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Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: The Thorium Dream [View all]kristopher
(29,798 posts)4. "Thorium dreams"? Apt title...
It has more in common with "opium dreams" than just sounding similar.
This overview seems fairly comprehensive and looks to be dedicated to separating fact from hype.
Sample:
...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 plants 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. Ive seen various dusty line drawings of the 1970s ORNL proposal, you can see them yourself here and here, but thats 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.
The LFTR supporters have tried to counter this by coming up with designs of their own, but Ive yet to see an actual working schematic, one that specifically discusses cycle efficiencies and above all else ENERGY INPUTS! The designers of this reactor seem to be assuming that this CPP, which will involve various stages of pumping, sparging, vacuum processing and filtering of the working fluid, often at a variety of set temperatures or pressures will operate with no net energy input and achieve 100% separation efficiency! In science we have a technical term for such a belief.
As the working fluid will be ...
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. Ive seen various dusty line drawings of the 1970s ORNL proposal, you can see them yourself here and here, but thats 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.
The LFTR supporters have tried to counter this by coming up with designs of their own, but Ive yet to see an actual working schematic, one that specifically discusses cycle efficiencies and above all else ENERGY INPUTS! The designers of this reactor seem to be assuming that this CPP, which will involve various stages of pumping, sparging, vacuum processing and filtering of the working fluid, often at a variety of set temperatures or pressures will operate with no net energy input and achieve 100% separation efficiency! In science we have a technical term for such a belief.
As the working fluid will be ...
http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/ca/part-8-msr-lftr/
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The fact that thorium is an element, not an "oxide", should have made this article suspect.
wtmusic
Jan 2012
#22
thorium has a "cult following on line" ...with "aspects of a Scientific Cargo Cult"
kristopher
Jan 2012
#9