Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
blogs.scientificamerican.com
Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
1–10 of 107 posts
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#2It'd be cool if some serious makers made a LFTR reactor :-)
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#3Freeman Dyson's book, Disturbing the Universe, which is quoted in this article, is a great read. Highly recommended.
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#4[deleted]
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#5Just one of the problems with kids these days, don't have any 'ppreciation for the skill and craft of building a hobbyist nuclear reactor in their parents basement.
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#6[deleted]
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#7It'd be cool if some serious makers made a LFTR reactor :-)
There is a company trying to model it by 2015. Check FLiBe Energy out.
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#8To make an an HN-relevant analogy: The FDA-hobbling of 23andMe pales in comparison to what it's like to work with nuclear regulatory frameworks and societal concerns regarding nuclear science. When I was an undergrad, DOE was willing to pay the university the entire relicensing and operating costs of the on-campus TRIGA. The university declined, knowing that the requisite environmental impact study for relicensing would bring withering community backlash.
(For those who haven't seen one, here's what it looks like when the control rods are blown out of a TRIGA [1]; the reactor runs away momentarily, but then self-moderates when the fuel warms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orNP1wMmPK4 . The Cherenkov flash is a beautiful blue.)
Nuclear power can provide a safe, well-studied, and effective bridge to solar power. Almost nobody's dabbling in it because there's so much societal opposition. Working on a reactor in an old schoolhouse in a rural area? Someone elsewhere in the county will be willing to speak at every county governmental meeting to shut you down. Their opposition has merit; it's easy to point to Fukushima and Chernobyl as major disasters.
A simple, clear, and publicly-understandable regulatory framework in which both society and innovators can feel comfortable with small-scale nuclear experimentation would go a long way toward driving new startups in the field. Experimenters shouldn't get their hopes up too far: Some forms of radiation are extremely penetrating/hard to shield, and some hazardous isotopes live a long, long time. If you're dabbling in the field, please plan from the beginning to minimize and safely store your waste.
We only get one planet; I'd rather it not be too warm nor contaminated by our litter.
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#9If anyone is interested in investigating nuclear reactions, there is a wealth of publicly available data from a huge number of experiments; and simulation software is available.
For example: EXFOR (Experimental nuclear reaction data https://www-nds.iaea.org/exfor/exfor.htm) is an international collection of more than 20000 nuclear reaction experimental results dating back to the discovery of the neutron.
ENDF (Evaluated nuclear data library http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/endf/b7.1/) is the current best evaluation of the most up-to-date data available for many nuclear reactions that have been seen experimentally.
FLUKA (http://www.fluka.org/) "is a fully integrated particle physics MonteCarlo simulation package", partially developed and used by CERN.
Beware that all of these require some knowledge of nuclear physics to use and understand (obviously!), and can be somewhat archaic in data formats and computer languages used (think FORTRAN).
But it is truly wonderful how you and I have such easy access to such high quality and complete data.
Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore
#10My daughter was one of the operators of the TRIGA reactor at Reed college. Some of the students joked it was a Fisher-Price My First Reactor reactor :-) at only 250kW its small as reactors go, but also exceptionally interesting.
It is very disappointing how constricted the field of nuclear research is, as it is a demonstrably zero carbon footprint energy source. I understand the emotion that nuclear power evokes in people, I think the only way to combat the misperceptions is with improving results. I recognize I am a minority in that regard.