Midwest Chick's Place

How toxic will a cooling system leak be?

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Hope it's more reliable than his crap software.

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Sodium as a coolant doesn't “leak” it reacts violently with air and explosively with water. https://youtu.be/dmcfsEEogxs?feature=shared

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There's a fine line between cynicism and experience. With BillyBoy, it's experience. Can't trust that boy anymore than you can trust Microsoft.

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a lot depends on the quality of the people putting together the plans. if they come from cal tech or stanford, i am all for it.

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I'd rather see the pebble bed version taken further, and no, I don't trust Billy boy any further than I can throw him.

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Hope it works better than the St. Vrain Helium cooled reactor that was built in Colorado. That reactor had the problem of whenever they dialed it above about 30% of max power the cooling system couldn't maintain the reactor temperature control and the reactor had to be shutdown to cool off. They finally converted the plant to natural gas fired boilers to produce the steam and removed the nuclear reactor.

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“I'd like to see all of the new technologies looked at instead of going with one model.”Sure. I keep an eye on the focus fusion (plasma filament confinement) folks at lppfusion.com, too. I think that has a lot of promise. And I like that, while they post regular progress reports, they refrain from grandiose claims of “We'll have fusion power in X years!”But thorium pebble bed fission has already been done, and they just need to iron out some kinks. But, again, I'm not a nuke engineer so I don't know how tough those kinks might be.

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Carl—I’m not sure either. All technology does have weak points.Dan—. Comparing modern designs to Chernobyl is fear mongering. Not remotely the same critter.

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Anon–That's the thing. I do remember my high school chem class where the teacher pulled out a little bit of pure sodium and put it in water. I do see the benefits of sodium reactors–no need for a cooling pond or lake and much more efficient, but anything with Gates' fingerprints on it is suspect, IMO.

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In today's world, you can never be cynical enough. However I don't really know anything about the nuke technology here, so can't really comment. I do think the greenies screwed us with that buried in a mountain waste disposal site they shut down. Without some manner of safe waste disposal we won't have good nuke power. I also think nukes are a viable alternative although not necessarily the right answer in every case. Like on a fault line next to a major body of water, but that's just my opinion. The Japanese think differently.

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I'm not a nuclear engineer, so can someone explain why this reactor needs a molten salt thermal storage unit, which seems to essentially be a “battery backup” to the reactor proper?I'd like to see more development of thorium pebble bed reactors.

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They do need water for the steam turbine, but not for the primary cooling loop.I think they are gonna use the exiting turbine and cooling setup at the coal plant they are building next to. The advantage of sodium as the primary reactor coolant is that it isn't under great pressure, and it simply solidifies in place if there is a leak. Of course, it is flammable…..

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News from the futureGates Sodium reactor implodes during automatic software update from Reactor Control 10 to Reactor Control 11.

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Gate's name on anything is like Disney times a hundred. Just NO.He's acknowledged more than once that he believes the population is too high.

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rickn8or–Fingers crossed on that! But if we use that as a litmus, the bar is pretty low.Don–the new reactors eat a lot of their own waste so they are a lot better.Anon–Yes–that was my lesson in high school. Put some sodium in water and watched it go. It was just a tiny piece too.Carl–I'd like to see all of the new technologies looked at instead of going with one model.Anon–Hence my concern. B–Thanks for that (and the original link) I don't understand the engineering well enough to comment directly on it and just remembered that sodium goes boom when in contact with water.Avraham–Unknown at this time.Gerry–Very clever and hilarious!NFO–Agreed and yes.Justin–And imagine what he could do with a nuke plant.Chris–I think this one is much better but I hadn't heard about the St Vrain reactor. Will look it up!

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Nuclear is green….until the inevitable accidents. Nuclear plants are designed, built and run by humans. Flawed, lazy sometimes incompetent humans. With enough nuclear plants over enough time accidents are inevitable. And like Chernobyl, such accidents can have serious long term consequences. It's a simple reality. Nuclear is great for power but it's always a potential danger….and occasionally an actual disaster. Every quarter century we have seen a significant, dangerous reactor problem. More plants will mean more such events.

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