Nuclear Power
- Thread starter Captain_Crunch
- Start date
Nuclear power is certainly preferable to other fossil fuels, but its proponents routinely downplay the prospects of alternatives. I'm still in favor of a distributed power generation approach using solar cell-covered roofs, wind turbines, wave/tide and hydroelectric, temperature differential, solar concentrator, geothermal, biomass, and whatever else people come up with. There's greater redundancy and self-sufficiency, fewer problems with security, virtually no waste of any kind. Certain facilities (for example, crucial military installations) might want nuclear power plants for high and secure power density and self-sufficiency. But generally speaking, objections thrown out against green energy are bogus.
For intermittent power sources such as wind turbines, wave generators and solar cells/concentrators, the best power storage technology is not batteries but flywheels. With magnetic bearings and high-efficiency motor/generator assemblies, flywheels lose very little energy, can easily handle large spikes of demand, have no polluting components, and are very compact given their power density, when compared to batteries.
The objections as to cost are spurious. Mass production will lower cost dramatically. Massive industry involvement (as would happen with massive government subsidies) would result in fast R&D cycles. All we need is a national commitment to clean energy. As I've said before, shunting an extra 50 billion a year into something like that rather than the bloated Pentagon budget would go a long way toward boosting national security and vastly stimulating US industry and exports at the same time.
For intermittent power sources such as wind turbines, wave generators and solar cells/concentrators, the best power storage technology is not batteries but flywheels. With magnetic bearings and high-efficiency motor/generator assemblies, flywheels lose very little energy, can easily handle large spikes of demand, have no polluting components, and are very compact given their power density, when compared to batteries.
The objections as to cost are spurious. Mass production will lower cost dramatically. Massive industry involvement (as would happen with massive government subsidies) would result in fast R&D cycles. All we need is a national commitment to clean energy. As I've said before, shunting an extra 50 billion a year into something like that rather than the bloated Pentagon budget would go a long way toward boosting national security and vastly stimulating US industry and exports at the same time.
kmguru
Staff member
I did not check, if this has been posted:
Gas-Cooled, “Passive,“ Small: Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor
Designer. The Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) was developed by Eskom of South Africa during the 1990s. The PBMR is based on High-Temperature Reactor (HTR) designs developed and built in Germany in the 1980s. More detailed information can be found on the PBMR Web site.
Compact, versatile, and flexible. PBMRs produce 110 megawatts each. Up to ten PBMRs can share a common control center and occupy an area of no more than three football fields. PBMRs can be used either for baseload or peaking power generation.
Self-contained fuel pebbles rather than fuel rods. Unlike conventional reactors that use fuel rods, the PBMR uses fuel spheres, or "pebbles," about the size of a tennis ball coated in graphite. Inside each pebble are 15,000 uranium particles, each coated with a silicon carbon barrier so dense that no gaseous or metallic radioactive products can escape. The uranium is enriched to 8 percent and, unlike conventional reactors, so much of its fissionable material is used up that very little is left. The reactor is loaded with 440,000 pebbles, three quarters of which are fuel and one quarter graphite as an additional nuclear moderator, graphite slowing down neutrons to the speed required for a nuclear reaction to take place.
Inert helium gas rather than water or steam to transfer heat. Conventional reactors use water and steam to absorb and transfer the heat produced by the nuclear reaction to turn the turbine and drive the generator producing electricity. By contrast, in the PBMR helium gas passes through the reactor over the fuel pebbles, is heated, and then flows through the turbine. Because it does not react chemically with other elements, helium cannot burn or become radioactive.
Continuous operation without refueling outages. Conventional light-water reactors designed in the United States shut down every 18 to 24 months to refuel. PBMRs, like Canadian heavy-water reactors, refuel while in operation. New or reusable fuel pebbles are continually being added to the reactor core from the top and removed from the bottom to measure how much fissile material is left. Each cycle takes about three months, with each fuel pebble passing through the reactor about 10 times. A fuel sphere will last about three years and a graphite sphere about 13 years. A PBMR will use about 10 to 15 total fuel loads in its lifetime.
Reduced major maintenance requirements. Because gas turbines are more efficient than steam turbines, and because, with magnetic bearings, there is less friction, the PBMR requires major maintenance only once every six years.
Passive safety design makes the use of conventional, active safety systems unnecessary. The PBMR is inherently safe because of the natural physics involved in its design, materials, and fuel configuration. Because helium is chemically and radiologically inert—cannot combine with other chemicals—it is non-combustible, and cannot become radioactive. If the reaction is not stopped by the graphite spheres or cooled by the helium, it will cool down naturally on its own in a very short time because the increase in temperature will make the chain reaction less efficient until it ceases to generate power. The peak temperature that can be reached in the reactor core is far below what would damage the fuel, because the ceramic materials coating the fuel—graphite and silicone carbide—are tougher than diamonds. Because of its shape—a high surface to volume ratio—the reactor will lose heat faster than the heat generated by the fuel in the core, so that the plant can never get hot enough for a meltdown of the fuel to occur.
Self-contained waste safe until nonradioactive. The design of PBMR fuel makes it easy to store after it is used in the reactor, because the silicon carbide coating around the fuel spheres will keep the radioactive particles isolated.
PBMR construction timetable. South Africa plans to begin operating a PBMR in 2007 and intends to construct up to 10 more in the future. In July 2002, two Japanese firms joined the construction project. Nuclear Fuel Industries Ltd. announced that it will construct a factory to fabricate the PBMR fuel pebbles, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. announced that it will develop the helium-powered turbine generators.
Gas-Cooled, “Passive,“ Small: Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor
Designer. The Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) was developed by Eskom of South Africa during the 1990s. The PBMR is based on High-Temperature Reactor (HTR) designs developed and built in Germany in the 1980s. More detailed information can be found on the PBMR Web site.
Compact, versatile, and flexible. PBMRs produce 110 megawatts each. Up to ten PBMRs can share a common control center and occupy an area of no more than three football fields. PBMRs can be used either for baseload or peaking power generation.
Self-contained fuel pebbles rather than fuel rods. Unlike conventional reactors that use fuel rods, the PBMR uses fuel spheres, or "pebbles," about the size of a tennis ball coated in graphite. Inside each pebble are 15,000 uranium particles, each coated with a silicon carbon barrier so dense that no gaseous or metallic radioactive products can escape. The uranium is enriched to 8 percent and, unlike conventional reactors, so much of its fissionable material is used up that very little is left. The reactor is loaded with 440,000 pebbles, three quarters of which are fuel and one quarter graphite as an additional nuclear moderator, graphite slowing down neutrons to the speed required for a nuclear reaction to take place.
Inert helium gas rather than water or steam to transfer heat. Conventional reactors use water and steam to absorb and transfer the heat produced by the nuclear reaction to turn the turbine and drive the generator producing electricity. By contrast, in the PBMR helium gas passes through the reactor over the fuel pebbles, is heated, and then flows through the turbine. Because it does not react chemically with other elements, helium cannot burn or become radioactive.
Continuous operation without refueling outages. Conventional light-water reactors designed in the United States shut down every 18 to 24 months to refuel. PBMRs, like Canadian heavy-water reactors, refuel while in operation. New or reusable fuel pebbles are continually being added to the reactor core from the top and removed from the bottom to measure how much fissile material is left. Each cycle takes about three months, with each fuel pebble passing through the reactor about 10 times. A fuel sphere will last about three years and a graphite sphere about 13 years. A PBMR will use about 10 to 15 total fuel loads in its lifetime.
Reduced major maintenance requirements. Because gas turbines are more efficient than steam turbines, and because, with magnetic bearings, there is less friction, the PBMR requires major maintenance only once every six years.
Passive safety design makes the use of conventional, active safety systems unnecessary. The PBMR is inherently safe because of the natural physics involved in its design, materials, and fuel configuration. Because helium is chemically and radiologically inert—cannot combine with other chemicals—it is non-combustible, and cannot become radioactive. If the reaction is not stopped by the graphite spheres or cooled by the helium, it will cool down naturally on its own in a very short time because the increase in temperature will make the chain reaction less efficient until it ceases to generate power. The peak temperature that can be reached in the reactor core is far below what would damage the fuel, because the ceramic materials coating the fuel—graphite and silicone carbide—are tougher than diamonds. Because of its shape—a high surface to volume ratio—the reactor will lose heat faster than the heat generated by the fuel in the core, so that the plant can never get hot enough for a meltdown of the fuel to occur.
Self-contained waste safe until nonradioactive. The design of PBMR fuel makes it easy to store after it is used in the reactor, because the silicon carbide coating around the fuel spheres will keep the radioactive particles isolated.
PBMR construction timetable. South Africa plans to begin operating a PBMR in 2007 and intends to construct up to 10 more in the future. In July 2002, two Japanese firms joined the construction project. Nuclear Fuel Industries Ltd. announced that it will construct a factory to fabricate the PBMR fuel pebbles, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. announced that it will develop the helium-powered turbine generators.
Ewwwww... NCI.
Those guys are professional anti-nuclear proponents. Of course anything they have to say is going to be negative. Futhermore, their technical staff seems to be pretty weak and certainly not credible enough for one guy to discredit that what the industry engineers thinks is right. Breaching those containment structures is seriously difficult... they were made to withstand the energy deposited to it by a full core meltdown and that's a LOT of energy.
Find some more legitimate sources and then we'll talk. An anti-nuclear institute with one phsyicist that likes to talk out of his ass won't cut it.
Those guys are professional anti-nuclear proponents. Of course anything they have to say is going to be negative. Futhermore, their technical staff seems to be pretty weak and certainly not credible enough for one guy to discredit that what the industry engineers thinks is right. Breaching those containment structures is seriously difficult... they were made to withstand the energy deposited to it by a full core meltdown and that's a LOT of energy.
Find some more legitimate sources and then we'll talk. An anti-nuclear institute with one phsyicist that likes to talk out of his ass won't cut it.
John MacNeil
Registered Senior Member
The knowledge that power could be gathered from solar rays was first understood over a century and a half ago, in 1839. You'd think by now the world's main source of recoverable energy would be from the sun. The problem with it is not that it's not economically feasable, which it is, it's that solar power works best in individual systems geared for specific applications. That means that each homeowner would be an independant energy producer. After the homeowner's solar equipment was installed, then all there would be to worry about would be the monthly payment for it, which would surely be less than a car payment. And the cost of the fuel to run the system, of course.
But then, what would happen to all of the parasitic utility companies? Some of them are amongst the largest corporations in the world and, lately, what with their global warming by-product, they don't seem able to meet the demand all the time anyway. Maybe they should be given a couple of trillion dollar golden handshakes and let them wander away somewhere.
But then, what would happen to all of the parasitic utility companies? Some of them are amongst the largest corporations in the world and, lately, what with their global warming by-product, they don't seem able to meet the demand all the time anyway. Maybe they should be given a couple of trillion dollar golden handshakes and let them wander away somewhere.