5 ms·

> The Kairos Hermes reactor design is based on a design that was tested in the '60s, the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment MSRs are a costly distraction. They are

> The Kairos Hermes reactor design is based on a design that was tested in the '60s, the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment MSRs are a costly distraction. They are not viable without literally hundreds of billions in research and development money. That's why all the MSRs startups are failing long before they even start the licensing process. > For example one quite unexpected effect in the MSRE was the enbrittlement of the reactor vessel caused by tellurium, which shows up as a fission product when U-235 burns. It was not unexpected. The _main_ issue with MSRs is that they have to contain fluoride salts that release elemental fluorine radicals as a result of radiolysis. So the reactor vessel walls will be eaten up by them, rather rapidly. Especially when reactors are scaled up to a level that makes them practical. And then you have all the fission byproducts that literally include almost all the Periodic Table.

pfdietz 2y ago
The Kairos design does not dissolve the fuel in the salt.
- cyberax 2y ago
  OK, that's interesting. And it's far better than MSRs, but it still exposes fluoride salts to radiation. It also is a pebble bed reactor, so it'll have all the problems of pebble beds: cracking pellets, difficulty in fuel reprocessing, more nuclear waste, etc. But yes, this design might be actually feasible for small reactors. But I bet that it won't be cheaper and it'll be impossible to scale to levels approaching PWRs.
  - conradev 2y ago
    The theory, at least, is that making SMRs in a factory allows for a steeper and more sustainable learning curve > Both Hermes and ETU 3.0 will be built using modular construction techniques, with reactor modules fabricated in Kairos Power's facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which will be shipped to Oak Ridge for assembly. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/work-begins-on-first-us-gen-iv-reactor https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/work-begins-on-f...
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Fluoride salts by themselves are very radiation resistant, chemically more so than water. The biggest concern would be liberation of elemental fluorine, but if the salt is kept slightly reducing (which one can do in a sterile salt without dissolved uranium) the fluorine instantly reacts back to fluoride. The slightly reduced salt is also preferred to limit corrosion, allowing the vessel and pipes to be made of stainless steel (FLiBe with dissolved uranium needs special more expensive alloys because chromium would dissolve.) Activation is also low. The two concerns would be traces of tritium from the two-step activation of beryllium (formation of 6He by (n,alpha) reaction, decay of 6He to 6Li, then (n,t) on 6Li), and also formation of 10Be (half life, 1.4 million years, but the thermal neutron capture cross section of 9Be is only 8.5 mb). The chemical toxicity of beryllium would considerably exceed its radiotoxicity, I imagine.
    - credit_guy 2y ago
      > traces of tritium from the two-step activation of beryllium Also from the 6Li absorption of 1 neutron. The Lithium used is almost pure 7Li, at 99.995%. But there is still 50 ppm 6Li in it.
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        Yes. The inescapable tritium production from Be sets the lower bound on how pure the 7Li has to be.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > The biggest concern would be liberation of elemental fluorine Yep. But I'm personally more worried about the pelletized fuel. Pellets are not a great form-factor, and they don't have cladding. Fluoride salts are also far more aggressive than water (mechanically and chemically), so this will limit the maximum specific power of the reactor. So I don't think that something like 1GW molten salt reactor is even possible. It might be OK if they want to continue using SMRs, though. > The slightly reduced salt is also preferred to limit corrosion Sidenote: that's actually not always a great idea. Steel is stainless because it's covered in a film of oxides, and without oxygen it might not be able to form. This is a problem for the Russian BREST-300 reactor that is cooled by molten lead, they had to do almost 10 years of research to perfect a system that controls the amount of dissolved oxygen in the molten lead. And it's still not clear if they succeeded until the full-scale reactor is built. In this case, though, I think that they can tune the reducers to react with fluorine preferentially, while still leaving enough oxygen.
Dylan16807 2y ago
> They are not viable without literally hundreds of billions in research and development money. The US produces 40000 billion kWh every decade, so that doesn't really seem that bad to me.
- oblio 2y ago
  When solar and wind and sodium ion batteries are basically there and probably don't need as much investment and R&D (or it's happening anyway from 1000 existing funding sources), it's probably bad. Or at least unlikely to happen.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    Sodium batteries theoretically should be cheaper than li-ion, but they are not yet there in practice. And they still won't solve problems with polar vortexes in the US or a month-long Dunkelflaute in Germany.
    - conradev 2y ago
      CATL’s first generation sodium batteries, shipped in Chery cars are $77/kWh CATL’s lithium phosphate batteries are more expensive for now at >$100kWh. Sodium batteries are definitely cheaper in practice, but much lower energy density. The question is how far CATL can push energy density, and the second generation is claimed to be >200Wh/kh. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/catl-and-byd-to-start-production-of-sodium-ion-batteries-westerners-left-behind-again-214061.html https://www.autoevolution.com/news/catl-and-byd-to-start-pro... https://www.westchestercleanenergy.com/post/record-low-lithium-ion-battery-cell-prices https://www.westchestercleanenergy.com/post/record-low-lithi...
      - oblio 2y ago
        Energy density is a bit less relevant for grid storage, though. Not like you run out of space to put them.
        2y ago

pfdietz 2y ago

The Kairos design does not dissolve the fuel in the salt.

cyberax 2y ago
OK, that's interesting. And it's far better than MSRs, but it still exposes fluoride salts to radiation. It also is a pebble bed reactor, so it'll have all the problems of pebble beds: cracking pellets, difficulty in fuel reprocessing, more nuclear waste, etc. But yes, this design might be actually feasible for small reactors. But I bet that it won't be cheaper and it'll be impossible to scale to levels approaching PWRs.
- conradev 2y ago
  The theory, at least, is that making SMRs in a factory allows for a steeper and more sustainable learning curve > Both Hermes and ETU 3.0 will be built using modular construction techniques, with reactor modules fabricated in Kairos Power's facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which will be shipped to Oak Ridge for assembly. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/work-begins-on-first-us-gen-iv-reactor https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/work-begins-on-f...
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Fluoride salts by themselves are very radiation resistant, chemically more so than water. The biggest concern would be liberation of elemental fluorine, but if the salt is kept slightly reducing (which one can do in a sterile salt without dissolved uranium) the fluorine instantly reacts back to fluoride. The slightly reduced salt is also preferred to limit corrosion, allowing the vessel and pipes to be made of stainless steel (FLiBe with dissolved uranium needs special more expensive alloys because chromium would dissolve.) Activation is also low. The two concerns would be traces of tritium from the two-step activation of beryllium (formation of 6He by (n,alpha) reaction, decay of 6He to 6Li, then (n,t) on 6Li), and also formation of 10Be (half life, 1.4 million years, but the thermal neutron capture cross section of 9Be is only 8.5 mb). The chemical toxicity of beryllium would considerably exceed its radiotoxicity, I imagine.
  - credit_guy 2y ago
    > traces of tritium from the two-step activation of beryllium Also from the 6Li absorption of 1 neutron. The Lithium used is almost pure 7Li, at 99.995%. But there is still 50 ppm 6Li in it.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      Yes. The inescapable tritium production from Be sets the lower bound on how pure the 7Li has to be.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > The biggest concern would be liberation of elemental fluorine Yep. But I'm personally more worried about the pelletized fuel. Pellets are not a great form-factor, and they don't have cladding. Fluoride salts are also far more aggressive than water (mechanically and chemically), so this will limit the maximum specific power of the reactor. So I don't think that something like 1GW molten salt reactor is even possible. It might be OK if they want to continue using SMRs, though. > The slightly reduced salt is also preferred to limit corrosion Sidenote: that's actually not always a great idea. Steel is stainless because it's covered in a film of oxides, and without oxygen it might not be able to form. This is a problem for the Russian BREST-300 reactor that is cooled by molten lead, they had to do almost 10 years of research to perfect a system that controls the amount of dissolved oxygen in the molten lead. And it's still not clear if they succeeded until the full-scale reactor is built. In this case, though, I think that they can tune the reducers to react with fluorine preferentially, while still leaving enough oxygen.

Dylan16807 2y ago

> They are not viable without literally hundreds of billions in research and development money. The US produces 40000 billion kWh every decade, so that doesn't really seem that bad to me.

oblio 2y ago
When solar and wind and sodium ion batteries are basically there and probably don't need as much investment and R&D (or it's happening anyway from 1000 existing funding sources), it's probably bad. Or at least unlikely to happen.
- cyberax 2y ago
  Sodium batteries theoretically should be cheaper than li-ion, but they are not yet there in practice. And they still won't solve problems with polar vortexes in the US or a month-long Dunkelflaute in Germany.
  - conradev 2y ago
    CATL’s first generation sodium batteries, shipped in Chery cars are $77/kWh CATL’s lithium phosphate batteries are more expensive for now at >$100kWh. Sodium batteries are definitely cheaper in practice, but much lower energy density. The question is how far CATL can push energy density, and the second generation is claimed to be >200Wh/kh. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/catl-and-byd-to-start-production-of-sodium-ion-batteries-westerners-left-behind-again-214061.html https://www.autoevolution.com/news/catl-and-byd-to-start-pro... https://www.westchestercleanenergy.com/post/record-low-lithium-ion-battery-cell-prices https://www.westchestercleanenergy.com/post/record-low-lithi...
    - oblio 2y ago
      Energy density is a bit less relevant for grid storage, though. Not like you run out of space to put them.
      - 2y ago