Comments on: P4TP chapter 4 – everyone can now read Blees on IFR

By: Tom Blees in Australia « BraveNewClimate

Tom Blees in Australia « BraveNewClimate — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:07:47 +0000

[...] a solution to the world’s energy and environmental crises (for reviews of the book on BNC, see here and here [scroll to bottom of the post for the links]). Tom is also the president of the Science [...]

By: The Nuclear Economy « BraveNewClimate

The Nuclear Economy « BraveNewClimate — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:15:03 +0000

[...] hardly coming at this from a fresh perspective. In the last year I’ve read books such as Prescription for the Planet, Terrestrial Energy, SEWTHA and The Solar Fraud, which collectively cover much the same ground as [...]

By: Mark Byrne

Mark Byrne — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:09:57 +0000

John,

What are the benefits and risk of Gen III? Does Gen III have similar passive safety features as IFR? Do Gen III vent radioactive gases to the atmosphere?

By: John Newlands

John Newlands — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:16:38 +0000

I think some progressions need to be done in easy steps the public can follow. I believe Australia should first construct a Gen III reactor once the build time gets under two years. Land based disposal of high level waste should be proven before smaller volume sea bed burial should be entertained. Thus for Australia both Gen III and land disposal should be demonstrated first. Gen IV can then be built next door to a working Gen III plant if the fuel re-use process is straightforward.

Most phases of the nuclear cycle except primary enrichment could be probably be done within 300km of Olympic Dam. That includes upgrading the Arcoona waste disposal site near Woomera. Mining, nuclear power, seawater desalination and current waste disposal practices could be done at first. Later on a Gen IV plant and re-processing of Gen III wastes could be added. The Gen III would still get enriched fuel from elsewhere. The area’s disposal facilities for intractable waste should be adequate.

By: Tom Blees

Tom Blees — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:26:49 +0000

I'm happy to say that Gwyneth gave me her permission to post her chapter on the Seabed Working Group, which you can find here. It's a pdf and I noticed it didn't show up real clear on my browser, but when I downloaded it it was fine. I just scanned it, but it's plenty readable. Enjoy!

By: Tom Blees

Tom Blees — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:03:12 +0000

Well, you wouldn’t drop it in those trenches, you’d drop it in deep, stable soft mud. They’ve already figured all of this out, that’s what the Seabed Working Group was all about. I’ll ask Gwyneth if she’d mind me posting that chapter online. If she okays it, I’ll let you know.

By: John Newlands

John Newlands — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:52:12 +0000

I would like to see video footage from a remote control submersible as it released each canister. Some ocean trenches that form the crease of subduction zones can get to 700 bar water pressure. Hopefully few canisters would fail.

By: Tom Blees

Tom Blees — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:58:50 +0000

I asked Yoon Chang about this one time (he’s widely considered the leading expert on this technology), and he explained the details of the pyroprocessing. Essentially you can adjust it and run the material through in multiple passes to get essentially all of the transuranics out. “You can set up a target of 0.1% loss or any appropriate limit and the process can be designed to achieve it.” Bear in mind that the lion’s share of that 0.1% would probably be U238 anyway, which is relatively harmless (assuming you’re not inhaling it). So you’re pretty much using all the actinides.

Something to bear in mind: There are some very good places to dispose of what waste there is left that we have every reason to believe will be stable for millions of years. I suggest reading Gwyneth Craven’s chapter 16 on the Seabed Working Group in her book Power to Save the World, and her chapter on WIPP is also quite good in this regard, since her nuclear guru was instrumental in both these studies (I think he directed both of them, in fact). Someone else has recently written a book with a lot of info on WIPP, though the title escapes me at the moment. The amount of space to safely store this and other waste that can’t be burned in IFRs far exceeds the space that will be needed. It requires an objective view of the science and not knee-jerk reaction, though. Needless to say, the very mention of putting any of this on the ocean floor freaks out a lot of people, but Cravens explains it quite well and makes a compelling case for seabed disposal, which I barely touched on in my book.

By: John D Morgan

John D Morgan — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:55:42 +0000

Wow, Barry, thats fantastic. Exactly what I wanted. Thank you.

By: Charles Barton

Charles Barton — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:32:53 +0000

Thank you Barry, this is helpful.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:16:08 +0000

All reactors — IFRs, LFTRs etc. would require a containment structure for prudence’s sake — ideally, we should bury them too. Have a read of Blees’ later chapters for some good discussion on this. The nuclear batteries would also be buried.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:12:26 +0000

It is burned in multiple passes — pyroprocess, burn/breed, pyroprocess + add more DU, burn/breed, pyroprocess + add more DU, etc. Eventually >99% of the Pu and minor actinides that have been bred, are consumed. The final radiotoxicity of the waste stream is almost completely due to the fission products. See above post re: John Morgan for some technical refs.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:07:44 +0000

Below are various and sundry to more than get you started — some are non-peer reviewed articles for the lay audience or technically savvy, and a bunch are peer reviewed journal and conference papers.

Note that to uncover a whole lot yourself, try these two tools:

Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=“integral+fast+reactor”

OSTI literature database:
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/advancedsearch.jsp

Dubberly, AE, 2003, S-PRISM fuel-cycle study. Proceedings of ICAPP ’03 Córdoba, Spain, May 4-7, 2003 Paper 3144 http://www.sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad0305dubberly.pdf

Carroll and Boardman, 2002 D.G. Carroll and C.E. Boardman, The super-PRISM reactor system, J. Inst. Nucl. Eng. 43 (6) (2002), pp. 165–167 http://runners.ritsumei.ac.jp/cgi-bin/swets/hold-query-e?mode=0&key=&idxno=05497088

The Technology of the Integral Fast Reactor and Its Associated Fuel Cycle. Edited by
W. H. Hannum. Progress in Nuclear Energy, Special Issue, Vol. 31, Nos. 1–2; 1997.

Y. I. Chang, “The Integral Fast Reactor,” Nuclear Technology, Vol. 88, p. 129, November 1989

Y. I. Chang and C. E. Till, “Design and Performance Characteristics of Alternative Fuels and Fuel Cycles,” ANL-80-40 (1980).

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2002/april/a1ap02.html

http://www.sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad0509till.html

http://home.comcast.net/~georgestanford1/REMINISCENCES_OF_REACTOR_DEVELOPMENT.pdf

http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/logos20-1/passive01.htm

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/gnep/GE-Hitachi%20Report.pdf

http://local.ans.org/virginia/meetings/2007/2007RIC.GE.NRC.PRISM.pdf

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2532980

http://www.nationalcenter.org/LWRStanford.pdf

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2007.09.003

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6572843

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6840765

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6151427

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5855627

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6263792

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5915875

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=109978

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10180695

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6330481

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6819123

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6016862

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10161651

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6373286

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5067224

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5155906

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10138091

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5380888

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10105480

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5920731

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5574651

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10117074

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5248945

A whole lot of conference papers can be obtained from Charles Boardman:
http://www.thecamerongroupinc.com/team/charles/boardman.html

By: Charles Barton

Charles Barton — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:22:50 +0000

Ender, I would not expect a huge program of LWRs in the immediate future with the possible exception of China. LFTRs, being well suited for part timde and part power generating tasks, could compliment renewable energy sources, but it is likely that were LFTRs assigned a role as back up generators for renewables they would begin to replace renewable sources entirely. I am not sure what role the IFR would be suited to play in a post carbon generation system.

By: John D Morgan

John D Morgan — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:02:47 +0000

I might also reference an American Scientist article by Eric Loewen, who's at GE, on metal cooled reactors which looks like it answers some of my questions.

By: John D Morgan

John D Morgan — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:44:04 +0000

Thanks for the suggestion Tom. I'll save that as a last resort. There's no direction to those questions since their just gaps in my understanding I'd like to fill. Since I'm really asking for a graduate course in nuclear engineering, I think I'd better work through the MIT Nuclear Engineering course materials before I bug GE.

By: Neil Howes

Neil Howes — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:10:34 +0000

I was thinking on the lines of the SVBR-100 that can be transported on a railway flat car, but has temperatures high enough for gas turbine cycles.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5383#more

I thought two of the advantages of the Li/F molten salt reactors was that they can also be small and operate at high temperatures, and less corrosive than lead.

Since we only have about 160GW of nuclear reactors being built or planned, even 400MW sizes doesn’t enable very much mass production. Lower operating efficiency seems a good trade-off to bring down the capital costs and shorten build times with mass-production

By: Alex P.

Alex P. — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:43:14 +0000

A fact I don’ t really understand about IFR vs MSRs is how much “clean” in transuranics the waste stream is it, i.e. how much of the TRU recycled in the reactor is realistically “burned” ? I guess it should be a very number in %, even only 99% let too TRU not burned in the waste, so the final radiotoxicity is not lowered of a great extent… Have you got any figures ?

By: Neil Howes

Neil Howes — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:26:20 +0000

Barry,
My mistake, I thought a large containment (concrete vessel) outside the steel reactor vessel was required in case of a sodium leak.

By: Charles Barton

Charles Barton — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:11:20 +0000

Tom, I have posted a responce on Nuclear Green.