Obama primary opponent Bob Greene: Calif. man has energy plan for U.S. for next 1000 years

[kristopher]

30. FSSF has already provided some important points for you to consider...

Last edited Tue Jan 3, 2012, 12:54 PM - Edit history (1)

So through wiki you are claiming that "2 fluid" liquid fluoride thorium reactors improve on the existing once through uranium fuel cycle in these area:

- increased safety and proliferation resistance
- nuclear waste issue would be essentially solved (waste from a LFTR reaches safe levels after just 300 years, it can also burn current waste)
- far cheaper fuel which is longterm sustainable (not hundreds but thousands of years)
- no refueling outages due to continual refueling (increased capacity factor)
- far better load following
- various economic advantages during construction (it does not need the most expensive item in a light water reactor, a high-pressure reactor vessel for the core, containment structure only slightly bigger than the reactor vessel can be used, instead of a thousandfold bigger in volume like in LWR, due to high temperature operation efficient and simple Brayton cycle turbines can be used, which reduces the cost of auxiliary equipment (major capital expenses) by 50% or more
- low waste heat - it can be air-cooled, which is critical for use in many regions where water is scarce (does not need huge cooling towers)
- fission products stable after 10 years include many valuable elements (rare earths and medically valuable products)


There are a number of problems with that list; you might find this blog to be interesting since it places those unsubstantiated claims into perspective.

For example,

...The MSR and the LFTR (or lifter) reactor has something of a cult following on line. Unfortunately, this has led, through a process of what amounts to internet Chinese whispers to a lot of myths and miss-conceptions about the LFTR building up. Up to the point where its started to take on aspects of a Scientific Cargo Cult. As I go along with the technical analysis of this reactor concept, I’ll be taking the opportunity to debunk a couple of these, as they do a disservice to the design, and get in the way of the genuine science.

"...One other misconception on the internet is the view that a LFTR reactor will produce almost no nuclear waste, as the following You-tube video implies (or see this “activists” banner here). This is not the case. All the while during the plant’s operating life that chemical plant will be producing nuclear waste material, and as discussed earlier some of that is pretty “nasty stuff”. Not a lot of it per day, but it all adds up! Also the supporters of the LFTR seem to assume that this CPP can operate with 100% efficiency (i.e remove all the radioactive poisons). This would be very technically challenging, especially in the LFTR case given the importance about separating out of U-232 (and its Thallium-208 payload) from U-233 or indeed removal of protactinium-233 as well as a host of other nuclear “poisons” discussed. Build up of these in the core both leads to increased irradiation of the core as well as the eventual shutdown of the nuclear reaction process altogether.

An CPP facility capable of that level of operating efficiency would likely be physically very large. Given that it will be working with radioactive materials, and the real radiological hazard is a pipe burst (an all too common occurrence and any chemical plant, and especially likely at these sort of working temperatures and radiation levels), we would thus need to put the CPP underneath our concrete containment dome. Obviously a large CPP will not only be expensive to build and maintain but greatly increase the size of this containment structure, further increasing reactor construction costs as well as increasing construction time (and reducing the number of said reactors we comission in any given time period).

And of course the supporters of the LF reactor concept have yet to come up with a functional design of an CPP. I’ve seen various dusty line drawings of the 1970’s ORNL proposal, you can see them yourself here and here, but that’s it. I would firstly note that materials science and chemical processing technology has moved on hugely in the last 40 years, so I doubt it would be sensible to build an CPP as shown in these plans. A new one would have to be redesigned (all but) from scratch."

A great deal more at:
http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/ca/part-8-msr-lftr/


ETA: I would particularly love to hear how the LFTR 2 fluid reactor will "burn current waste". Would you explain in detail how that works?

Don't disappear on us, ok? We are counting on you to have an honest and open discussion.