Posted on 03/25/2017 8:06:37 AM PDT by AdmSmith
At least six entities in the United States or Canada (TerraPower, ARC, GE Prism, LeadCold, Oklo and Westinghouse) are investing significant sums of corporate or venture capital to pursue an elusive technical achievement; commercially viable nuclear power systems that achieve substantially greater fuel economy than conventional reactors. Though nuclear fuel is “cheap,” substantially better fuel use provides improved longevity and produces less waste material.
Efforts to achieve fuel economy objectives have reopened a discussion whose historical roots extend back more than 50 years into the middle of the 1960s. Given that there are United States entities that believe there is a need for advanced nuclear technology with fuel consumption characteristics that surpass those available from conventional reactors, those entities need a facility that can provide conditions for the fuel and materials testing required to support design, development and licensing.
Virtually all of the available facilities that can provide the necessary conditions are located in Russia. For obvious reasons, that fact adds an unnecessary level of cost and complication.
The 400 MWth Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) – remains the highest capacity, most modern and least used test reactor in the U.S. DOE’s possession. It is still intact with its internals filled with an inert argon gas purge.
According to a 2007 detailed study funded by DOE as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) the action taken was to drill a 3/4″ carefully engineered hole in a non pressure barrier. The study determined that adequate recovery from that action would add a little less than $1 M to the $500 M facility restoration cost estimate.
As the US DOE has found with the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), a 50 year-old facility initially built to serve a single customer, there is a wide range of potential customers and a sustainable demand for a well run neutron irradiation user facility that might last for numerous decades.
It’s time to move from repeated bipartisan efforts to permanently kill the FFTF to a broad-based effort to recognize value and restore the facility that our parents built and carefully put away in case we might need it.
Supporting advancements in nuclear energy seems to be an area of agreement in a sharply divided Congress. It is an improvement program where there are so many potential benefits that everyone – with the possible exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey, two relics who cannot seem to discard their 1960s point of view – in the House and Senate can find reasons to favor supportive legislation.
Too many lawyers with time on their hands.
Operating at 85 MW, HFIR is the highest flux reactor-based source of neutrons for research in the United States, and it provides one of the highest steady-state neutron fluxes of any research reactor in the world. The thermal and cold neutrons produced by HFIR are used to study physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, and biology. The intense neutron flux, constant power density, and constant-length fuel cycles are used by more than 500 researchers each year for neutron scattering research into the fundamental properties of condensed matter.
Yes, HFIR is 85 MW, FFTF was (will be again) 400 MW.
and:
Compared to HFIR, FFTF maximum flux is 4.6 times greater. (1 x 10^15 versus 4.6 x 10^15) It has almost 2.4 times as many in core irradiation locations (37 vs 91) It has 2.6 times as many reflector irradiation locations (42 versus 108). FFTF has a core height of 91 cm versus HFIR’s 51 cm.
HFIR is fully occupied, but is at present closed due to refuelling.
Good. Let them pool their capital with any funds available from academia to do this work.
Eventually, the knowledge and efficiency gained should pay off in lower operating costs per megawatt, right?
There are thousands of 'worthy' projects lined up, asking for federal funding. The only federal dollars available are those that are borrowed. Our $20 Trillion of debt proves it.
Leave congress the hell out of it. Not only do they lack the funding, they always worsen the bureaucratic mess of it all.
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That might require the return of an Educated Youth in the traditional way. Banning a Liberal & Socialist/NEA/Democrat propaganda / control.
Has the SNS filled much of the void in neutron diffraction crystallography materials research?
Good. Let them pool their capital with any funds available from academia to do this work.
Eventually, the knowledge and efficiency gained should pay off in lower operating costs per megawatt, right?
..............
Yes the outcome is lower operating costs per megawatt.
But not just lower operating costs per megawatt. Much lower costs. Civilization changing lower costs per megawatt. The sort of lower costs that raises all ships.The sort of lower costs that enriches the poorest as well as the richest—as well as increases revenues to the federal government to pay off debts.
Yeah this is the sort of the thing imho that worth federal investment dollars.
And $20 trillion reasons to say "not now...maybe later" to them.
Federal revenues are needed for basic constitutional government functions: national defense including border enforcement, and criminal justice.
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The technology they’re talking about is actually based on some successful technology built in the 60’s that was sidelined in the 70’s for political reasons.
Its been the source of growing ferment in the nuclear community for ten years because the nuclear industry has been in a state of suspended animation for half a century. The industry that the US built is mostly overseas now and the companies making profit on nuclear are overseas.
A wise governor grows his people’s income and his tax base.
Agree with you however, that there are plenty of government programs that are parasites and a drain on the treasury—this just ain’t one of them.
The technology they’re talking about is actually based on some successful technology built in the 60’s that was sidelined in the 70’s for political reasons.
Its been the source of growing ferment in the nuclear community for ten years because the nuclear industry has been in a state of suspended animation for half a century. The industry that the US built is mostly overseas now and the companies making profit on nuclear are overseas.
A wise governor grows his people’s income and his tax base.
Agree with you however, that there are plenty of government programs that are parasites and a drain on the treasury—this just ain’t one of them.
I don't oppose the work. I support it.
I just cannot support it financially because, like the government, I don't have the means.
Since the 6 entities mentioned are investing already, why don't they keep up the good work and follow through?
Let me guess...they don't have 'enough' funds yet.
Well if it's so commercially promising, investors will step up eventually.
In my view, a wise governor leaves all non-defense ventures to the private sector.
If this project had defense applications, it would be another story.
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