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Molten solt reactors do not solve the problem of nuclear waste. It is very expensive to deal with it as it has to be stored for hundreds of years unless some te

by _0w8t 5y ago

Molten solt reactors do not solve the problem of nuclear waste. It is very expensive to deal with it as it has to be stored for hundreds of years unless some technology would appear to separate that cheaply. Fusion produce like order of magnitude less radioactive waste which will be short-lived. Plus a fusion plant can be very quick to start and shutdown or throttle down which is very useful for base load.

panick21_ 5y ago
Molten salt reactors inherently don't. But you can burn up higher actinides resulting in waste that only needs to be stored a few 100 years and pose very little danger even in the most absurd scenarios. You don't need to separate all the different parts. You reprocess our old waste into fuel for modern reactors. In those reactors higher actinides will be burned up. And the resulting output does not have higher actinides and only needs to be stored as long. Moltex Energy is currently engaged with the Canadian regulator for such a facility, the process is called WATSS. Doing this is actually cheaper then the deep storage storage facilities proposed in many countries. Sadly because of political bullshit reprocessing has been made illegal in the US. Such things would have been doable decades ago, and the money for it is already on bank accounts in most countries. But politician force the 'dig a hole for everything' solutions instead. > Plus a fusion plant can be very quick to start and shutdown or throttle down which is very useful for base load. Next generation fusion would also be very reactive to changes. Far more then traditional. But the reality is you actually want to run full power as much as you can, no matter if fission or fusion.
pfdietz 5y ago
Nuclear waste is not the major problem with fission, capital cost is. Fusion solves a minor problem of fission while making the major problem worse. It's a great example of misplaced focus. Cooling down the magnets of a fusion plant is not a quick process, btw. Hell, just getting a fusion plant built with RAFM steel up to operating temperature is a delicate process. Once irradiated, the temperature window that material can operate at is rather narrow (300 C to 550 C; below that it's too brittle and above that it creeps.)
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Exactly, capital cost of large civil engineering project and the financing of that is actually the driver of the cost. If you can build a nuclear plant with 500MW output and reduce the amount of concrete needed by significant factor, all of a sudden your are quite competitive. Just for comparison, this is one of the furthest along commercial GenIV projects designs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pZC_ajI8Hs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pZC_ajI8Hs No massive cooling towers. No gigantic containment cylinder. No gigantic low-pressure steam turbine. In a PWR the core containment vessel is incredibly expensive and can only be built a few places, but its actually not the cost driver. Even so, compare to those, modern GenIV core vessels are vastly cheaper. Not having to weld 8 inch gigantic steel vessels is far easier. See: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OgTgV3Kq49U/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OgTgV3Kq49U/maxresdefault.jpg
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    And, not building them at all is easier yet. And, massively cheaper.

by _0w8t 5y ago

panick21_ 5y ago

Molten salt reactors inherently don't. But you can burn up higher actinides resulting in waste that only needs to be stored a few 100 years and pose very little danger even in the most absurd scenarios. You don't need to separate all the different parts. You reprocess our old waste into fuel for modern reactors. In those reactors higher actinides will be burned up. And the resulting output does not have higher actinides and only needs to be stored as long. Moltex Energy is currently engaged with the Canadian regulator for such a facility, the process is called WATSS. Doing this is actually cheaper then the deep storage storage facilities proposed in many countries. Sadly because of political bullshit reprocessing has been made illegal in the US. Such things would have been doable decades ago, and the money for it is already on bank accounts in most countries. But politician force the 'dig a hole for everything' solutions instead. > Plus a fusion plant can be very quick to start and shutdown or throttle down which is very useful for base load. Next generation fusion would also be very reactive to changes. Far more then traditional. But the reality is you actually want to run full power as much as you can, no matter if fission or fusion.

pfdietz 5y ago

Nuclear waste is not the major problem with fission, capital cost is. Fusion solves a minor problem of fission while making the major problem worse. It's a great example of misplaced focus. Cooling down the magnets of a fusion plant is not a quick process, btw. Hell, just getting a fusion plant built with RAFM steel up to operating temperature is a delicate process. Once irradiated, the temperature window that material can operate at is rather narrow (300 C to 550 C; below that it's too brittle and above that it creeps.)

panick21_ 5y ago
Exactly, capital cost of large civil engineering project and the financing of that is actually the driver of the cost. If you can build a nuclear plant with 500MW output and reduce the amount of concrete needed by significant factor, all of a sudden your are quite competitive. Just for comparison, this is one of the furthest along commercial GenIV projects designs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pZC_ajI8Hs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pZC_ajI8Hs No massive cooling towers. No gigantic containment cylinder. No gigantic low-pressure steam turbine. In a PWR the core containment vessel is incredibly expensive and can only be built a few places, but its actually not the cost driver. Even so, compare to those, modern GenIV core vessels are vastly cheaper. Not having to weld 8 inch gigantic steel vessels is far easier. See: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OgTgV3Kq49U/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OgTgV3Kq49U/maxresdefault.jpg
- ncmncm 5y ago
  And, not building them at all is easier yet. And, massively cheaper.