Re: Breeder reactor: And the winner is... metallic fuel

From: Dirk Bruere at Neopax (dirk_at_neopax.com)
Date: 11/18/04 

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:08:21 +0000

Dez Akin wrote:

> Dirk Bruere at Neopax <dirk@neopax.com> wrote in message news:<301e5rF2qnm07U4@uni-berlin.de>...
>
>>Uncle Al wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Dez Akin wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>usenet@mantra.com (Dr. Jai Maharaj) wrote in message news:<pQM0f64mRjD0@nX400N2RqUabqr>...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Breeder reactor: And the winner is... metallic fuel
>>>>>
>>>>>Unlike oxide fuel, metallic fuel with its higher breeding
>>>>>ratio and shorter doubling time will be able to produce
>>>>>more plutonium to help commission many more nuclear power
>>>>>reactors.
>>>>
>>>>Which is wonderful for advancing a nuclear weapons program, less
>>>>wonderful for civiliant nuclear power. If you're gonna breed for
>>>>civilian power, use the molten salt reactor. Much less costly fuel
>>>>cycle, and much safer to operate.
>>>
>>>
>>>What the average spewing moron does not consider is the density of
>>>metallic or oxide fuels. U, Th, and Pu metal allotropes and oxides
>>>are incredibly dense, gm/cm^3. Fission products and derivatives are
>>>not especially dense. All solid fuel forms build pressure and swell
>>>as they are fissioned, plus alpha-emission to add helium implantation
>>>then bubbles (thermally hot, right? diffusion) at truly extraordinary
>>>pressures. You hardly get a few percent burn until the fuel element
>>>swells so much it cannot be safely removed from the reactor. You also
>>>get rupture of fuel channels and primary coolant contamination.
>>>
>>>High burn reactors require non-solid fuel elements.
>>>
>>>If you want to make some money, add uranium nitride fuel elements and
>>>recover N-14(n,p)C-14 during reprocessing. C-14 is worth some bucks.
>>>For graphite-moderated designs (Chernobyl), a few decades of running
>>>does boost the core C-13 content and that is marginally worth
>>>recovering.
>>
>>China is going for pebble bed reactors.
>>http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html
>
>
> And Iran is going for uranium enrichment. Non-sequiter.
>
> PBMR's have a place to be sure, but breeding and waste incineration
> isn't among them.

Safety and economy are, however.
It looks like China is doing something radically correct.
The timescales are also amazing. That's what a lack of bureaucracy can do. 

-- 
Dirk
The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org

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