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World's 'safest' nuclear reactor in India
The Press Trust of India ^ | THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 2005 03:45:33 PM | The Press Trust of India

Posted on 08/25/2005 4:11:34 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick

NEW DELHI: India unveiled before the international community on Thursday, its revolutionary design of a 'Thorium breeder reactor' that can produce 600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.'

Designed by scientists of the Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the ATBR is claimed to be far more economical and safer than any power reactor in the world.

Most significantly for India, ATBR does not require natural or enriched uranium which the country is finding difficult to import. It uses thorium -- which India has in plenty -- and only requires plutonium as 'seed' to ignite the reactor core initially.

Eventually, the ATBR can run entirely with thorium and fissile uranium-233 bred inside the reactor (or obtained externally by converting fertile thorium into fissile Uranium-233 by neutron bombardment).

BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the ATBR design in their paper presented at the week-long 'international conference on emerging nuclear energy systems' in Brussels. The design has been in the making for over seven years.

According to the scientists, the ATBR while annually consuming 880 kg of plutonium for energy production from 'seed' rods, converts 1,100 kg of thorium into fissionable uranium-233. This diffrential gain in fissile formation makes ATBR a kind of thorium breeder.

The uniqueness of the ATBR design is that there is almost a perfect 'balance' between fissile depletion and production that allows in-bred U-233 to take part in energy generation thereby extending the core life to two years.

This does not happen in the present day power reactors because fissile depletion takes place much faster than production of new fissile ones.

BARC scientists say that the ATBR with plutonium feed can be regarded as plutonium incinerator and it produces the intrinsically proliferation resistant U-233 for sustenance of the future reactor programme.

They say that long fuel cycle length of two years with no external absorber management or control manoeuvres "does not exist in any operating reactor."

The ATBR annually requires 2.2 tonnes of plutonium as 'seed'. Although India has facilities to recover plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel, it requires plutonium for its Fast Breeder Reactor programme as well. Nuclear analysts say that it may be possible for India to obtain plutonium from friendly countries wanting to dismantle their weapons or dispose of their stockpiled plutonium.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; india; iraq; israel; nuclear; nuclearplant; nuclearpower; nuke; thorium; uranium; weapones; wmd
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To: Wonder Warthog

For light reading:

Nuclear Energy by Raymond L Murray, Pergamon Press, 4th Ed 1993
ISBN 0-08-042125-3
This book does oversimplify some things, but if you have no background in
physics or things nuclear, it's not bad at all.

For heavy reading:

Basic Nuclear Engineering by Foster and Wright, Allyn and Bacon, 4th Ed
1983, ISBN 0-205-07886-9

Introduction to Nuclear Engineering by Lamarsh, Addison Wesley, 2nd Ed
1983, ISBN 0-201-14200-7

A pair of my undergrad texts, both clear and concise.

For really heavy reading:

Nuclear Reactor Engineering by Glasstone and Sesonske, VNR Co., 1967,
ISBN not given. Difficult to find anyway.


101 posted on 08/25/2005 7:16:13 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: Wonder Warthog; Moonman62
But all that aside--the electrostatic repulstion between even two all-positively charged is TINY compared to the energy imparted due to the mass difference. We're talking a few eletron volts vs MILLIONS of electron volts.

That doesn't sound right. Let's say the protons and mass are split in two equally so that the calculation is easy. Each nuclei would have a charge of about 73.6E-19 C. Let's also say that the two nuclei are separated initially by 10E-15 m. The energy in that electric field would be about 5E-11 J which is about 3E8 eV or 300 MeV. According to this, "a typical energy released by a fission event is approximately 200 MeV" so the electric repulsion of the two main products could easily explain the bulk of it.

However it is clear that not all of the energy released by fission can be explained that way since some of the products (neutrons and photons) are uncharged also carry away a lot of the energy. In fact, IIRC, the neutrons need to be slowed down by a moderator to captured and induce further fission reactions.

102 posted on 08/25/2005 8:08:00 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: Wonder Warthog
By grabbing electrons from other atoms. Many of the fission product nuclei are halogens (I-131 for example), and the final preferred charge state of any halogen to be negatively charged.

I-131 forms a diatomic molecule via a covalent bond. It is not "negatively" charged.

103 posted on 08/25/2005 9:22:53 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: Wonder Warthog

Themes > Science > Chemistry > Inorganic Chemistry > More Information about Chemical Bonding > The Covalent Bond

is based upon electron-pair sharing and is the attraction between two atoms that share electrons. A single covalent bond is a bond in which two atoms are held together by sharing two electrons.

Each positive nucleus is attracted toward the region of high electron density between them:





1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p2 3p2 3p1 3p1 3p2 3p2 3s2 2p6 2s2 1s2

The bonded atoms come close enough together for their electron clouds to overlap.

Covalent bonds form between atoms when ionic or metallic bonding is unlikely because the gain or loss of electrons requires large amounts of energy.


104 posted on 08/25/2005 9:54:45 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: Wonder Warthog; Gengis Khan

http://au.biz.yahoo.com/050822/17/7qz2.html
Another example of fanatic safety standards of american companies


105 posted on 08/26/2005 1:04:05 AM PDT by Arjun (Skepticism is good. It keeps you alive.)
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To: WildTurkey
"I-131 forms a diatomic molecule via a covalent bond. It is not "negatively" charged."

Eventually, yes. But it's native preference is to have an extra electron. Until it slows down enough to actually FORM that covalent bond, the probability is high that it will be negatively charged.

106 posted on 08/26/2005 4:33:01 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: WildTurkey
"It was your other idea that it was electrical forces were not involved that was errant."

If I gave the impression that I thought electrical forces "were not involved", then I apologize. CERTAINLY they provide some small fraction of the energy, but by far the largest part is provided by the disappearance of mass, which energy appears as velocity of the fission fragments.

"Moonman"'s assertion was that all the energy release was provided ONLY by that electrostatic repulsion.

107 posted on 08/26/2005 4:39:19 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: WildTurkey
""- the fission fragments - which are propelled in opposite directions as a result of the electrostatic repulsion between them.""

SURE they do---but ALL the energy imparted to the fission fragments is NOT the sole result of electrostatic forces, which is what "Moonman" was asserting.

108 posted on 08/26/2005 4:41:16 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: WildTurkey
"Basic Nuclear Engineering by Foster and Wright, Allyn and Bacon, 4th Ed 1983, ISBN 0-205-07886-9"

Well, my copy is "only" the 2nd edition, but I doubt that the basics of nuclear fission have changed in the interim.

109 posted on 08/26/2005 4:44:01 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: Wonder Warthog; WildTurkey; edsheppa; Physicist
Basic Nuclear Engineering by Foster and Wright, Allyn and Bacon

I too have this book, however, mine is the third edition.

From one of my shelves (some other nuclear specific books I have enjoyed and kept) since we are talking books:

Fast Breeder Reactors Alan E. Waltar and Albert B. Reynolds
Introduction to Atomic and Nuclear Physics - Henry Semat
Fast Reactor Safety - John Graham
Atomic Energy - Glasstone
Minerals for Atomic Energy - Nininger
Cerenkov Radiation - J. V. Jelley
Nuclear Reactor Materials and Applications - Benjamin M. Ma
Pile Neutron Research - Hughes
Nuclear Radiation Physics - Lapp and Andrews
Introduction to Synchrotron Radiation - Giorgio Margaritondo
Nuclear Statistical Spectroscopy - S.S.M. Wong
Fusion Research - Dolan (Vol 1)
Fusion - Weston M Stacey, Jr (Magnetic Confinement Fusion)
Fusion Plasma Analysis - Weston M Stacey, Jr
Theory of Hydromagnetic Stability - Bhimsen K. Shivamoggi
MHD Instabilities - Glen Bateman
Yukawa Couplings and the Origins of Mass (Conference Proceedings and Lecture notes) Edited by Pierre Ramond
Principals of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis - Donald D. Clayton
Statistical Plasma Physics (Vols I and II) - Setsuo Ichimaru

Hope this did not come across wrong. These are books I liked and thought if you saw one of them in a book store, you too may want to take a gander thru it.

(You all probably have most of these anyway)

110 posted on 08/26/2005 5:36:59 AM PDT by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: WildTurkey

Well, let me steate what is KNOWN.
1. A company gets complete plans to build a nuclear reactor power plant.

2. The Atomic Energy Commission approves THOSE plans.

3. The AEC changes it's mind and forces the company to re-engineer and rebuild large parts of the project, often AFTER that portion has already been built even though no defect or problem has been shown to exist.

4. Repeat step #3 monthly for the next 20 years and MAYBE you will get your plant online.

NO ONE is even in the planning stages for a nuclear power plant because there is literally no way to budget for one. A project that ought to cost $900 million might end up costing $7 BILLION. It HAS happened time after time in the US.


111 posted on 08/26/2005 5:50:55 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (G-d is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
A project that ought to cost $900 million might end up costing $7 BILLION. It HAS happened time after time in the US.

Look at the ISS as an example.

112 posted on 08/26/2005 5:54:07 AM PDT by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: RadioAstronomer

Dude! You are a thread killer. Sigh.


113 posted on 08/26/2005 1:30:50 PM PDT by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: Wonder Warthog
Eventually, yes. But it's native preference is to have an extra electron. Until it slows down enough to actually FORM that covalent bond, the probability is high that it will be negatively charged.

I don't think so but I would be happy to entertain a link ...

114 posted on 08/26/2005 3:10:59 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: Wonder Warthog
If I gave the impression that I thought electrical forces "were not involved", then I apologize. CERTAINLY they provide some small fraction of the energy, but by far the largest part is provided by the disappearance of mass, which energy appears as velocity of the fission fragments.

I don't think a PhD in physics would make such a statement.

115 posted on 08/26/2005 3:13:06 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: Wonder Warthog

Just so we are clear ...

Here's a quote from a REAL nuclear science text (Nuclear Reactor Engineering, Glaasstone and Sesonske).

"- the fission fragments - which are propelled in opposite directions as a result of the electrostatic repulsion between them."


116 posted on 08/26/2005 3:16:02 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
Well, let me steate what is KNOWN.

1. A company gets complete plans to build a nuclear reactor power plant. They don't get complete plans to build a nuclear power plant.

2. The Atomic Energy Commission approves THOSE plans. There is no AEC.

3. The AEC changes it's mind and forces the company to re-engineer and rebuild large parts of the project, often AFTER that portion has already been built even though no defect or problem has been shown to exist. FALSE.

4. Repeat step #3 monthly for the next 20 years and MAYBE you will get your plant online. Whatever. Not proven by experience.

117 posted on 08/26/2005 3:20:13 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: WildTurkey
"I don't think so but I would be happy to entertain a link..."

Look in your freshman chemistry text.

118 posted on 08/26/2005 3:21:58 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: WildTurkey
"- the fission fragments - which are propelled in opposite directions as a result of the electrostatic repulsion between them."

I say again--I am contending that "Moonman"'s assertion that ONLY electrostatic repulsion is the source of the energy is incorrect. OF COURSE the fission fragments are propelled in opposite directions as a result of electrostatic repulsion---but I don't believe that ALL THE ENERGY of the "mass difference loss" shows up ONLY as a result of electrostatic repulsion.

119 posted on 08/26/2005 3:26:48 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: Wonder Warthog
Look in your freshman chemistry text.

I did. It says you are wrong.

120 posted on 08/26/2005 3:44:40 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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