Posted on 03/20/2010 7:57:56 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
(picture) - at the time, the world's fastest - the subs were the bane of American sailors. Now, the reactors that powered those submarines are being marketed as the next innovation in green power.
Environmentalists say the technology is outdated and potentially dangerous, and marketing it as green energy is an abuse of nuclear power's good green name.
The Russians are not alone in pushing the idea that the next generation of nuclear reactors should have more in common with the small power plants on submarines than the sprawling installations of today.
But the kinds of marine reactors the Russians are promoting also create a by-product - used fuel - that no one knows how to handle. Right now, that spent fuel is being stored at naval yards in the Russian Arctic. No engineering solution has yet been devised to decontaminate the fuel.
In fact, the technology caused a number of mechanical accidents when it was used in Soviet submarines from the 1970s until the early 1990s.
Mr Kirill Danilenko, the director of Russian company Akme Engineering, said the technology could be made safe, with no greater risk of meltdown than that at a larger nuclear plant. His vision is that small reactors will become so common that utilities firms can connect them and "build power plants like Lego sets".
This is still years from being realised. The first Russian design, a pontoon-mounted reactor intended to be floated into harbours in energy-hungry developing countries, is already being built.
The plans are going ahead in Russia and elsewhere in the face of criticism that a diffuse nuclear infrastructure - the idea that many mid-sized cities, for example, could have their own small reactor - is inherently risky.
(Excerpt) Read more at todayonline.com ...
“But the kinds of marine reactors the Russians are promoting also create a by-product - used fuel - that no one knows how to handle. Right now, that spent fuel is being stored at naval yards in the Russian Arctic. No engineering solution has yet been devised to decontaminate the fuel. “
BS, we already know what to do with but the Democrats won’t let us. Carter’s ‘no reprocessing’ EO which became a congress-passed law is why we have so much nuclear waste.
Nuclear fuel can be reprocessed and reused over and over until about only 1% of the original mass is left.
I agree
Russian nuclear reactors in my back yard? Oh, hell no.
Bingo! The FRENCH solved this one long ago. God bless the French!
Completely correct!
There are reactors that are clean and also can handle nuclear waste.
Ooops? What do you mean "Ooops!"? There's no "Ooops" in nuclear fission...
At least some of those Soviet reactors used liquid sodium as the primary coolant.
I don’t know who makes those reactors, but they should have been promoting the safe power on subs and aircraft carriers years ago. I’ve been suggesting it since 2002.
WE solved it - that ‘French’ tech was bought from Westinghouse in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
But then Cahtah wanted to ‘send a message’.... which nobody listened to.
I think I’d feel safer with the nuke plant from a US sub, rather than a Russki one.;o)
I agree.
The nuclear industry has been pointing this out for decades, but nobody’s been listening because was drowned out by the hysterical screams of the irrational nuke haters.
Some of which are now coming to regret their former positions.
I’d be OK with a US Navy sub/ship reactor in my backyard, but I wouldn’t want a Russian one in the farthest corner of my state, and I live in he second largest state, after Alaska.
Do an online search for “thorium energy”. THAT’S what we need.
While you and I “know” they have said this -they don’t run advertising which is how the majority of Americans get their Points of View. They don’t push the story in newspapers or send out mailings that may get attention. Heck they could spend 5 million a year in ads, mail and pr to get 100s of millions in sales - they dropped the ball.
Carter was a Navy reactor officer and so familiar with the technology & physics behind fission reactors — intimate with it. Why do you suppose he chose to scr3w the entire industry like that?
Because he was a Democrat and thought that messages and gestures for ‘world peace’ were more important than preservation of America.
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