Nuclear Wave Reactor

I wonder how Mr. Gates will parlay "saving" the world into adding to his already obscene wealth?

I know nothing about NWR, just sayin.

You are refering to the Traveling Wave Reaactor.

There are several good links, here's two:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22114/

Well there are a few reactor models that have been proposed that would use spent fuel rods as, at least part, of their fuel...I think we have discussed all of them on here...The time to get excited is when one of these designs has been approved and permitted for use in the US....It seems we've been waiting forever...The use of spent fuel rods as fuel would address one of the main oppositions to nuclear reactor technology, the needless issue of storage of these materials....The abandonment of nuclear energy in the '70's really has come back to haunt us...We would probably be deploying gen5 units by now, working on 6&7....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor

I'd love to see it work, but how many operating systems are we up to, that were supposed to be the best ever?

The all new Vista reactor?

Thanks for inputs so far ... the more I read, however, the more I am not at all sure if the process(es) (regardless of whose process or acronym is used) can work or not.

I understand that the writings I have seen are written for the non-scientific masses, but when I see references like ...

"As the innermost fuel rods are used up, they're taken out of the center using a remote-controlled mechanical device and moved to the periphery of the reactor. The remaining uranium 238 rods-including those that were close enough to the center that some of the uranium has been converted to plutonium-are then shuffled toward the center to take the place of the spent fuel."

... it makes it seem no more complicated that flipping burgers on the charcoal grille.

That, along with all the "plans" to implement in other parts of the world where greed rules with fewer safety protocols, just makes me wonder.

I DO hope there is some workable, practical reality in all this, but ...

Kind regards ...

From the "Fuel" section of the wiki article above, on the TWR. This would be incredible!!

TWRs can be fueled at the time of construction with a small amount, about 10 %, of enriched uranium fuel (U-235) to start the heat-producing nuclear reaction along with enough depleted uranium to produce full power for 60 years or more.

Oh I'm sure any and all of them will work, the nuts and bolts of a nuclear reaction is not complicated, in fact they occurred naturally going back over a billion years ago...It's the vetting process that takes the time(and resources)...Every inch of the process from cradle to grave must be proven, the implementation and management of the system must be proven...and in this field when you have something new, nobody wants to be the first to say, I certify on my reputation and credentials that this system is infallible...That means everything must be ok'd by committee...as we see here everyday, good luck getting a group of engineers to agree to anything, make it something new and with a long complex process attached, and it becomes nearly impossible....The only thing that can force the process along is big bucks and political pressure....

We can't leave out these guys. If ain't sunshine and rainbows, it ain't happening if they have anything to do with it.

http://iowa.sierraclub.org/Legislature/2012Legislature.htm

Yeah I like the instructions given to contact representatives and tell them why nuclear energy is a bad idea, then they give a one sided misleading info page, to use as reference material...

These, so called green organizations, seem to represent the opposition....I wouldn't be surprised if they were funded by the coal industry in some way...

I like the way they use the thermal discharge map as if it's something evil.

I fish here regularly. The reservoir adjoining the plant is considered a tournament lake for both bass and crappie. The warmer water makes for some extremely big, happy, well adjusted fish. Haven't found one with a creepy birth defect yet.

Is this the same as the breeder reactor in Idaho that had an accident a number of years ago?

The reactor in Idaho that went FUBAR in the 1950's was the one of a kind prototype SL-1 which was NOT a breeder, it was a conventional LWR that was poorly designed such that the central control rod routinely got hung up and could not be retracted properly. when the operations crew went to restart it, they could not get the control rod to retract and entered the reactor room in order to manually retract the rod, which typically moved only a half dozen inches or so between full shut down and full rated power. But when the rod finally came free it jumped beyond the full rated power, went prompt-critical, formed a steam bubble that blew the rod the rest of the way out of the housing and impaled the operator that was trying to retract it and pinned him to the ceiling. the other guy that was helping him succumbed to a massive radiation dose. the third operator ran to the reactor room to see what happened and died from radiation exposure as well the next day.

I'm all for the "...meanwhile back at the ranch," mode of problem solving, which is occurring.

Along with addressing "messy details" that come with some of our inventions, it is good to keep on looking for more "elegant" solutions to the basic problem. Nuclear power is a seductive solution for energy production on the surface, but still carries issues that people consider, a sort of, kicking the can down the road, due to lifetime of the fuel, but not, necessarily, benign in the end. If nuclear waste could be sent to the Sun for disposal, economically, it would go a long way to cleaning up the nuclear power plant cycle.

It can't replace fossil fuel for transportation, unless vehicles get electric-based vs. oil based. Reassessing how societies can best (most efficiently) utilize resources could go a long way in extending the time line for better solutions. It sounds backwards to think in terms of going back to more basic, practical means of transportation (like walking and bicycles) for many needs, but if these were made part of an overall plan (so foreign to many humans), we could redefine our energy needs and the means of generation.

Actually the Department of Energy (DOE) has nothing to do with licensing commercial nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has sole responsibility for regulation of civilian use of radioactive material, especially fissile material.

And, there have been two experimental Fast Breeder Reactors (FBR), and at least one commercial FBR licensed by the NRC and operated back in the 1960's. It was a seriously flawed design, and after a couple of fairly serious accidents it's license was eventually rescinded (officially "not renewed").

Another FBR was issued a construction license in the 1970's. The Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project was abandoned when fuel reprocessing the U.S. was halted by Jimmy Carter.

I am not anti FBR. I am leery of metal cooled systems especially sodium which is highly reactive. The quantities needed for large reactors is problematic in that you need to water into steam. Take a look at this You Tube video, and then imagine what could happen on the scale of a large power plant. Large quantities of sodium and water?

The two original breeder reactors that were located at Doonray in Scotland, the PFR and the FDR both had problems with sodium damaging the pipework, especially at the welds, after a couple of years of operation. The lack of a solution was one of the main reasons for their closure and decommissioning.

Unless a solution has been found (and if it has, I have not seen any details released to the general public), no reactor using molten sodium as the heat transfer medium is a viable long term proposition. This problem is not limited to nuclear reactors, as some solar generators are also using, or proposing to use, molten sodium as the heat transfer medium.

understood about the molten sodium issue, and I don't know if it has been solved completely but I know many high performance engine valves are sodium filled, but they operate at a much lower temp too.

I think they are talking about "Molten Salt" for those solar generating proposals. I don't know that sodium chloride is the candidate or not. Hopefully it remains molecular, or the chlorides will corrode the pipe. The sodium?...watch the video.

Yeah; those sodium cooled valves are cool (literally), but there's not alot of it, and in an internal combustion engine it's isolated it pretty well from the normal cooling system which contains water.

In addition to walking and bicycles, we need to include horse drawn vehicles for the heavier loads. Of course they leave "roadapples" on the highway!

Kidding aside, the newer nuclear reactor designs using fast neutrons will be a great improvement over the current designs using thermal neutrons. Thermal neutron reactors can utilize only a small percent of the uranium content, leaving a bunch of U-238 (and other stuff) as "waste." However, the fast neutron reactors can use this waste as fuel, and also use thorium, our depleted uranium stockpiles, etc. The waste that they produce has a much shorter half-life and is also smaller volume.