In Native Alaska, Nuclear Industry Pitches New 'Micro-Nuke'

Pacific News Service ^ | March 25, 2004 | Eric Mack,

[Willie Green]

Related thread: Village invited to test cheap, clean nuclear power (Galena, Alaska))

[listenhillary]

I want one for my car!!!

[shaggy eel]

[concordKIWI]

Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing!!!

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the ping!

Isn't it just a question of getting the engineering right?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Update!

[fourdeuce82d]

Thought the south africans were developing an even safer reactor, a pebble-bed job wherein the uranium in encased in billard ball saized grphite spheres, and uses helium as a heat transfer medium? Anybody here an update on that?

[JimRed]

...a liquid sodium-cooled reactor...

I know next to nothing about nuke technology, but isn't the object to create heat to be used to drive power generating equipment? Would more efficient use of the heat produced lessen the need for cooling?

Seems to me that whatever is being cooled is being wasted.

[hattend]

"Like anything new, it's going to have to be studied pretty closely before we agree to bring it in," Louden Village Council Chief Peter Captain told the Anchorage Daily News.

Translation: we'll study it to death until the window of opportunity passes us by.

It'll create lots of jobs bringing that reactor here and like oil drilling in ANWR we can't have that!

[Shryke]

Well, we do use the heat, alot of it, but those cores get really REALLY hot without constant cooling. Far hotter than what we can safely work with. It's an optimum temperature thing.

[dirtboy]

I know next to nothing about nuke technology, but isn't the object to create heat to be used to drive power generating equipment? Would more efficient use of the heat produced lessen the need for cooling?

I'm not a nuclear expert, but heat is a waste product of any system like this, and needs to be dissipated.

[hattend]

From previous thread:

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

At 10 cents a kilowatt that is less than I pay in Southern California.

[Willie Green]

Seems to me that whatever is being cooled is being wasted.

I think you're simply getting a little confused by the technical terminology.
In general, the reactor "coolant" (whether a gas or liquid) is then passed through a heat exhanger to tranfer the energy to whatever is used to generate the electricity.

For example, even in water-cooled reactors, the water that is heated by the reactor is not converted directly to steam to run the generators. It is cirulated through a heat-exchanger to heat a separate water supply. This is what assures that the radioactive contaminated coolant remains safely contained within the reactor while non-radioactive fluid (liquid or gas) is used to run the generators.

[JimRed]

Thanks for clearing that up!

[Willie Green]

You're welcome!

[Eska]

Hate the thought if the state ever did away with rural elec subsidy. My bill would be 500 rather than 100; what it was in Mat-Su.

One village, they won't sell any land to whites and are anti-everything in the name of environment. Next village, sell their land, soul, and just about anything of value to keep the booze flowing. Find both good and bad people in all villages though..

Few years back, Nick Begich had ideas about gas lines & wells in all the villages. Cheap, clean, and just about everywhere. The oil industry & politicals ended all that talk.

[Fledermaus]

yep...life would be horrible for you if you didn't live off the taxes of others.

[onyx]

yep...life would be horrible for you if you didn't live off the taxes of others.





LOL-LOL-LOL
I hate to laugh at something so damn true,
but the way you put it is uproariously funny.