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Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

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Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#91

Post by raarky »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #80
brianbreslin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is in the renewable energy business. They have devoted well over $400Million US to solar, hydro, and wind power startups. They see energy as their biggest cost point in the next decade (powering data centers is not trivial).

Google is in search business. I think focusing on power is a mistake for Google (unless founders are having fun toying with power).

Google is a pretty large and technically savvy advertising company that does search and a bunch of other things.

If energy costs are eating into their bottom line and they have the cash, why shouldn't they invest into new energy tech. Seems like a good business decision to me

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#92

Post by texas-saluki »

zobzu wrote: post #12

text > video

I think the video is really interesting but it seems strange that it is highly edited and sliced together? Whenever I see something so hacked together I question the context that some of the message was cut out to benefit someones agenda

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#93

Post by neutronicus »

lloeki wrote: post #89
neutronicus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because uranium is cheap, so why bother? The price of nuclear energy is dominated by the cost of building the reactor, not the fuel.

And thorium is bound to be even cheaper, as it's readily available in massive quantities.

Like I said, the cost of fuel doesn't matter. Fuel could be free, and a new reactor would still take forever to pay for itself.

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#94

Post by neutronicus »

regomodo wrote: post #86
neutronicus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because uranium is cheap, so why bother? The price of nuclear energy is dominated by the cost of building the reactor, not the fuel.

Waste disposal/processing isn't cheap and Thorium produces significantly less waste than Uranium.

Thorium waste will be indistinguishable from Uranium waste for the next 100 years, from a public policy perspective, unless we first build a reprocessing plant.

(To be more specific, it's the absence of nuclides with mass number greater than 238 in Thorium waste that makes it less problematic than Uranium waste. These nuclides dominate the long-time, i.e. millenium, radiation profile of the waste. The short-time, i.e. decade/century, radiation profile of the waste is dominated by lower-mass-number fission products, abundant in both types of waste)

Reprocessing plants are extraordinarily expensive to build and operate, more so even than reactors themselves.

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#95

Post by neutronicus »

KeithMajhor wrote: post #87
neutronicus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because uranium is cheap, so why bother? The price of nuclear energy is dominated by the cost of building the reactor, not the fuel.

Did you watch the video? The reactors he presented appeared to be much simpler (so... they'd likely be cheaper).

As a nuclear engineer, I doubt it.

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#96

Post by DennisP »

DennisP wrote: post #84
api wrote: post #7

I hear a lot about the LFTR, and I wonder what the problem is. Is there a major technical hurdle that prevents this from seeing widespread use? Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. Sometimes a really good idea never gets used because... well... because nobody really picks it up and runs with it. It's that simple sometimes. But sometimes there's some hidden gotcha.

I just wrote a bunch of comments arguing in its favor but here's an article I just found with various criticisms I hadn't seen before: http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/ca/part-8-msr-lftr/ I'm not sure how credible this guy is, because he talks about thorium-232 as a dangerous nuclear waste, with a terrible 14 billion year half-life. The problems with this are (1) such a long half-life means its hardly radioactiv…

Kinda wish I could delete that comment. Here's a bunch of people on reddit ripping that article apart: http://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/ifx40/molten_salt_lf...

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#97

Post by dennisgorelik »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #80
brianbreslin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is in the renewable energy business. They have devoted well over $400Million US to solar, hydro, and wind power startups. They see energy as their biggest cost point in the next decade (powering data centers is not trivial).

Google is in search business. I think focusing on power is a mistake for Google (unless founders are having fun toying with power).

"why shouldn't they invest into new energy tech"

Because amount of attention that top management have is limited.

Google would be better off if they focus on their core products.

For example, Search.

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#98

Post by ingeborgsjon »

neutronicus wrote: post #95
KeithMajhor wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you watch the video? The reactors he presented appeared to be much simpler (so... they'd likely be cheaper).

As a nuclear engineer, I doubt it.

Sorry to say this but you have probably been deceived by the nuclear industry. First of all thorium is much cheaper (about 160 times I think), secondly it's far more abundant and third LFTR has a much better design.

The industry dismissed liquid reactors because of the problem extracting weapon grade material. Uranium based reactors where not as safe nor as cheap. During the cold war this made sense but not today.

It has also been about people protection their jobs. The uranium based industry can't say that something else is better because then they might lose their jobs. And who do you think the politicians ask when they want advice?

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#99

Post by ingeborgsjon »

neutronicus wrote: post #93
lloeki wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And thorium is bound to be even cheaper, as it's readily available in massive quantities.

Like I said, the cost of fuel doesn't matter. Fuel could be free, and a new reactor would still take forever to pay for itself.

But if you look at the design you will see that it's much more simple than a PWR. All calculations I've seen puts the cost of construction well below the cost of modern PWRs.

And the cost of fuel is still important, uranium isn't getting cheaper.

Re: Thorium nuclear reactors: a possible solution of the energy crisis? (video)

#100

Post by ThaddeusQuay »

brianbreslin wrote: post #72
dennisgorelik wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not in nuclear energy business. It would be better for all of us if Google stays focused in software development.

Google is in the renewable energy business. They have devoted well over $400Million US to solar, hydro, and wind power startups. They see energy as their biggest cost point in the next decade (powering data centers is not trivial).

If Google has actually spent that much on renewables, then why didn't they give Bussard the measly $5M (or maybe it was $20M) for which he practically begged them, back on 11/09/06? He needed $200M, over 5 years, to build his fusion reactor, but only a small fraction of that to confirm some important experimental results which he had achieved just before the Navy cut his funding. He believed that he could get that confirmation, and that it would be enough to show that proceeding with the $200M investment would be prudent. I was quite sad to see that he died about 11 months later, having not achieved his dream, and having been reduced to begging at the end of his life. Google not only should have given him the $5M/$20M, but they should have been thrilled and honored to have such an intellect even speaking to them. Fuck Google's shortsightedness.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FhL5VO2NStU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Bussard http://newmexico.watchdog.org/7104/fusion-energy-promises-yi...

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