Molten Salt Reactors
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Molten Salt Reactors
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Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#2> Protactinium-233 decays to pure, weapons-grade U-233
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#3> Protactinium-233 decays to pure, weapons-grade U-233
I thought it was Uranium 235 which was the common weapons material, so I looked up Wikipedia [1]:
> ... While it is thus possible to use uranium-233 as the fissile material of a nuclear weapon, speculation[8] aside, there is scant publicly available information on this isotope actually having been weaponized ...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233#Weapon_material
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#4> Protactinium-233 decays to pure, weapons-grade U-233
I thought it was Uranium 235 which was the common weapons material, so I looked up Wikipedia [1]: > ... While it is thus possible to use uranium-233 as the fissile material of a nuclear weapon, speculation[8] aside, there is scant publicly available information on this isotope actually having been weaponized ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233#Weapon_material
[deleted]
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#5The usual quip in the industry is that the remote maintenance is such a complicated robotics problem. that which ever company is able to solve it, is better off converting to a robotics company and just drive Kuka, Fanuc and ABB out of business.
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#6> Protactinium-233 decays to pure, weapons-grade U-233
I thought it was Uranium 235 which was the common weapons material, so I looked up Wikipedia [1]: > ... While it is thus possible to use uranium-233 as the fissile material of a nuclear weapon, speculation[8] aside, there is scant publicly available information on this isotope actually having been weaponized ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233#Weapon_material
In the nuclear industry, U-233 is well known as an excellent weapons material [1]. It's simply a matter of its nuclear properties, which are well known.
"The fast critical mass of U-233 is almost identical to that for Pu-239 and the spontaneous fission rate is much lower, reducing to negligible levels the problem of a spontaneous fission neutron prematurely initiating the chain reaction -- even in a “gun-type” design such as used for the U-235 Hiroshima bomb (see Table 1)."
[1] U-232 and the Proliferation-Resistance of U-233 in Spent Fuel - http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs09kang.pdf
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#7Or just use that money for solar panels and batteries and not build a combination power plant / doomsday weapon.
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#8> Protactinium-233 decays to pure, weapons-grade U-233
I thought it was Uranium 235 which was the common weapons material, so I looked up Wikipedia [1]: > ... While it is thus possible to use uranium-233 as the fissile material of a nuclear weapon, speculation[8] aside, there is scant publicly available information on this isotope actually having been weaponized ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233#Weapon_material
They're both good options, U-235 is "simpler" to make though.
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#9Or just use that money for solar panels and batteries and not build a combination power plant / doomsday weapon.
MIT studies suggest that deeply decarbonizing is actually cheaper when you do some nuclear alongside your variable renewables + storage [1]. The cost of filling those seasonal solar gaps and 10-day wind gaps gets pretty large without nukes.
[1] https://energy.mit.edu/research/future-nuclear-energy-carbon...
Re: Molten Salt Reactors
#10Or just use that money for solar panels and batteries and not build a combination power plant / doomsday weapon.
Nuclear is a great compliment to photovoltaic. One of the reasons Japan was able to go large on PV (and cause prices to come down for the rest of us) was their huge pumped water infrastructure that had been built for nuclear.
One problem with nuclear was all the excess power created at night, so they would pump water uphill at night and then run it down to generate power at the daytime peaks.
Of course with PV the timing was reversed but the need similar. If they hadn’t decommissioned their nuclear plants the combination would have been even better.