal is a dead end technology best left in the dust bin of the 19th and 20th century.

Sure allow insane environmentalists to control your life and a few billion other lives that matter.

Overnight were gonna change the world. A concept I vigorously disagree with. Coal vs natural gas is a concept that overtime has been proven to be financially dangerous due to the volatility of the price of gas, and that is just one variable. Gas requires pipelines, and they just aren’t all sized properly, our enough of them. Transitions take time and time is not a consideration for the insane.

As you have clearly stated in the EPA link, the EPA has bought into the ever shrinking timeline for the destruction of life as we have known it. They are not the friend of the average American that desires to live in a world of seventy degree temperatures indoors when the OAT is minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit or worse.

I suppose if we all start digging tomorrow, we could have our 55 degree underground house built by this winter. Coupled with south facing windows, and a good concrete solar collecting wall, we might on a good day get that 55 degrees up to a livable 70 during daylight.

I agree that nuclear technology is an option that is at the moment lagging severely behind, while the Navy is running Subs and small city sized Carriers on nothing but. In that regard, good luck convincing the populace much less the vaunted EEEEE PEEEEE AYYYYY.

Oh, and compared to coal there is no comparison. Just saw another article by the insane, attempting to make the case how much cheaper renewables are to other forms of energy production. As if cheap is the answer to everything. I’LL be giving due consideration to cheap when I’m freezing.

Wait just a moment I won’t be freezing, the house may be, but I will have two layers of long johns and a parka on so I’ll be ok until night when I have to sleep in the down bag with the same amount of clothing on. Not to mention when it’s time to take a nice hot shower or wash the heavy clothing necessary to sustain life in northern climes. I’m thinking the thinking required to believe the insanity is not called thinking.

...and then there is this: while coal has often been denounced as a notorious fossil fuel, a producer of climate-warming carbon emissions, Consol is viewing the resource as an ally that could be used at a plant that would result in zero carbon emissions – even negative emissions. In my opinion climate warming carbon emissions are the God given results of science built on a foundation of truth. Not the insane thinking of the moron class.


52 posted on 07/07/2021 5:03:27 AM PDT by wita (Always and forever, under oath in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-52 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson