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Transatomic Power

transatomicpower.com

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Re: Transatomic Power

#21

Post by simcop2387 »

adamcanady wrote: post #13
apendleton wrote: post #5

I wish they would be more up-front about the specifics of their technical proposal and how it compares to other proposals, since it was not at all obvious to me at first glance. What I think they're actually proposing (correct me if I'm wrong): a uranium molten salt fast breeder reactor that drives a steam turbine. So, much more ambitious than what's currently on the market, with better fuel utilization. As compared…

To get this straight, when they indicate 96% utilization of the uranium, they don't mean converting 96% of the total energy to electricity, as it is assumed that some will be lost along the way, right? If the above statement is true, what happens to the remaining 4% of the energy in the uranium? Is it just not effective to have it in the molten salt, so the entire batch is replaced? Or does this happen 'on the fly' s…

I think it means that they'll be using up 96% of the uranium but the 4% is unusable with this method. That the concentration is down low enough that they're unable to extract energy from it at that point.

Re: Transatomic Power

#22

Post by trhway »

yc1010 wrote: post #4

I wish Transatomic all the best but they have an uphill battle :( to convince a populace for whom unfortunately "nuclear power" brings up an image Homer Simpson. aside: I think Greenpeace also has a lot to answer for with their campaign against nuclear power. Thanks to them my children can look forward to a world where a coal plant is build every week and fossil fuel fueled climate change is a certainty.

>I think Greenpeace also has a lot to answer for with their campaign against nuclear power. Thanks to them my children can look forward to a world where a coal plant is build every week and fossil fuel fueled climate change is a certainty

at least your children can look using 2 eyes. If not for Greenpeace the expected value would be uniformly distributed anywhere between 0 and 4 or 5...

Re: Transatomic Power

#23

Post by BendertheRobot »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #17
dtap wrote: post #3

The bigger problem than the corrosion is the inability to inspect the system in an efficient way. In a regulated nuclear industry, not knowing the status of the system means it will not be allowed.

I think there is a tendency to think of fuel rods as a problem rather than the solution to a problem, which is raw spent fuel is nasty. The cheapest and easiest way to deal with spent fuel is to store it for decades while the worst of the radio-isotopes decay. Fuel rod technology allows you to do that, a molten salt design doesn't. I'm okay with this argument but is seems to bother people that you can't recover spent…

The cheapest and easiest way to deal with spent fuel is to store it for decades

That is insane.

The best way to deal with waste is to recycle it.

Re: Transatomic Power

#24

Post by beefman »

Maxels wrote: post #2

So this is a company with a pretty ui that is advocating the same thing Kirk Sorensen has been advocating for a few years now. I know every time this molten salt vs light water reactor debate comes up, people much smarter than I talk about how the salt is corrosive and there are currently no viable solutions to deal with this. Is there anyone out there smarter than I that can explain whether this company is doing any…

The zirconium hydride moderator is a genuine innovation, allowing much higher core power density than LFTR, and higher conversion ratios without HEU (assuming their modeling is correct). But like LFTR, you've got loose FPs all over the place and it's hard to see that being acceptable in anything like the current culture. Meanwhile, it's hard to see any benefit from MSR.

Edit: There will likely be all sorts of materials issues. None of them damning. I'd worry more about FPs, tritium fluoride, etc. than the salt itself.

Re: Transatomic Power

#25

Post by etangent »

nosuchthing wrote: post #18
aout wrote: post #10

So ok, the website is cool and the technology is said to be something like 99.9999% better. This might be a stupid question but I'm no nuclear engineer not a specialist about chemistry or physics but I wonder why a such "beautiful" idea would not be already used. I've read the related wikipedia article about Molten Salt Reactors and I understand there are several problems about the technology: mostly corrosion and em…

I'm assuming the "Molten Salt Reactor" method is the same principle as the "Sodium Reactor" that was experimented with around 50 years ago? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment

Sodium reactor is an example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_metal_cooled_reactor. Molten salt seems to be a different type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment

Re: Transatomic Power

#26

Post by pheo »

"Fast," "Breeder," or "Salt" reactors breed weapons grade fissionable material (Ie. Plutonium 239) from relatively un-enriched materials (Ie. Uranium 238 and Thorium).

Fast reactors make nuclear weapons as byproduct. Thats why we don't use them.

Re: Transatomic Power

#27

Post by InclinedPlane »

nosuchthing wrote: post #18
aout wrote: post #10

So ok, the website is cool and the technology is said to be something like 99.9999% better. This might be a stupid question but I'm no nuclear engineer not a specialist about chemistry or physics but I wonder why a such "beautiful" idea would not be already used. I've read the related wikipedia article about Molten Salt Reactors and I understand there are several problems about the technology: mostly corrosion and em…

I'm assuming the "Molten Salt Reactor" method is the same principle as the "Sodium Reactor" that was experimented with around 50 years ago? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment

The Sodium reactor is a standard solid core Uranium fueled design that uses liquid sodium as a coolant.

The molten salt design is completely and utterly different. In a molten salt reactor the fuel itself is molten (in salt form), which turns out to offer a variety of benefits.

Re: Transatomic Power

#28

Post by jessaustin »

beefman wrote: post #24
Maxels wrote: post #2

So this is a company with a pretty ui that is advocating the same thing Kirk Sorensen has been advocating for a few years now. I know every time this molten salt vs light water reactor debate comes up, people much smarter than I talk about how the salt is corrosive and there are currently no viable solutions to deal with this. Is there anyone out there smarter than I that can explain whether this company is doing any…

The zirconium hydride moderator is a genuine innovation, allowing much higher core power density than LFTR, and higher conversion ratios without HEU (assuming their modeling is correct). But like LFTR, you've got loose FPs all over the place and it's hard to see that being acceptable in anything like the current culture. Meanwhile, it's hard to see any benefit from MSR. Edit: There will likely be all sorts of materia…

Wild guess on "FP": fission product?

Re: Transatomic Power

#29

Post by throwaway_yy2Di »

adamcanady wrote: post #13
apendleton wrote: post #5

I wish they would be more up-front about the specifics of their technical proposal and how it compares to other proposals, since it was not at all obvious to me at first glance. What I think they're actually proposing (correct me if I'm wrong): a uranium molten salt fast breeder reactor that drives a steam turbine. So, much more ambitious than what's currently on the market, with better fuel utilization. As compared…

To get this straight, when they indicate 96% utilization of the uranium, they don't mean converting 96% of the total energy to electricity, as it is assumed that some will be lost along the way, right? If the above statement is true, what happens to the remaining 4% of the energy in the uranium? Is it just not effective to have it in the molten salt, so the entire batch is replaced? Or does this happen 'on the fly' s…

It means 96% of the uranium fuel undergoes fission (gets its nuclear potential energy converted to heat). When they separate out fission products (waste) by chemical processing, about 4% of the fuel gets dragged into the waste stream. It looks like a cost/benefit decision not to recover it:

    Of the 200 kilogram lanthanide mass removed by liquid metal
    extraction, we estimate that approximately 20 kilograms will
    be actinide contaminant with a longer half-life similar to
    SNF. It may be most practical to leave such a small quantity
    embedded in the ceramic granules, as it would be well
    distributed and would not materially extend the time for the
    overall waste form to reach background levels. If desired,
    however, the actinides can be further separated offsite with
    additional post-processing techniques.
[pdf] http://www.transatomicpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/t...

The mass flow is 500 kg/year fuel in, and 500 kg/year waste out -- of which, 20 kg (4%) is unrecovered actinide fuel.

Re: Transatomic Power

#30

Post by alexhill »

adamcanady wrote: post #13
apendleton wrote: post #5

I wish they would be more up-front about the specifics of their technical proposal and how it compares to other proposals, since it was not at all obvious to me at first glance. What I think they're actually proposing (correct me if I'm wrong): a uranium molten salt fast breeder reactor that drives a steam turbine. So, much more ambitious than what's currently on the market, with better fuel utilization. As compared…

To get this straight, when they indicate 96% utilization of the uranium, they don't mean converting 96% of the total energy to electricity, as it is assumed that some will be lost along the way, right? If the above statement is true, what happens to the remaining 4% of the energy in the uranium? Is it just not effective to have it in the molten salt, so the entire batch is replaced? Or does this happen 'on the fly' s…

96% of fissile material converted to non-fissile material, and that energy is then converted to electricity at normal steam turbine efficiency, 30% or something. This as opposed to less than 1% for Gen III reactors.

Edit: I posted that fuel handling is a batch process, not continuous – that might not be true for molten salt, not sure.

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