Yawn. Since a heat to electricity efficiency in nuclear plants is around 30%, the rest goes up that huge cooling tower. This means a 3.33 X gain (not 1.19 X) is break even. With capital costs, legal, regulatory, O and M costs this thing will never be constructed.
No. Build it now! Sink billions into it! Just make sure it doesn’t fall apart until mid 2025, and then blame it on President Trump.
“Yawn. Since a heat to electricity efficiency in nuclear plants is around 30%, the rest goes up that huge cooling tower. This means a 3.33 X gain (not 1.19 X) is break even. With capital costs, legal, regulatory, O and M costs this thing will never be constructed.”
-———Yep!-——————
First nuclear chain reaction
The Chianti fiasco purchased by Eugene Wigner to help celebrate the first self-sustaining, controlled chain reaction. It was signed by the participants.
The next day, 2 December 1942, everybody assembled for the experiment. There were 49 scientists present.[a] Although most of the S-1 Executive Committee was in Chicago, only Crawford Greenewalt was present, at Compton’s invitation.[92] Other dignitaries present included Szilard, Wigner and Spedding.[91] Fermi, Compton, Anderson and Zinn gathered around the controls on the balcony, which was originally intended as a viewing platform.[93] Samuel Allison stood ready with a bucket of concentrated cadmium nitrate, which he was to throw over the pile in the event of an emergency. The startup began at 09:54. Walter Zinn removed the zip, the emergency control rod, and secured it.[93][94] Norman Hilberry stood ready with an axe to cut the scram line, which would allow the zip to fall under the influence of gravity.[94][95] While Leona Woods called out the count from the boron trifluoride detector in a loud voice, George Weil, the only one on the floor, withdrew all but one of the control rods. At 10:37 Fermi ordered Weil to remove all but 13 feet (4.0 m) of the last control rod. Weil withdrew it 6 inches (15 cm) at a time, with measurements being taken at each step.[93][94]
The process was abruptly halted by the automatic control rod reinserting itself, due to its trip level being set too low.[96] At 11:25, Fermi ordered the control rods reinserted. He then announced that it was lunch time.[93]
The experiment resumed at 14:00.[93] Weil worked the final control rod while Fermi carefully monitored the neutron activity. Fermi announced that the pile had gone critical (reached a self-sustaining reaction) at 15:25. Fermi switched the scale on the recorder to accommodate the rapidly increasing electrical current from the boron trifluoride detector. He wanted to test the control circuits, but after 28 minutes, the alarm bells went off to notify everyone that the neutron flux had passed the preset safety level, and he ordered Zinn to release the zip. The reaction rapidly halted.[97][94] The pile had run for about 4.5 minutes at about 0.5 watts.[98] Wigner opened a bottle of Chianti, which they drank from paper cups.[99]
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