Nuclear

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Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

I've never been anti nuclear power generation.

I have been against the manner in which it is done , the cost involved and the time it takes to actually design and commission a nuclear power generation facility. It seems the world governments still prefer to develop nuclear weapons than a true cost efficient power generation facilities.

One of the biggest requirements for any type of thermal power generation of which nuclear power is , is cooling water, huge supplies of it.

For some reason , the proposers of nuclear power stations want them to be a massive industrial development focussed in the centre of development.

Ships/submarines use small, very efficient nuclear plants and have shown to be extremely safe and durable.

Why can't small efficient similar plants be dotted around our planet , just as the other alternate power generators are doing , and negating the need for huge water supplies for cooling , centralisation of populations and logistics and better selection of sites.

After the demise of the current dinosaur generators , I don't think there will ever be a population centralised industry in this country again.

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The tech on small reactors is pretty much all owned by the Military so they would have no interest in letting the world know how this is done - also, with it being so controversial to put in 1 reactor, how would you go suggesting dozens or hundreds of them being dotted around the place?

yes , any argument in favour of a practical , cost efficient , problem free and durable system almost self defeats itself.

I think a lot of people just dont realise how much endurance the fuel source has.

Not only is the tech on small reactors mostly owned by the military, but unless I am mistaken, they depend on the use of more highly enriched uranium, production of which implies nuclear weapons capability! (The enrichment needed is not to weapons grade, but .......)

Natural uranium is 99% U-238, less than 1% U-235. U-238 is not in itself suitable as a nuclear fuel (but can be converted to U-239, or plutonium, which are, in some reactors), so that the key requirement for a nuclear fuel is to increase the proportion of U-235. Most reactors require 3-5% U-235, nuclear weapons, >20%, in practice 50-90%. Submarine reactors are typically >50%. The prototype "small" reactor used 26.5%.

The problem is that any country using a significant number of "small" reactors will necessarily have access to the ability to produce, quite rapidly, a lot of nuclear weapons. This is in many circles considered an undesirable situation, and the International Atomic Energy Agency will want to know exactly what you are doing and why.

(The most economically practical method used for enrichment is to use a large number of centrifuges to separate uranium hexaflouride into a stream with less and more U-235. While the the equipment is basically simple, you need a lot of it, and uranium hexaflouride is really nasty stuff to handle. And it uses a lot of power.)

mmm ok, so I'll get down off my camel and resort to blowing , shining and flowing....it's so crazy....this stuff was proposed over 40yrs ago and we really havent made that big an advance. Except in the manufacturing which has a massive footprint.

And possibly the best alternative being nuclear is around 75yrs old without major basic design advances either except for weapons.

Now if we can make hydrogen easily , then we can make water easily to cool our reactors and boilers.

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Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

efficient similar plants be dotted around our planet , just as the other alternate power generators are doing , and negating the need for huge water supplies for cooling , centralisation of populations and logistics and better selection of sites..

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Water is the issue. Water has always been the issue and water will always be the issue. Not cooling water, but drinking water. Centralisation of population is always around a clean drinkable water source. The power just naturally follows as "civilisation" gets built where people can survive, but as we've shown there's no trickery to transporting power long distances.

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Originally Posted by BradC

Water is the issue. Water has always been the issue and water will always be the issue. Not cooling water, but drinking water. Centralisation of population is always around a clean drinkable water source. The power just naturally follows as "civilisation" gets built where people can survive, but as we've shown there's no trickery to transporting power long distances.

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Hit the nail on the Head Brad. Desalination plants use signification amounts of power. Nuclear is already flagged as essential to desalination in many countries. The new small reactors are not water hogs at all happily.

Other big news in Nuclear is The very anti nuclear Germans have "allegedly" just decided to hold off shutting the last 3 operating Nuclear energy plants in Germany. They were schedule to shut them off in December. [thumbsupbig]

Lasers could cut lifespan of nuclear waste from “a million years to 30 minutes,” says Nobel laureate


Excuse me if I shared this before. The "SILEX’ laser isotope separation technology in Sydney during the 1990’s" is a area I watch and play with a bit- NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

It is a interesting time in the entire nuclear cycle.

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Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

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And possibly the best alternative being nuclear is around 75yrs old without major basic design advances either except for weapons.
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Bit hard to know due to the lack of public information, but from what is available, it seems unlikely that there have been major advances in nuclear weapons since the 1950s. In delivery methods, yes, but not in the weapons themselves.

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

Bit hard to know due to the lack of public information, but from what is available, it seems unlikely that there have been major advances in nuclear weapons since the 1950s. In delivery methods, yes, but not in the weapons themselves.

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Want some new try technology- TRISO nuclear fuel. (TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel)

TRISO particles cannot melt in a reactor and can withstand extreme temperatures well beyond the threshold of current nuclear fuels. Feel the buzz yet? Link

They are not NEW yet these technologies are going to completely change the way the word with see and use nuclear power

Even the Germans are flipping