Live data from Hacker News

A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

thoriumenergyworld.com

61–70 of 170 posts

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#61

Anyone with insight on this I read years ago: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a11907/is-the... I worry that that if Thorium reactors become very very common because they are thought to be very safe (e.g. behind your house common, as some have bragged), but they turn out to be dangerous...we will have a real problem.

I'm not sure if this is a real possibility given our current understanding of nuclear physics and reactor design. We have enough knowledge to fully understand how a reactor like this would function. Past incidents have been caused by design flaws that were known at the time. It's not a matter of lack of knowledge so much as a lack of good management and regulations.

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#62

Anyone with insight on this I read years ago: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a11907/is-the... I worry that that if Thorium reactors become very very common because they are thought to be very safe (e.g. behind your house common, as some have bragged), but they turn out to be dangerous...we will have a real problem.

I think it's unlikely that we'll want to have people playing with radio active waste in their backyard..

We have decent electricity grids, if reactors become financially viable, first goal will be to power the grid.

I don't see any profit margin in decentralizing the grid.

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#63

> charged particles traveling faster than the speed of light in water What did I just read?

That phrase can be parsed in two ways

To the downvoters: This is technically correct.

#1: (charged particles traveling faster than the speed of light) in water

#2: charged particles traveling faster than (the speed of light in water)

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#64

> charged particles traveling faster than the speed of light in water What did I just read?

Precedence problem. Read it like this:

(charged particles traveling faster than) (the speed of light in water)

not this:

(charged particles traveling faster than the speed of light) (in water)

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#65
post #58

As far as I know the Chinese are also putting much effort into this type of reactor.

Thats what I heard too a couple of years ago - they were putting huge amounts of money into Thorium research - does anyone know how far they are away from something similar?

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That phrase can be parsed in two ways

To the downvoters: This is technically correct. #1: (charged particles traveling faster than the speed of light) in water #2: charged particles traveling faster than (the speed of light in water)

Technically, it is technically incorrect. There is no "speed of light", there is only "speed of light in [medium]".*

Therefore, interpretation #1 doesn't make sense.

Maybe colloquially people refer to the speed of light in vacuum as "the speed of light", but again, that is technically incorrect.

*And more technically there's group and phase velocity which may or may not be equal.

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That phrase can be parsed in two ways

To the downvoters: This is technically correct. #1: (charged particles traveling faster than the speed of light) in water #2: charged particles traveling faster than (the speed of light in water)

But only one of them makes typical sense. Anyone trying to convey the other parsing is expected to clearly disambiguate it.

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#68
India has the most thorium reserves, according to USGS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occurrence_of_thorium

And they have had the plans and motivation to build domestic reactors for the past two decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%27s_three-stage_nuclear_...

NSG membership keeps getting held up by someone or the other and would provide more energy security for India.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/nuclear-reactor-at-...

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#69
post #62

Anyone with insight on this I read years ago: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a11907/is-the... I worry that that if Thorium reactors become very very common because they are thought to be very safe (e.g. behind your house common, as some have bragged), but they turn out to be dangerous...we will have a real problem.

I think it's unlikely that we'll want to have people playing with radio active waste in their backyard.. We have decent electricity grids, if reactors become financially viable, first goal will be to power the grid. I don't see any profit margin in decentralizing the grid.

Yep it's a completely unrealistic concern

Re: A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

#70
post #52

> charged particles traveling faster than the speed of light in water What did I just read?

Cherenkov Radiation [1]. It's not because the particles are going faster than 300M m/s, but because light in the medium is going less than 300M m/s. The unbreakable "speed of light" is actually, the "speed of light (in a vacuum)". Outside of a vacuum, the light is slowed by the materials it travels through (see prisms, angles of refraction, Snell's Law [2] etc.). But it's still a very special condition when the mediu…

Yup. Whenever you see that blue glow surrounding a reactor core submerged in water, that's the Cherenkov radiation.

If the blue glow happens in your own eyeballs, you've probably just witnessed your own death sentence.

Post reply on HN