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228 comments on DrumBeat: July 11, 2006

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expat on July 11, 2006 - 2:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You might be waiting a while then - the history of breeder reactors till now is not very encouraging (especially sodium designs, which tend to end up leaking, then burning). The physics seem easy enough, but the engineering details up till now are not.

The fact the technology is generally so bad (though different breeder designs have worked, even over years, it must be noted) is one reason the Germans wanted to get rid of theirs, actually.

Breeder reactors, producing ready made material for bombs, are opposed for reasons which go to one of the main problems with any nuclear program - you get more bang for your buck with nuclear than any other option. Just ask the Iranians or North Koreans or Pakistanis or ....

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Don Sailorman on July 11, 2006 - 4:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, sodium is bad. I use it mainly for science tricks to entertain sixth and seventh graders, for that it is great.

We have learned much from our (and others') mistakes with breeders.

My engineer friends and I may be all wet, but IMO, the time of the breeder is here and now.

Easy?
No.

Complex and expensive safeguards needed?
You bet.

Nevertheless, on a cost-benefit basis, when I do the numbers, breeders look good.

Other people start with different premises and come up with different numbers.

I could be quite wrong. But at least, please let us seriously consider breeders--along with wind, solar, old-fashiond nuclear power generation, coal sequestration, biofuels, and whatever else we can think of.

There is (obviously) no one "solution."

Silver BBs, not one silver bullet.

IMO, breeders are one more silver BB.

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LevinK on July 11, 2006 - 4:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think it is too early for this one. In fact I think that it would be a huge mistake for bringing it up now, because it would put loads of fuel in the tank of those opposing nuclear power, with (or without) any reasons at all. The most likely result will be continued opposition and delay of the nuclear power altogether.

Nuclear could be an issue that unites the world, because it best results (in terms of costs and safety) will be reached if we achieve a much higher level of international cooperation. IMO the coming years will decide whether we will get there the easy way or the hard way.

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Don Sailorman on July 11, 2006 - 9:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thank you for your cogent and clear comments.

We believe what we believe to a large extent based on who we talk to. From age 22 to 30, a majority of my friends were nuclear engineers and nuclear physicists working at the Lawrence Radiation Lab and also Livermore.

I'd be delighted to tell you some funny stories about Site 300, but the Fibbies (F.B.I.) already claim that my dossier exceeds 2,000 pages, and IMO, that is enough.

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LevinK on July 12, 2006 - 12:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I you look at it the other way, after 2000 pages several more will hardly make a difference :)
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Wharf Rat on July 12, 2006 - 2:57am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
2000 pages? I admire and envy you. I just keep hoping I have a file.
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Don Sailorman on July 12, 2006 - 9:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You do. NOW. Why? Because you replied to a comment of mine.
I have associated with a great many people: Mainly for that reason the Fibbies keep my prints on file and (probably) somehow monitor (most likely through the NSA) all of my TOD comments.

Ho hum.

I lived through the Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover eras. Times now are way way way much better.

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Magnus Redin on July 13, 2006 - 5:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Quite an odd thing to brag about. And how incompetent are they if they let you know that they have a file and the thickness of it?

I leave it at 50/50 FBI incompetence or you making up a good story wishing that you are important. Truth or fiction, either way you write well.

Any intelligence service analyzing me are welcome to call if you wonder about anything. laughs

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Don Sailorman on July 16, 2006 - 10:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Of my former students, two work for the FBI, one worked for the Secret Service, another for The Internal Revenue Service (He carried a gold badge and a gun) and one girl for NSA.

Intelligence is big business in the U.S. I asked the IRS agent for a favor in regard to finding out about my file. In return, I visited his mother in a nursing home and sang songs to her.

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AlanfromBigEasy on July 11, 2006 - 5:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
AFAIK, CANDU reactors can used LWR "burnt" fuel without repeocessing (just make sure packaging fits) and also breed 0.7 to 0.8 for 1 with thorium.  Using used "waste" fuel makes a 70% breeding ratio look good.

CANDU is a very safe design.  Just a fuel hog (unimportant with used fuel) and low heat densities (smaller reactors).

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Whitehall on July 11, 2006 - 6:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If you "repackage" LWR fuel into CANDU you are reprocessing.  In fact, you have to chop it up and dissolve it in nitric acid to make new UO2 pellets of the right size.  Might as well take out the fission fragments to clean it up while you're at it.

The residual uranium and new plutonium once cleaned is still more reactive than the natural uranium which CANDUs are designed to use.

However, the CANDU is a sow of a reactor.  I've worked on them and they are complicated, expensive, and low performance compared to modern light water reactors.  Throughly engineered, I will say, but hardly of interest to US utilities given current and projected yellowcake and SWU costs.

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AlanfromBigEasy on July 11, 2006 - 7:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It seems entirely possible to take the same pellets and put them into CANDU fuel rods.  Basically a matter of diameter.  Use robots or remote control and take them out of old fuel bundle and put them in the new.

Just design the CANDU to use a common Westinghouse or GE diameter fuel.

If fuel stays cheap, there will be limited appeal, I agree.  But we have LOTS of "free fuel" and cheap thorium.

The U233 bred from Th could be used in LWR (perhaps 70% breeding factor).  A solution to the uranium "shortage".

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mcain6925 on July 11, 2006 - 8:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Granted the author has a bias, but this piece describes two different dry processes for using spent LWR fuel in CANDU reactors. Much of the complexity in the basic CANDU design appears to me to be the result of allowing refueling while the reactor is operating. Can we design a heavy-water reactor that keeps what I regard as the main benefit of the CANDU design -- flexibility of fuel cycles, from unenriched uranium to used LWR fuel to thorium -- while simplifying it?
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Substrate on July 14, 2006 - 9:29am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Complex and expensive safeguards needed?
You bet.

Complex and expensive == Doomed to fail

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