Posted on 06/29/2014 7:17:33 AM PDT by ckilmer
A next-generation fast breeder reactor design is gaining popularity in research circles.
On 6 June, UK researchers Jasper Tomlinson and Trevor Griffiths won £75,000 in Technology Strategy Board funding (including £20,000 of contributions-in-kind) to carry out an eight-month feasibility study.
The project, which will be managed by mechanical engineer Rory O'Sullivan, aims to develop a ranking of alternatives and configurations of a liquid-fuelled molten-salt reactor, including costs, regulatory, public acceptance and site issues for building and licensing a pilot-scale demonstration reactor in the UK. It would aim to prepare the ground for a full engineering design for the chosen option, to present to potential investors.
"There isn't an MSR currently operating anywhere. If people could look at one, their conception of nuclear power would entirely alter. They are nothing like the present PWR setup. They are so extraordinarily different. That is what we are trying to do," says Jasper Tomlinson, whose small business Energy Process Developments will be carrying out the work starting in September at the earliest, subject to signing a contract.
The Alvin Weinberg Foundation is a London-based charity advocating for Gen IV reactors and thorium fuel, lists seven current international MSR projects: Ian Scott's Moltex project in the UK, Elsa Merle-Lecotte's EVOL project in France, the US Transatomic Power project, David LeBlanc's Terrestrial Energy project in Canada, Kirk Sorensen's Flibe Energy project in the USA, Motoyasu Kinoshita's Fuji Reactor project in Japan, and Hongjie Xu's MSR Project in China.
On 19 May Atkins nuclear technical director, Paul Littler, and consultant Barry Snelson gave a lecture in Warrington entitled, 'Fission's future: Molten Salt Reactors - can they be the answer?'
In the talk, Littler said that there are some 18 different varieties of MSR. All use fuel in molten form; the salt consists of a chemical solution mixture of actinides, thorium, plutonium and uranium as halides. Temperatures are up to 800°C, so significantly hotter than LWRs, but because salts' boiling points are almost double that (1400°C) a pressurised primary system is not required.
According to the Weinberg foundation, MSRs have several benefits over current LWRs: molten fuel allows 30 times greater burnup than solid fuel, eliminates the risk of LOCAs since the coolant is also the fuel, and the molten salt fuel is not chemically reactive, so the fuel simply solidifies if it leaks out.
Littler of Atkins said that the reactor also allows the breeding of uranium from fertile thorium, which is three times more abundant than uranium in the earth, and in terms of fuel-grade deposits is perhaps 100 times more abundant.
Littler said that MSRs could fill the gap between the end of the current generation of nuclear reactors and the development of commercial fusion power, and start up about 2050.
A liquid sodium reactor is a whole different kettle of fish than a molten salt reactor.
Regards,
That's HOT! 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit. Are there known materials that can maintain their integrity while being constantly exposed to that kind of heat for the expected lifespan of the reactor?
Reality is difficult a concept for the anti-nuke, anti-power, population control, crowd to combat in open debate.
That is why they try to silence debate about AGW, with lies about “scientific consensus”.
That is why they shut down the Keystone Pipeline, and obstruct all meaningful methods of energy development.
They are so conflicted that after decades of promoting solar and wind power, they invent dumb excuses to stop solar farm development in the desert, when they find multi-megawatts of power will actually be generated.
That new material OBAMIUM (an amalgam of bull shit, highly concentrated hydrochloric acid and bile) is capable of ignoring that sort of “heat” for decades.
The 747 went from concept to first flight in 28 months. How long did the Dreamliner take? YEARS. It isn’t just the government. We have forgotten how to “make” things.
The expected lifespan of such reactors is quite short, due to the problem of containing extremely corrosive materials at very high temperatures.
This is the kind of problem that Engineers love and solve in the normal course of their profession. Turn them loose on it and they will come up with solutions.
A world without OPEC or any similar cartel is possible and could be made real in an astonishingly short time frame.
Seawolf was the same basic "double hull" twin-screw submarine design as her predecessor (USS NAUTILUS/SSN-571), but her propulsion system was much more technologically advanced. Carrying a liquid sodium, epithermal, superheated, more powerful, reactor and steam powerplant, rather than an alternative [light water reactor/saturated steam plant], reduced the size of the machinery in the engineering spaces nearly 40%. Her liquid-sodium cooled epithermal reactor was more efficient than a "light water"-cooled thermal system, quieter, and presumably better system, but posed, presumably and arguably, several safety hazards for the ship and crew.
Primary system pressure was 15 psig and the only moving part in the primary system was the liquid sodium which was magnetically pumped by electromagnets external to primary piping. The phrase "Blue Haze" was often associated with the boat, which was Cherenkov radiation, visible on a dark night, in the sea water surrounding the hull, outboard of the reactor compartment, during the decay of radioactive 24Na in the primary system over essentially the first half life (15 hrs).
There was only one coolant leak ever noted, and that was during fitting out in the yards. However the super-heaters suffered from tube sheet welding cracks which allowed high pressure steam to leak into the low pressure primary system and react with the sodium to form sodium hydroxide and H2. Sodium also has a small fission capture cross section which formed 3H as a free gas in the primary system. This complicated system operation since 3H is radioactive, would mix with the H2 from Na-H2O reaction and had to be contained.
The Atomic Energy Commission historians' account of the sodium-cooled reactor experience was:
Although makeshift repairs permitted the Seawolf to complete her initial sea trials on reduced power in February 1957, Rickover had already decided to abandon the sodium-cooled reactor. Early in November 1956, he informed the Commission that he would take steps toward replacing the reactor in the Seawolf with a water-cooled plant similar to that in the Nautilus. The leaks in the Seawolf steam plant were an important factor in the decision but even more persuasive were the inherent limitations in sodium-cooled systems. In Rickover's words they were "expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolong shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair."
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OK, extract it.
Give us an update when you or anyone else have a viable pilot project running.
Brit article, pffft. The Chicoms and Indians have gobbled up all the ORNL Thorium Salt Reactor info they can find and are running with it. That little island is far too egocentric to advance much.
Long overdue technology though. As some have pointed out, it has been done and the reactor at Oak Ridge ran well for quite some time. The problem, as I understand it, is building a continuous process that will remove contaminants of spent fuel and recharge the salt with new fuel instead of the batch process used in the ORNL reactor. This is a very difficult chemical process to crack.
If I were king for a day LiFTR is a technology I would fund in an effort similar to the moon launch program.
Isn’t in ludicrous for them to suggest this is a “bridge technology” to Fusion that “will be available in 2050”? If we were very lucky and very good and very industrious LiFTR might be available by 2050. Fusion is still further away in all probability.
I don't care who you are that's funny right there!
I heard that the scientists wanted to use Unobtainium but apparently they couldn't get their hands on any to even test with.
While the 747 was designed and built in 28 months, it took another five years for the plane to finally mature to decent reliability with the 747-200B models powered by better high-bypass engines (later Pratt & Whitney JT9D models, General Electric CF6-50/80 models and Rolls-Royce RB.211-524 models).
I looked around for cons and there are real cons but you are mostly correct, the greens hate the idea. The problems with this reactor type appears to mostly be what to do with the by products of the reaction. And how to prevent leaks. Costly to build and perhaps a shorter life time then current LW/HW designs. Basically engineering problems. Serious engineering problems for sure but likely solvable.
We should not take a pass on this technology lots of good work was done here in the 60's, lets see if we can build another one and try to work out the bugs.
I'm going to guess the inner container will be some form of ceramic. Synthetic sapphire, for example, has a melting point of over 2,000 degrees C, is very hard, and very corrosion-resistant. Apple is investing in using it for their iPhone screens.
I am all for turning engineers loose on the technology however not at the expense of helpless taxpayers as has been done with wind, solar and other so called renewable energy schemes.
If there are no companies presently willing to invest in the R&D to produce a commercially viable reactor, we have to ask ourselves why should the taxpayer (or powerless unwilling government subject in China's case) bear the burden of such an exotic misadventure that has already been found to be prohibitively problematic.
I was sold too, until I Googled the downsides, and they are not trivial.
True, but it still has the best passenger liner safety record around. Mostly the problems were the P&W engines.
You got ta figger in union costs, strikes, slow downs, cost overruns, etc..
Why thank you sir! But yours was, in fact, funnier.
Actually, the company I work for (CSW at the time) built a molten salt reactor in the mid-’60s. It was called SEFOR, and was just outside Winslow, AR.
Brit article, pffft. The Chicoms and Indians have gobbled up all the ORNL Thorium Salt Reactor info they can find and are running with it.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
Agree on the chinese. My impression with the Indians is that they’re just incorporating thorium into their light water reactors rather than developing molten salt designs.
Long overdue technology though. As some have pointed out, it has been done and the reactor at Oak Ridge ran well for quite some time. The problem, as I understand it, is building a continuous process that will remove contaminants of spent fuel and recharge the salt with new fuel instead of the batch process used in the ORNL reactor. This is a very difficult chemical process to crack.
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thanks for this bit of info. You generally hear that there are still problems with the lftr design but no one seems to elaborate. You’re the first I’ve heard get specific. This does seem to be a problem that could overcome with a bit of time money and attention.
If I were king for a day LiFTR is a technology I would fund in an effort similar to the moon launch program.
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Agree the promise is so stunningly fabulous ie dirt cheap and cheaper unlimited safe energy that will last hundreds of years and scale...that its gobsmacking that people don’t instantly push this tech.
Isn’t in ludicrous for them to suggest this is a “bridge technology” to Fusion that “will be available in 2050”? If we were very lucky and very good and very industrious LiFTR might be available by 2050. Fusion is still further away in all probability.
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Disagree on this. Prototypes in any case will be developed in under 10 years. The Chinese have moved up their prototype due date to under 10 years. I’ve heard Gates’s team push forward their prototype date to before 2020. (admittedly their tech isn’t lftr but their tech is more unproved than lftr) imho sometime in the next year or three some ambitious individual or team will announce their plan to prototype in 18 months or so. imho there will wind up being a very public race to get the first reactor in operation.
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