Posted on 02/03/2017 3:01:42 PM PST by Tilted Irish Kilt
Could they put a nuclear bomb in the reactor and blow the thing up? Seems that would stop a runaway reaction.
One important safety factor for nuclear power - Don’t put your nuclear power plant on an active fault!
Of course it Japan - an island nation built on volcanic islands.
Maybe the rule of thumb should be - Don’t put your civilization on a volcanic island. Bad things can & will happen!
probably nothing can be absolutely fail safe by definition, but these molten salt systems cannot fail like Fukishima, or 3 Mile nearly did. Molten salt reactors don’t run away like that as the reaction slows down before reaching critical levels.
They also have far less waste to dispose of for far less time. still an issue, but 80% less waste that only needs ~300 years to break down compared to 10,000 years for conventional is good.
Dont compare Zeppelin safety records with a popcorn maker without looking at how the Molten salt reactors work. we throw more potential energy away with burned coal fly ash that contains thorium than that recovered in burning the coal. This should be the future clean energy until we develop something like fusion.
I learned in high school Trig. I have no idea what happened to mine. Of course, in those ancient days, we had to learn cursive in elementary school and memorize the multiplication tables, as well. Back when there was really a common core of curriculum required.
I’d at least try a heavily shielded tube camera. use a convoluted periscope arrangement with mirrors to bring the image in. It should last longer than an electronic camera on a stalk.
Ten thousand years? Is that the Fukushima meltdown situation?
Teacher in high school physics used the “China Syndrome” as an example of movie fakery when we were studying gravity.
I was taught cursive too, though my cursive writing looks like a mad chicken got its feet into an ink well.
Of course nothing is absolutely fail safe but the technology should be reasonably safe and I still do not think these fission reactors are reasonably safe. I think they’re getting closer but there’s still too little margin for error. 300 years to break down is way too long IMO. And the administration can apparently decide to go with the traditional rather than the newer molten salt reactors if they feel they’ll get better results. So the average Joe living in the vicinity of one of these reactors doesn’t know what he’s got nearby.
It would be wonderful if they could figure out a way to harness a cost-effective fusion reactor.
Depends. Some of the byproducts have half life of 30 years, transuranic waste is 1000. Uranium 234 is 24000, so Fukishima is going to be radioactive a loooong time.
It’s still the same amount of nuclear materials decaying over time. That would be like saying its a good thing the Pacific Ocean is there to disperse the radioactivity throughout the pacific current.
One day they might be able to use robotics to gather what is left of the rods. I’ve also heard talk of creating a frozen zone around the reactor to keep contaminated ground water from seeping into the Pacific. Read a couple days ago the readings are so high that it kills the robotics circuitry within a few hours. Perhaps they can harden it better like military hardware to work longer. It shouldn’t have happened. Japan has records of tsunamis hitting the country going back over 2000 years.
Yes, but the ‘heat’ is caused by an on-going nuclear reaction... right? It’s still in the ‘meltdown’ phase? Which is worse...
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