3 ms·

This kind of claims has been heard in France as far as I can remember it. I don't know how technologies differ between French technology (super-phenix) and chin

• uvdiv 16y ago
  I'd be wary of calling sodium fast reactors inferior on the basis of their past performance. All SFRs ever built were essentially prototypes; all their operating experience combined is less than what LWRs had in the 1960's. If thorium reactors had fewer spectacular commercial failures (e.g. [1]), it's largely because they had fewer commercial attempts. (That's not to concede that SFR failures were entirely commercial -- political obstruction was a large factor too. Both anti-nuclear opposition in general (post-Three Mile Island and post-Chernobyl) as well as specific, extremely misguided opposition to plutonium breeding. Argonne's IFR project was killed for this second reason [2]). >Thorium-based designs seem more realistic and useful, I wonder why this is not investigated more: it is more common than uranium and produces less nuclear waste than uranium-based designs. There's no meaningful distinction between FBRs and thorium reactors in fuel supply -- both have theoretically thousands of years of potential, so that it's silly to call this a factor. Nor is there a significant difference in waste production. (Though if I remember right, some minor actinides can only be efficiently destroyed by fast neutrons. This isn't an important difference; MAs are a small component, so you can augment a thermal-reactor fuel cycle with dedicated "waste burners" (e.g. [3] [4]) and still have a mostly-thorium fuel cycle). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 [2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/oleary.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/inter... [3] http://energyfromthorium.com/2009/11/11/lftr-and-msrs-achieve-the-doe-nes-goals/ http://energyfromthorium.com/2009/11/11/lftr-and-msrs-achiev... [4] http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2002/nea3109.html http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2002/nea3109.html
  • cdavid 16y ago
    I did not call anything inferior - I don't know anything about nuclear technologies, so I could not make any judgement of that nature. My argument was that fast breeder is nothing new in principle, and the claims as stated in the article are the same as the ones we heard in france when speaking about super phenix. I don't think super phenix can be considered as a prototype: as a target production power of > 1000 MW, it is closer to conventional, commercial reactors (those are theoretical numbers, which were never reached, let alone sustained). Thorium-based reactors are more mature than FBR as far as I understand, and my argument about thorium was against conventional reactors as stated, not fast breeders. As for supply, besides amount, the location also matters a lot. There is thorium in Europe, but little uranium as far I understand, which matters quite a bit.
    • uvdiv 16y ago
      It's not the size, it's the maturity. As you correctly criticize, Superphenix was non-functional much of the time: there were major engineering issues which hadn't been solved beforehand. This is the character of a prototype. >Thorium-based reactors are more mature than FBR as far as I understand Thorium reactors are even less mature than FBRs. Although that's a very loose category, you should distinguish between the extremely different reactor types which burn thorium, such as high temperature gas-cooled reactors (including pebble beds), which were the only commercial thorium reactors (for a short time); and the theoretical molten salt reactors, which unlike HTGRs are breeder reactors. For added confusion, some commercial (both LWR and HWR) reactors can run partially on thorium, but are not self-sufficient without uranium or plutonium fuel.