3 ms·
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
by 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 agoIt'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.