formatting link
- posted
11 years ago
New nuclear technology
Loading thread data ...
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Sorry, if you expect me to read some random link you need to provide a short precis.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Nothing conceptually new. And anyone who believes that two MIT grad students, even good ones, are going to overturn the thinking which has gone into reactor designs over the past 75 years they are, frankly, deluded.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
It's The Register FFS, not some random site.
"The Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor (WAMSR) is based on designs first dreamt up in the 1950s for reactors that used liquid rather than solid fuels. Two graduate students at MIT have now upgraded those designs so that the reactors can be fueled by nuclear waste, and also designed a safety system that will automatically shut the reactor down without power or human intervention."
Andy
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
It also emits flying pigs and pies in the sky for an encore.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Istr it's a spin-off from thorium research, where they found that low-grade conventional fuel (that would normally be 'waste') could be used in the pile and contribute significantly to the energy output, thus reducing its potential hazard, too. If they've done new work on this and improved it, it's a step forward and I expect the nuke-proponents on here (me included) to be glad of it.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
On Thursday 14 March 2013 22:29 newshound wrote in uk.d-i-y:
What are they overturning? They are refining a very old idea.
And we are talking about MIT here, not Bangor University...
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
I've often wondered about his and indeed the plutonium thermoelectric generators as well. These latter devices use efficient thermocouples to generate electricity from the heat as Plutonium degrades. they powered Voyager and indeed these spacecraft are still working on the original fuel. So although they may well be using a hazardous material they do work for small installations. The only drawbacks I can see are that they need shielding and could pose a nice target for some nasty person wanting to get their hands on Plutonium. Brian
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
In message , Tim Watts writes
What's wrong with Bangor Uni? They taught me how to dissect a Snail!
>- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Perhaps the snail should answer.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Lol. "Walk-away" safe sure, but if you have a leak from the primary molten salt coolant loop to the secondary water loop you are going to get one hell of a bang.
The idea fascinated me when my dad (who worked on cooling systems) explained it to me in the seventies and it doesn't seem to have changed much.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
On Friday 15 March 2013 10:17 Tim Lamb wrote in uk.d-i-y:
They offered me "DDE" via UCAS fro physics. And said "be very nice if you could come for a visit, but don't worry if you can't make it".
So, at least for physics, I did not rate them - kept them as my "emergency backup".
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
On Friday 15 March 2013 11:07 Frederick Williams wrote in uk.d-i-y:
If the snail lived in Bangor to start with, it was probaby glad of death...
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Well to be fair, they seem to be pushing a packaged version of the LiFTeR design that is also being heavily pushed elsewhere by credible groups.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
What you describe there is a different technology that is better suited to long term generation of a small amount of electricity, rather than a viable power station class of reactor. However they were popular in parts of the USSR for powering lighthouses and various other "out in the sticks" bits of kit.
Many have fallen into disrepair and become the target of metal thieves - sometimes with fatal and Darwin award worthy effects!
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
On the bright side, you can run the salt side at atmospheric pressure and so there is far less likelihood of that in the first place.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Also, with 600C plus salt temps., why not use air as the primary fluid n a gas turbine, and then use the exhaust to bang a steam cycle on the back?
Image a basic jet turbine, minus fuel valves but with the combustion area at red heat or more. Spin it up, cold air in the front, heats up, hot air rushes out the back..
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
Couldn't help noticing this link at the bottom of the page:
formatting link
'Gaia' Lovelock: Wind turbines 'may become like Easter Island statues' Blasts Green 'fundamentalists' destroying civilisation
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
First bit's been done in the 1950's.
formatting link
Second part would be standard CCGT technology.
It's amazing how much useful stuff was done back then, most of it shelved and only now being revisited.
- Vote on answer
- posted
11 years ago
and how much useless stuff as well. However the thought of a reactor that doesn't need electricity to drive its pumps has appeal.
aircraft no - the shielding and general radioactive spew is probably not on in today's climate of fear.
But you should be able to screw 60-70% thermal efficiency out of a reactor running bloody hot gases to a turbine. Especially with a steam plant on the back.