Posted on 07/24/2013 9:21:40 AM PDT by ckilmer
send an email to me if you’re interested in a free copy of “Collapsing Water and Energy Costs: How Bill Gates [Or You!] Can Create the Inventions That Spark the Next Industrial and Agricultural Revolution”
http://www.amazon.com/kindle-store/dp/B0089Z7V6Y
Well someday we will probably be buying molten salt reactors froms china and paying the licensing fees to Microsoft...
Powered by Microsoft may appear on your fusebox...
Bluescreens will be BRUTAL!!!
Powered by Microsoft may appear on your fusebox...
*******
It will require never ending upgrades and patches to fix bugs.
There will be no more power outages. They will be power “issues”.
Microsoft greatest achievement, IMO, is the morphing of:
Screw-up
F***-up
Calamity
Crash
Catastrophe
Bungle
Error
Foul-up
Mistake
Failure
Into “issues”.
ping
Given the “quality” of Microsoft products, I do not want to be within a continent of any nuclear reactors even remotely associated with Bill Gates.
He was a good crook...er...businessman...but he’s not even remotely close to being a technology janitor.
India has a big chunk of the world's supply of thorium, so this would be a good thing for them.
How does Bill Gates change a light bulb?
He doesn’t. He declares darkness industry standard.
Yeah, but look on the bright side - reboot the reactor every so often and it should be just fine. And just think of it running under the Metro interface - one swipe of the finger and you could check your Facebook postings and start a planet-wasting nuclear disaster. What's not to like?
The only drawback from thorium reactors is that the waste generated is much worse than that from U/Pu reactors.
....
if we are talking about lftr reactors —this is 100% false.
The waste from lftr reactors is something on the order of 1% of the waste from light water uranium reactor. Heck the guy who invented light water reactors also invented thorium lftr reactors. Alvin Weinberg was the guy. He went to his grave saying the USA made a terrible mistake when it abandoned the lftr reactors.
And yeah I know both the Indians and the Russians had thorium programs —which they abandoned back in the 70’s & 80’s when the USA abandoned its thorium program.
There’s huge thorium deposits all over the world. But the lftr designs can also be used to burn up radioactive waste from uranium based reactors.
“if we are talking about lftr reactors —this is 100% false”
Exactly......I have been following this for a while now.
I think that there is a disinformation campaign going on.
What I cannot understand is why this technology was not perfected earlier. Simpler, safer, and an overall better choice.
Thorium is a better choice for fuel, and Sodium is a good choice for a cooling medium, as it operates at much higher temperatures, no pressurization, uses the fuel more efficiently, and burns the fuel out, leaving much less waste.
The down side? Starting one still requires Uranium, since thorium cannot self-start, the salt is very corrosive at these high temperatures, and the salt needs to be preheated before introducing it to the reactor. A reactor that is allowed to cool with the salt in it would be a real problem.
Life is full of Ups and Downs, I suppose.
The why is easy: it didn’t create nuclear warhead material.
I still believe that small concrete enclosed, lead lined, and sealed thorium sources used to generate steam and rated for individual households or subdivisions are the way to go. Once the source is worn out you do just like a carrier refuel and take out the whole module with a crane and replace it with a new one.
Heck for that matter Radon has an activity only ~4 times less than uranimum (~5.5 times less than thorium) but is major more prevalent in the soil and could potentially provide the necessary heat source given a larger pile.
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku (東北地方太平洋沖地震 Tōhoku-chihō Taiheiyō Oki Jishin?), often referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災 Higashi nihon daishinsai?)[8][9][10][fn 1] and also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake,[11] and the 3.11 Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on Friday 11 March 2011,[2][3][12] with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 30 km (19 mi).[2][13] It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and the fifth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.[12][14][15] The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture,[16][17] and which, in the Sendai area, travelled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland.[18] The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 2.4 m (8 ft) east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in)I think it's safe to say that the nuclear plant even continuing to exist w/ enough integrity not to lose everything is a pretty good testament to the safety of nuclear power.
In the case of LFTR waste, it tends to come out “hot” but it decays MUCH more rapidly than conventional LWRs.
In a one year scenario, a 1MgW LFTR reactor will generate a ton of waste of which 83% becomes inert within 10 years. This inert waste can be partitioned off and processed for secondary products such as medical isotopes, precious metals, magnets and gases.
The same can be said when a LFTR is used to burn up nuclear waste from Yucca Mountain. Useful byproducts are created in the burning up process.
Gas waste, such as Xenon and Krypton, can be continuously filtered off due to the fact that a LFTR has a liquid core and gases lift upward.
What people need to realize is that the Thorium decay cycle is quite different than the Uranium decay cycle. That’s whats so awesome about Thorium.
Is Nuclear Waste Really Waste?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv-mFSoZOkE
Energy From Thorium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8
I've spent several hours this week on You Tube watching lectures, seminars and conferences on Molten Salt Reactors. Google: "LFTR" and if you have a couple of hours "thorium remix"
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