Andrew Yang Wants a Thorium Reactor By 2027 256
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: To transition the United States from fossil fuels to green energy, [Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang] wants the government to invest $50 billion in the development of thorium molten-salt nuclear reactors -- and he wants them on the grid by 2027. "Nuclear isn't a perfect solution, but it's a solid solution for now," Yang's climate policy page reads. It calls out thorium molten-salt reactors in particular as "a technology we should invest in as a stopgap for any shortfalls we have in our renewable energy sources as we move to a future powered by renewable energy."
Thorium molten-salt reactors were first invented 60 years ago, but Yang appears to be the first presidential candidate to campaign on their promise to make nuclear energy safer, cleaner, and cheaper. Like all molten-salt reactors, they eschew solid rods of uranium-235 in favor of a liquid fuel made of thorium and a small amount of uranium dissolved in a molten salt. This approach to nuclear energy reduces proliferation risk, produces minimal amounts of short-lived toxic waste, and resists nuclear meltdowns. As in a conventional nuclear reactor, splitting the nuclei of a nuclear fuel -- a process known as fission -- produces heat, which gets used to turn a turbine to generate electricity. But the Cold War arms race meant the US was already in the business of enriching uranium for weapons, so nuclear reactors based on solid uranium took off while liquid reactors stalled. No country has built a commercial molten-salt reactor. As a result, many practical questions remain about the best way to design a thorium liquid-fuel reactor. Foremost among them, says Lin-Wen Hu, director of research and irradiation services at MIT's Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, is finding materials that can contain the corrosive molten salts. Furthermore, figuring out how to extract unwanted elements produced as thorium decays -- such as protactinium-233 -- from the fuel remains a major technical challenge. "The main advantage of thorium is that the waste has a half-life on the order of dozens, rather than thousands, of years," the report adds. "From a power-generation perspective, the better option for Yang and other Democratic candidates may be to invest in advanced uranium-based technologies. This includes molten-salt reactors, but also solid-fuel systems like next-generation fast reactors, which are safer and more efficient than previous nuclear reactor designs. In some designs, next-generation reactors can even use preexisting nuclear waste as fuel."
Thorium molten-salt reactors were first invented 60 years ago, but Yang appears to be the first presidential candidate to campaign on their promise to make nuclear energy safer, cleaner, and cheaper. Like all molten-salt reactors, they eschew solid rods of uranium-235 in favor of a liquid fuel made of thorium and a small amount of uranium dissolved in a molten salt. This approach to nuclear energy reduces proliferation risk, produces minimal amounts of short-lived toxic waste, and resists nuclear meltdowns. As in a conventional nuclear reactor, splitting the nuclei of a nuclear fuel -- a process known as fission -- produces heat, which gets used to turn a turbine to generate electricity. But the Cold War arms race meant the US was already in the business of enriching uranium for weapons, so nuclear reactors based on solid uranium took off while liquid reactors stalled. No country has built a commercial molten-salt reactor. As a result, many practical questions remain about the best way to design a thorium liquid-fuel reactor. Foremost among them, says Lin-Wen Hu, director of research and irradiation services at MIT's Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, is finding materials that can contain the corrosive molten salts. Furthermore, figuring out how to extract unwanted elements produced as thorium decays -- such as protactinium-233 -- from the fuel remains a major technical challenge. "The main advantage of thorium is that the waste has a half-life on the order of dozens, rather than thousands, of years," the report adds. "From a power-generation perspective, the better option for Yang and other Democratic candidates may be to invest in advanced uranium-based technologies. This includes molten-salt reactors, but also solid-fuel systems like next-generation fast reactors, which are safer and more efficient than previous nuclear reactor designs. In some designs, next-generation reactors can even use preexisting nuclear waste as fuel."
Molten (Score:3)
Then its a working reactor with a lump thats stuck.
Have fun getting that fixed by contractors.
say what? (Score:2)
huh? what do you mean?
Re: (Score:2)
He's not promoting Yang. He's mocking him.
Re:Molten (Score:4, Informative)
There are all kinds of ways of heating a reaxctor whose salt has "frozen." The huge advantage of molten salt over water as a heat transfer fluid is that its boiling point is so much higher than water that it won't need to be pressurized to function efficiently. This means safer, less complex plumbing. And the high working temperature means that reactors using rivers and lakes as a heat sink will no longer need to be turned off when the water gets warm in summer.
Re:Molten (Score:5, Informative)
And the high working temperature means that reactors using rivers and lakes as a heat sink will no longer need to be turned off when the water gets warm in summer.
The need to shutdown the reactors when rivers and lakes get too warm has nothing to do with the operating temperature of the reactor.
The reason they shut down the reactors is to keep from cooking the fish in the water. They could have avoided this by using cooling towers as a heat sink, and only used the river for making up for water that evaporated away. As a cost saving measure they used the river instead, knowing full well in advance of even breaking ground that there was a possibility to have to reduce power or shut down temporarily during heat waves. At the time this was considered acceptable. What they didn't know, or underestimated, is that this design choice would be used as leverage against them by the anti-nuclear people.
With a molten salt reactor the temperatures are high enough that the air is a useful heat sink, even in hot and arid places like Arizona. Even then we see Arizona being able to manage keeping their water cooled reactors running in all kinds of heat. That's because they use cooling towers, and lakes that don't have fish in them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
"... that this design choice would be used as leverage against them by the anti-nuclear people."
This is a design choice which causes several Nuclear reactors to be shut down at once every time there is a heat wave in Europe. I do not see what "anti-nuclear" people have to do with is.
Re:Molten (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a design choice which causes several Nuclear reactors to be shut down at once every time there is a heat wave in Europe. I do not see what "anti-nuclear" people have to do with is.
The anti-nuclear power people are involved because they use the heat induced shutdowns as an excuse to call nuclear power unreliable, unsafe, and damaging to the environment. They are petty, dishonest, and ignorant, willing to use any minor detail in their effort to get nuclear power plants shut down permanently.
If they were sane, honest, and informed, then they'd be asking that the nuclear power plants have their cooling systems upgraded so the river water temperatures would not cause a shutdown. Or, simply recognize that nuclear power is quite safe, very reliable, has minimal impact on the environment, and these heat induced shutdowns happen maybe once every 10 to 20 years. These shutdowns might be inconvenient, expensive, and generally disruptive, but as these events are rare they should not be cause for any drastic changes to their operation or the energy policy as a whole.
With prominent people like Andrew Yang talking about nuclear power in a sane and rational manner this anti-nuclear fear mongering will be more difficult to spread.
Re: (Score:3)
Cooking fish? I'm sure there are cases where power plants, nuclear and otherwise, have had this problem, but I'm talking about Carnot efficiency: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency). Any thermal power plant operates more efficiently as the differential between the heat source it uses to create turbine steam and the heat sink at the turbine's output is greater. Higher efficiency can be achieved by finding a colder heat sink or by raising the temperature of the thermal output.
The current genera
Re: (Score:2)
Floride and Uranium salts are corrosive beyond words and you're calling this "Safer"?
No.
Re: (Score:2)
Those are all contained during the process,
Learn how the thing works, it's not a half baked idea like your post was.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course the huge downside to molten salt is that it corrodes and destroys everything. The reactor casing itself tends to suffer premature wear too and becomes high level nuclear waste.
Just check the history of thorium reactors, every single one has been some kind of disaster.
Re: (Score:3)
Just check the history of thorium reactors, every single one has been some kind of disaster.
Check the history of anything and you'll find a lot of disasters. There's a very cute video from SpaceX showing all their early failures in trying to land a rocket. Every single one has been some kind of disaster. That is until they weren't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
It's only a failure if nothing was learned from the experience. We learned a lot about thorium reactors, because of these "disasters".
Re:Molten (Score:4, Informative)
> boiling point is so much higher than water that it won't need to be pressurized to function efficiently
I love reading posts like this. It's standard fare from the pro-LFTR web pages that gets parroted around which simply demonstrates that the poster has no idea what they're talking about.
Free clue: there have been all sorts of high-temperature/low-pressure reactor designs over the years. All of the oil-cooled designs, various heavy water designs, gas-cooled system, the liquid metal designs, etc.
Every one of the failed economically. In spite of the LFTR advocate's claims about how much cheaper everything will be because of this, in every actual design that's been built the opposite turned out to be true. The reason we use light water designs is that they are the most economical. There is no other reason, no matter what conspiracy theory you wish to invoke.
Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superphénix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_nuclear_reactor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WR-1
And, of course, this entire story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Gas-cooled_Reactor
Re: (Score:2)
There's plenty of isolation in the designs. The actual salts that contact radioactive materials never contact the intermediate cooling salts, and those never contact the primary cooling water, that never contacts the outside water. Instead, heat transfer mechanisms are in place to move just the heat from one medium to the other until it gets outside where it dissipates into a lake or river.
It's "less complex" in that it doesn't require pressurization. It's not less complex in that it doesn't have complexity
I second this. (Score:2)
I would also like a Thorium reactor by 2027.
As to what I'm going to do with it uhhhh none of your business!
Re: (Score:2)
My presidential campaign slogan is "A chicken in every pot, and an arc reactor on every corner". Gotta have somewhere to charge up those electric vehicles until we get superconducting long-distance transmission lines.
Re: I second this. (Score:2)
Hehe, I do wonder what the penalty for vandalizing the moon would be. I mean you might be able to get the parts together for a powerful enough laser to draw a dong...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Don't they usually sentence graffitiists to community service cleaning the walls they've defaced? Here's a shovel, off you go (you also have to provide your own transportation).
That's not a bad goal (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a math major, not a physics PhD, so whateves. That said, I've wished for 20-30 years now that somebody with a few billion $$$ to toss around took a look at Thorium reacters.
Re:That's not a bad goal (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just glad to see a "high visibility" politician talking about this. Yang was able to drag UBI into the mainstream discussion, maybe he can do the same with Gen-IV nuclear. It's about time somebody did.
Re:That's not a bad goal (Score:5, Interesting)
Thorium reactors are breeder reactors. But it doesn't breed quite what you want, so people have declared that the thorium cycle is proliferation resistant. Unfortunately, it's proliferation resistant in much the same way that WEP was once regarded as secure.
Thorium power has a protactinium problem [thebulletin.org] — August 2018
Just like you can hack WEP, you can also hack the fuel cycle.
Now it's mainly politics that keeps the old view circulating. Rumors surrounding the intrinsic safety of the thorium cycle are greatly exaggerated. That said, I'm not particularly opposed to the thorium cycle, but enjoined on sober evaluation, rather than political simple-mindedness.
Re:That's not a bad goal (Score:4, Informative)
It's not quite that simple. You need the U233 you are producing in order to transmute more Th232. If you're removing all the U233 from the cycle then there is no longer anything to actually create it. Th232 alone does nothing at all, it's half life is longer than the age of the universe. In fact, a new thorium reactor requires a fission source to get it started - like making sour dough.
Additionally, the amount of fissionable U233 you produce in an LFTR is too small to be a source for weapons grade material and U233 itself is far less efficient in a weapon than plutonium. That's why it's considered proliferation resistant. If you're after a weapon you're going to stick with a plutonium breeder. LFTR's are only good for plentiful power generation.
Re:That's not a bad goal (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like you can hack WEP, you can also hack the fuel cycle.
You do that and you destroy the ability of the reactor to produce energy. That will be far more noticeable than other common means of producing weapon grade material.
The process described in the Bulletin article is a process that is taking the fuel from the reactor that is necessary to maintain its function. They are effectively removing neutrons from a very delicate balance of neutrons consumed to neutrons produced. These neutrons would have to be restored with energy intensive processes like a particle accelerator, or gas centrifuges. If the people have gas centrifuges to separate heavy and light isotopes then they have the ability to produce weapon grade nuclear material without the thorium reactor.
This is another example of the Bulletin spreading weapons grade FUD on nuclear power. There are far easier means to produce weapons than a molten salt reactor.
The thorium cycle is indeed inherently proliferation resistant. This is because the ability to produce weapon grade nuclear material is available to anyone with an understanding of chemistry and physics on the level taught to first year college students. After that it's just having enough money to build machines that can dig up uranium and build some other machines that can separate U-235 from the other stuff. Any process more difficult or expensive than that, such as molten salt reactors, is inherently proliferation resistant.
Re: (Score:2)
I does not seem you understood the issue with proliferation. The idea is not that some rogue state develops a Thorium reactor itself instead of using centrifuges. The idea is that it *buys* a Thorium reactor for energy production and then secretly builds a nuclear weapons program on top of it.
Re:That's not a bad goal (Score:5, Informative)
I does not seem you understood the issue with proliferation. The idea is not that some rogue state develops a Thorium reactor itself instead of using centrifuges. The idea is that it *buys* a Thorium reactor for energy production and then secretly builds a nuclear weapons program on top of it.
I understand just fine.
To get a thorium molten salt reactor to produce weapon grade plutonium requires the use of weapon grade uranium. I've seen the math on this. The reason a solid fuel reactor doesn't need weapon grade uranium to produce weapon grade plutonium is because the fuel is kept separate from the target material. In a molten salt reactor this is difficult to impossible.
Maybe they can run the reactor in a batch process. This is setting up the right mix of isotopes for fuel and target material in the reactor fuel salt, then running it for a bit, then dumping the core, and running the salt through a chemical process to get the plutonium out. This use would be highly obvious as the reactor would produce no useful heat for power. This is also a process that any power reactor could be put through to produce weapon grade material, the use of a molten salt mix will add steps to the process making this slower and more expensive than other options.
Maybe the processing could be done continuously but this would require EXTENSIVE modifications, and using chemistry very different than what it was designed for. It would also likely still require highly enriched fuel, fuel that is weapon grade or very close to weapon grade already.
Maybe if the design calls for control rods in the core then the reactor could be modified for putting target material in the core instead of a control rod. This would be highly dangerous, a modification that would be highly obvious, likely requires enriched fuel (though perhaps not weapon grade), and require running the reactor in a kind of batch process to install and remove the target.
This is not a molten salt reactor but a kind of thorium reactor, it's possible to use a heavy water reactor to burn thorium and breed plutonium. This has been experimented with many times but heavy water reactors are losing favor because they have a "feature", much like the RBMK at Chernobyl, that can lead to thermal runaway and then a steam and/or hydrogen/oxygen explosion. There are safer designs to use, and so building any kind of heavy water reactor would look suspicious. Being able to buy a heavy water reactor today is highly unlikely because of the issues of safety and potential for use in weapon production.
There are simply far easier ways to get weapon grade material than from a thorium molten salt reactor. The most useful means to get a thorium reactor to produce weapon grade material is to power gas centrifuges. The whole point of a thorium reactor is that it does not require centrifuges to enrich the fuel. Someone with centrifuges would be under suspicion of producing weapons.
Re:That's not a bad goal (Score:4, Insightful)
And how is that relevant? North Korea is an overall bad guy at the moment and they still get their grubby paws on weapons grade fissionable material it seems.
It seems to me that we are completely inept at stoping a motivated party from gaining nuclear arms as it stands. Adding a Thorium reactor to the mix won't change a damn thing about that but just might provide a pretty safe alternative to coal and oil plants.
Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
Gen IV Nuclear is the answer, in fact, it's the long term answer and all we'll need for the next few thousand years.
yes they do (Score:4, Interesting)
Geothermal in hawaii injects all sorts of shitty chemicals and was a huge danger when the lava was coming last year. Solar fields are frying birds flying over, wind farms have high bird kill, and these are all made from things with non-free manufacturing processes.
Nuclear is very contained. Fear of nuclear is overblown. And when a place is contaminated it's a hell of a lot easier to find out that it is than testing the soil for lead and solvents.
The energy is so concentrated, the fuel is everywhere, that the waste and politics is objectively easier to handle... as soon as people don't hold onto their myths. It's like spiders. Not so dangerous.
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.tandfonline.com/do... [tandfonline.com]
Wind 0.269/GWh
Fossil 9.36/GWh
Nuclear 0.638/GWh
Similar numbers in this paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/p... [ssrn.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)
Do I understand this correctly. Andrew Yang states that we cannot count on Batteries, Wind, and Sun?
Unless you personally can figure out how to power the entire world grid with that then no we cannot count on it right now. Maybe if we have a few hundred years, but even then I don't think it will scale and massive solar farms are difficult to build in a reliable way. Even wind storms can sometimes damage them pretty badly.
Solar only generates power properly for something like 6 hours a day. Even putting aside the energy storage problem that is not a very efficient way to power the world. Wind is great if you live in Wyoming or Patagonia or hell Antarctica, but otherwise you have a pretty big distribution problem getting the power to people who need it. Solar is also not without a distribution problem. It is mainly appropriate for equatorial deserts. If it rains or snows too much or is a high lattitude location with low light winters forget it. As things heat up people will if anything be moving away from the equatorial areas. So you have to find a way to move the power.
Superconducting high voltage DC distribution? Yeah dream on. We aren't even close to ready for that tech at the moment and keeping a liquid nitrogen pipeline reliably cool would be difficult.
It is a similar problem to hydro which for some reason greenies don't like to mention. Why not power the world solely with hydroelectric? Once you have answered that question you will see the problem with wind power as well.
The harsh reality is there is not a single country, not even Ireland, that has any immediate plans to rely on solar and wind for 100% of the grid and it isn't because you are smarter than they are. IIRC Ireland even had plans to use some of France's nuclear power to help them go carbon neutral. It will be an amazing feat of engineering if anyone manages to make it happen, but Ireland is a relatively small island and so distribution is not as big of a problem.
The reality is that without nuclear power of some kind carbon neutrality has almost no chance of happening this century. If you want to wait until the 22nd or 23rd century then maybe especially as our tech gets better. Of course as our tech gets better nuclear fission or even fusion will become safer too. Either you take global warming seriously or you don't. If it really is an immediate threat of extinction as Greta claims then it seems you would literally rather die than go nuclear.
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while I support an "all of the above" strategy... those other near-carbon-neutral energy sources take up shit tons of space. Better to place them optimistically and for particular uses. The industrial grid should use nuclear.
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Following the energy strategy in Germany closely, I do not think the real engineering problems are ignored with respect to renewables. Renewable production of electricity was scaled up without any problems to 35% in two decades and this was not done without doing a lot of simulations and studies. The problems for scaling this up further are well understood and being addressed. There are a lot of researchers and engineers working on iit. Those are not "greenies". -(BTW: I find such name calling never convin
Re: (Score:2)
I do not think the real engineering problems are ignored with respect to renewables
I meant by their advocates on the internet. Not actual engineers in Germany. Obviously it's their job. They cannot ignore the problems. I bet they would be the first ones to complain about the difficulties though and would be unlikely to see a 100% solar + wind grid as realistic in the next decade or two.
If Germany succeeds with scaling up solar and wind and hydro to 100% of their energy grid then there could at least be a discussion about the realism of it. Until some country succeeds with it it is purely
Re: (Score:2)
Renewable production of electricity was scaled up without any problems to 35% in two decades and this was not done without doing a lot of simulations and studies.
Keep in mind that's only 5% of total energy, so they would need to scale this up by factor of 20.
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Unless you personally can figure out how to power the entire world grid with that then no we cannot count on it right now.
This was published 4 years ago: https://www.greenpeace.org/arc... [greenpeace.org]
You will instinctively want to ad-hominen it but that report is fully cited and peer reviewed, so perhaps you could state why you think it's wrong instead.
The path to 100% renewable energy really just depends on how much money we are willing to spend to get there. 2050 is very affordable. 2030 is possible for many developed countries if they turbo-charge their economies with massive infrastructure investment, although somewhat unlikely for po
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
From the report:
transport use must be shifted to more efficient areas like rail, light rail and buses, especially in large cities. if this is achieved, there are
energy savings of 62% (92,000 PJ/a) in 2050 compared to the iea scenario, in spite of population increase, GDP growth and higher living standards.
Peer reviewed or not, the idea that we'll get people out of their cars, and into buses and trains is completely unrealistic.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course they are including a lot of fossil fuel use in that too, as it was before major economies made the commitment to phase out non-electric vehicles.
In any case, public transport works well in many cities and is often preferable to private vehicles. I think Americans have a hard time imagining that because they don't seem to have any good public transport systems in the US.
Remember that most travel is to/from work. Those journeys, regular ones with the same start and end points every time, are ideal f
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear is THE solution to the problem.
There fixed that for you. You should probably use the preview button but looks like you just had some words out of order. It was easy to see what your meaning was.
You're welcome.
Re: (Score:3)
Thankfully ZPE will put an end to this nonsense.
Zero point energy. Okay then, you are a loon. That explains it all. Your option on anything no longer has any value.
Slashdot 2020 (Score:5, Funny)
Yang sounds like a Slashdot user who somehow was able to become a presidential candidate.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the preponderance of ''stories'' that has somehow been accepted as ''News for Nerds.. Stuff that Matters'' reads more like compensated ''news'' offerings than ''Stuff that Matters''.
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It depends on your priorities - As I see it, traditional nuclear reactors have two main problems:
- Long-lived radioactive waste, which we have no way to store effectively for the timescales necessary (though reprocessing could eliminate much of that problem, but adds its own considerable costs and risks)
- Human fecklessness and greed: almost much every major reactor "incident" has had its roots not in technology failure, but in people either being careless, or cutting corners, often repeatedly over the cour
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You want to sell me on nuclear, you need to do two things: eliminate the long-lived waste problem, because we're nowhere near wise or skilled enough to deal with it.
How skilled are we at dealing with the unforeseen problems resulting from AGW? At least we've got some experience with things going horribly wrong with current gen nuclear power. This ends up being one of those cases where "perfect is the enemy of good", as the saying goes. We're not going to shut down the fossil fuel plants while we wait for someday, when nuclear is perfectly safe 100% of the time.
Re: Slashdot 2020 (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot 2020 (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no interest in selling you on nuclear. The newer designs are pretty much idiot proof. I personally have my doubts that AGW is going to be an immediate danger to our species. I don't trust computer models. Like most of you I am a programmer myself and GIGO is always a thing especially when politics is involved and AGW is a highly politicized topic. I also have an electrical engineering background and imo from an engineering standpoint nuclear is the only way to get anywhere close to carbon neutral this century unless someone invents an entirely new source of power.
Even though I don't trust the politically biased computer model predictions of the future I do think we have to do what we can to reduce CO2 emissions because CO2 itself starts to be toxic starting at around 800 - 1000 ppm and we will probably reach that in less than a century if things continue as they are and sooner if they accelerate as the computer models probably predict.
Everyone is so focused on the warming they have forgotten that CO2 is a waste gas for us and so it should not be surprising that high levels are bad for us. Even if all the computer models are wrong for warming do you want to need to wear some kind of CO2 adsorption mask whenever you walk outside your CO2 reduced home environment in order to not be mentally impaired whenever you leave your house? Without nuclear that will probably be the future.
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The newer designs are pretty much idiot proof.
Thorium isn't.
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Nobody in the field 'trusts' computer models, that's what verification and validation are for.
The actual predictions you're talking about are made after looking at the results from about 50 independently derived models, all run multiple times with varying starting conditions to check for stability on output. So we're not trusting _a_ model, we are saying that, statistically, the averaged output of a large number of _independently_ developed models is likely to resemble reality.
You're right that nuclear has
Re: (Score:3)
Brainwashed is what your side is. Yours is the majority position. Yours is the position they teach to little kids in grammar school. Is it any surprise they grow up to be true believers? Ask any religion about this. They know. You have to start your indoctrination young and then they will be with you for life. You have to truly be an independent thinker willing to be ostracized by your group to stand against that sort of thing and not many people are like that.
Computer models are not science. Period. I can
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You want to sell me on nuclear, you need to do two things: eliminate the long-lived waste problem, because we're nowhere near wise or skilled enough to deal with it.
Fire up Google Earth.
Enter this search term: Sedan Crater.
Wow, that's a big crater. Now, scan south.
That's just short of a thousand nuclear bomb craters, with no containment whatsoever other than most of the fission products and unburned plutonium being well under ground, just dispersed in the rubble of the blast.
That's what's already there in the general area of Yucca Mountain. If glassified wastes are a world-ending catastrophe waiting to happen, then shoot, we're already doomed, there's no cleaning
It is campaign season... (Score:2)
Re:It is campaign season... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you really need to lose your job and find yourself getting rejected by every employer you apply to for the next 2-3 years. Then get back to us. Because that is the reality for some people. You have just been lucky. Lucky people hate the idea that their success has anything to do with luck, but that is all it usually is. Someone has to win the job lottery and get hired. You did not get where you are because you are veryverysmart as you probably believe. And certainly not because you work harder than minimum wagers. Another false believe that successful people like to have.
Were you required to submit a full IQ test when applying to your current job? I would have done pretty well applying for jobs when I was younger if a high IQ test result were a ticket to getting hired. Oh how I wish it were that easy. Iff you run your own business I'd give you pass and say it was at least partly intelligence that got you where you are, but if you are a wage slave of any kind then nope. It was pretty much all luck.
A UBI system could allow for nearly everyone to have their own business and that is the sort of utopian world I like. One without evil governments or evil corporations twisting everything toward their selfish and evil ends. A world where individuals have some self-determination and are not treated like slaves. Well it really work? Will everyone just stop working and the whole economy come to a crashing halt? We don't know because no country has ever tried it at scale. Obviously there would have to be an emergency safety switch if everyone decides to just sit home playing video games and the whole economy crashes, but the only way to see if this idea of an underclass utopia could work is to try it at least briefly at full scale.
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I think you really need to lose your job and find yourself getting rejected by every employer you apply to for the next 2-3 years.
I'm self-employed. Didn't need UBI to start my own business, I did it myself.
You're not arguing with a right-winger here. I'm a registered Democrat and I completely support helping people who need a hand getting back on the ladder of success. But giving people money with no attached requirement to better themselves is not going to create a Star Trek utopia, regardless of what Yang believes.
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It doesn't need to be about 'bettering themselves'. It's about stopping them from being detrimental to society.
Giving some people a UBI will indeed result in them spending their entire life drunk and playing Fortnite. I'm fine with my taxes being spent on that, if it turns out to be cheaper than administering tests on who qualifies for benefits, checking what they spend it on, checking that they comply with the rules, sanctioning those that don't. If they are so well fed and entertained that they don't feel
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if it turns out to be cheaper than administering tests on who qualifies for benefits
Which is very unlikely. How many hours would it take for a civil worker to do those tests on a single recipient ? Even if it takes one hour of oversight per month of welfare paid, that's less than 1%, and would easily pay for itself. Even without catching fraud, there are many circumstances where somebody just needs less money to live comfortably.
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all over, been growing for the last 8+ years... India plans to lead it.
Not surprising, India has huge thorium deposits.
Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
Does Andrew Yang own this website? /. feed.
I feel like I tuned into an infomercial for the Yang campaign on today's
wouldn't it be funny if (Score:3, Funny)
Yang showed up and replied, "Yep, I bought slashdot"
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I, for one, welcome our new insect Overlords.
Reduces proliferation risk? (Score:2)
Battery capacity (Score:2)
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A trillion lead-acid batteries might help solve the storage problems with solar, but it won't solve its duty cycle and distribution problems. Solar is not the panacea you seem to believe it is.
This is the problem. Too many people in the world are bad at engineering. That is the real reason we are not going to solve the AGW problem. It isn't Big Oil conspiracies. It's people like you who try to solve engineering problems in your head without even trying to be realistic about it. If your answer to AGW is sola
My daughter has worked on molten salt reactors. (Score:5, Informative)
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Chances are the fact that it doesn't make plutonium was seen as a downside by the warmongers.
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Like Erdogan? Sez Turkey should have nuclear weapons. The MidEast clearly doesn't have enough issues to screw themselves with.
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Also, since Thorium reactors can’t make plutonium you have less of a chance of plutonium being diverted for a nuclear weapon - though that is a lesser concern in my mind because an energy reactor is a poor way to make fissile plutonium.
So poor a way that no nation has joined the Boom Boom Club using plutonium made in a power reactor.
One (1) "device" was detonated using power reactor plutonium by the Carter administration back in the 70s, as a propaganda stunt to justify shutting down reprocessing of wastes and recycling the plutonium. By all accounts, it wasn't easy. The "device", to get around the problems of all that Pu240 and Pu242, apparently had to be physically large... Very large. As in not deployable in any sort of weapons prog
Re:My daughter has worked on molten salt reactors. (Score:4, Informative)
Note that these are all intertwined. The reason reactors using uranium have a "nuclear waste" problem is because we stop using the fuel even though it still contains more than 90% of the energy. That large amount of remaining energy is why the "waste" stays radioactive for tens of thousands of years. There's a simple way to tap the remaining energy - run the "waste" through a breeder reactor. In addition to extracting energy from the "waste", it converts it into a form which can be used as fuel in regular reactors. This eliminates the need to bury waste in Yucca mountain, as well as the potential shortage of uranium in the future (since we'd be extracting over 10x as much energy from the same amount of uranium).
The reason we don't do this (or at least the U.S. doesn't do it) is because breeder reactors also create weapons-grade plutonium. Carter banned reprocessing of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors in the 1970s for nuclear non-proliferation reasons. So in that respect, the "nuclear waste" problem is a political problem, not a technical one.
Instead, the DNC will run (Score:2)
Instead, the DNC will run someone who has never had an honest job ever in their life, and promises unlimited (rather than limited, like Yang's "freedom dividend"), amounts of "free" shit to everyone.
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That would be a pity. Yang is the one candidate who might tempt me to vote Democrat this time.
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Now now, Warren is going to have a wealth tax. The first job will be to figure out where outside the U.S. rich people stowed it all so she couldn't take it. The second job will be to explain that the free shit won't be coming anytime soon because they cannot find the money. The third job will be her speech congratulating the new Republican eunuch the American people elected to replace her, having not learned their lesson with the current eunuch.
Slow Wave Reactor (Score:2)
Nuclear engineering is complicated (Score:2)
There are a wide range of engineering issues in reactors from stability (number of delayed neutrons, consumable poisons, bubble coefficients etc), to materials corrosion, gas generation etc.
I'm a physicist which puts me just far enough on the Dunning Kruger curve to realize that I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether thorium reactors are a good idea. I suspect that most of the people discussing their advantages don't know a lot more.
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Well, the German 300MW experimental THTR (Thorium High-Temperature Reactor) was a complete failure. They never could get it to work reliably and always had issued.
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It works until it gets non molten again
2027? He's kidding, right? (Score:3)
As such, a lot more design work needs to go into building a nuclear reactor than most other large power generators or other industrial-scale engineering systems, and that design work needs to be approved by regulators.
Doing that design and engineering work for a novel reactor type and building up sufficient regulatory expertise to approve said design and building the first grid-connected version in six years? All in the face of likely protests and court challenges throwing sand in the gears? Not going to happen.
Cost remains an issue (Score:2)
The biggest impediment to nuclear power (according to a talk I just listened to from EPRI is the construction, and to some extent operating cost.
I like nuclear, I really do, but it just doesn't seem cost competitive.
So, now Slashdot is talking about nuclear power? (Score:3)
It's nice to finally see nice things said about molten salt reactors on Slashdot. I guess all it took was a Democrat politician to break the ice on that.
What bothers me about Yang's proposed timeline is the lack of a milestone within what would be his first term in office. The first milestone is near the end of his second term, and everything after that is then just wishful thinking of the next president agreeing with his plan.
People believed JFK when he said we'd put men on the moon because that was something within his power, both as something the President had the authority to do and as a goal within his term in office. I believe Elon Musk will put people on Mars, or die trying, because he has the authority within his company to set goals and no term limits to cut this short.
I'm quite convinced that Yang wants molten salt reactors to come to market, and believes them to be a vital part of a carbon neutral energy sector. What I'm not convinced about is his own ability to bring that to be as POTUS. He'd be more convincing as a private citizen, like Musk. Or, be more convincing by setting goals that are within his first term.
I've seen good things said about the future of nuclear power from President Trump and Secretary Perry. They don't make much noise about it, or at least the news outlets don't report on it often. For those that are paying attention, like myself, there is a bright future for nuclear power from the current administration.
I'd like to see Yang nominated. Regardless of who wins the general election we get more clean and abundant energy. Energy that is home grown, which will free us from some international entanglements. The debates would be most enjoyable, it will force news outlets to report on nuclear power and politicians in office having to go on record being for or against nuclear power.
When people start talking about nuclear power then it should be far clearer that we need nuclear power in the future. Solar, wind, and batteries will not run our economy, or send people to Mars.
Re: So, now Slashdot is talking about nuclear powe (Score:2)
Timeline is highly unrealistic (Score:2)
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Sure, but there's a difference between hard and unrealistic. Even if Yang initiated a massive research and development program, it would be several years before it even got going in earnest.
Also, engineering projects do not necessarily go faster just by throwing money and resources at them. There are still unsolved issues regarding thorium reactors.
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Two months would make no difference here.
"For Christs sakes - use BinGoogle before you prove that you are an idiot."
Why don't you stop acting like a child, and learn enough grammar to appear like you passed 6th grade.
Don't agree with everything but I do with this (Score:2)
This will fail Yang (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the technical understanding of the average voter is not great eno
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Tagging futuristic nuclear energy technologies as a significant part of his platform can only fail Mr. Yang - because it makes too much sense. As Yang has said, new nuclear technologies are great stop-gap solutions while we ramp up renewable energy sources. Thorium and modern uranium reactors are indeed much safer and cleaner than "classic" fission reactors, and if fully developed could certainly help us replace fossil fuels.
No. New nuclear technologies are useless as stop-gap solutions. Renewables can be ramped up much quicker than new nuclear could be developed and installed.
As a stop-gap solution it makes sense to keep exisitng nuclear plants running for longer, and maybe build some based on proven technology, such as third-generation reactors, not develop new technologies that won't be ready for decades (that2027 target seems very unrealistic to me).
$50 Billion (Score:2)
$50 Billion?
I think we flew to the Moon for less.
Too late! (Score:3)
Quick action to fight climate change is needed now.
Developing new nuclear reactors (be it thorium, or fourth generation uranium reactors), with a hope of getting them on the grid by 2027 (an IMO very unrealistic timeframe, I'd expect at least a decade of delay) won't help in time.
IMO, the only reasonable action now is to use proven technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, such as solar, wind, small-scale hydropower (I don't think there are lots of suitable places for large scale-hydropower left in developed countries), third generation nuclear reactors. Improved insulation on houses to reduce the need for heating; better public transport to reduce emissions from transportation (also try to keep rail freight alive).
Bring on the U-233 (Score:2)
Boom!
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All the US reactors are the Naval design scaled up, that's why they need so much water. High temperature liquid (salt-dissolved) thorium is way better, not under pressure, and can been built so it's literally impossible to melt down.
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Giving power away to surrounding communities for the cost of generation?
Thats like community broadband but with the cost of power.
Want nuclear power?
Pay a US company in full to bring in a turn key design from a nation like Italy, Germany, France, China, Russia, Japan.
China is already doing it (Score:2)
China is already dumping billions into Thorium reactor as well as various other types.
https://www.scmp.com/news/chin... [scmp.com]
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But West Germany and South Africa... they did so well with pebble bed nuclear work.
Let the USA gov invest in and pay for molten-salt nuclear reactors.
Like Germany and South Africa they can sell nuclear to the world.
Pay for the design.
The land and reactor work.
The costs of power generation.
Any and all later clean up.
When the molten part gets less molten and becomes stuck? The gov can pay for that risk too.
Tax
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The molten part is the fuel - if it gets "less molten" then that means the nuclear reaction has slowed down to the point that it's cooled down to a solid phase... and the reactor shuts down safely because the fuel is spent.
The only way "charged" fuel ever solidifies is if you melt the cork out of the bottom and drain it all out across the floor - which is usually the final, passive, deadman safety system - spread the fuel out and it can't sustain a chain reaction, and solidifies into a platter you can work
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But West Germany and South Africa... they did so well with pebble bed nuclear work.
I don't know about South Africa, but do me a favour and look up Germany's AVR reactor. It is a nightmare. In every sense and variation of the word. Even defuelling failed, with ± 200 pebbles remaining in the cracks in the core. It got so bad they filled it with concrete and won't touch it again before 2060.
It's listed as the place with the worst strontium-90 contamination in the world. Guess that qualifies as 'so well' in a Trumpian sense..
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Thorium reactors are good on paper, and that's the only place they are good. Here in the real world they are too fucking finicky and require control on the razor's edge of optimization in order to be useful.
Right, and you know so much more shit than Yang that you have to post anonymously. And so many commercial-scale thorium reactors have failed. Right.
Come on man, the technology still needs a ton of development but it's very promising. Newer uranium-based designs are also absolutely worth considering, as the are much safer than older plants (nearly no chance of Chernobyl or Fukushima type disasters) and could do a great deal to minimize our fossil fuel contributions to climate change. We obviously aren't the
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So we should invest in a completely unproven technology as a short term solution in case the proven technologies don't work as expected?
Proven carbon neutral technologies? Are you talking about more traditional nuclear designs or stuff that doesn't scale like wind and hydro? If you say anything else I bet you don't have any sort of engineering background. I would be curious about how you plan to scale up hydro and wind to power and distribute it to the whole planet. Obviously not with superconductors.
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Fuck off, Yang. Nuclear power doesn't need your "help".
It sure as hell needs somebody's help. It gets no positive press, development has moved at a snail's pace for damn near two generations, and the average person doesn't understand (they equate any reactor to Chernobyl). We need people like Yang to bring it to the big stages they have access to, not to fuck off. Whether you agree with his ideas on concepts like universal basic income is another issue altogether. No one else is promoting modern or future nuclear technologies, and that isn't just limited to Dem