Posted on 04/25/2002 12:42:59 PM PDT by aculeus
Despite the bad press that nuclear reactors earned in past years, researchers writing for the latest issue of Physics Today magazine report that more and more people are reconsidering nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel. In fact, President George Bush's National Energy Policy explicitly supports expansion of nuclear power, in contrast to the policies of previous presidential administrations. The primary reasons for the shift in opinion stem from concerns for the environment and interest in enhancing national energy self-sufficiency. At the moment, nuclear and hydroelectric power are the only technologies that can generate large amounts of energy without emitting copious greenhouses gases. Although dams may initially seem more appealing than nuclear reactors, hydroelectric power plants are impractical in the many regions that lack adequate sources of flowing water. That means nuclear power stands alone as a practical and environmentally friendly resource that is not tied to local geography.
Although US efforts are just beginning to ramp up, a handful of modern nuclear reactors, known as Generation III devices, are being planned or built today in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. First generation reactors were the research devices that proved nuclear energy could work in the lab as well as on the chalkboard. Second generation reactors took the technology one step further, demonstrating that the machines were economically feasible power plants. Emerging, third generation reactors are equipped with advanced features, such as safety systems incorporating passive energy dissipation or natural processes, simplifying their design and allowing them to cope with malfunctions without the need for operator action.
Generation IV machines now in development, says Gail Marcus of the Department of Energy, will provide dramatic improvements in reactor design. "They're going to mean significant improvements in economics of their performance, in safety, and in waste minimization," Marcus explains, as well as being more resistant to attempts to divert mateial for illegal weapons manufacturing.
Some advanced design concepts include high temperature reactors that are 2-3 times more efficient than contemporary reactors, mechanically simpler machines with fewer moving parts for improved reliability, and nuclear plants that would process their own waste. Unlike earlier designs that were intended simply as electricity production facilities, the additional heat from high temperature reactors could provide hot water for nearby communities or energy for seawater desalinization. An important benefit of the reactors of tomorrow might be cleaner cars, says Marcus, because hotter, Generation IV nuclear plants could produce fuel for hydrogen-powered vehicles.
It will be another twenty-five or thirty years before fourth generation nuclear reactors come into service, but improved third generation reactors, which Marcus calls Generation III+ designs, may be in operation by the end of this decade.
"We have an initiative called Nuclear Power 2010," explains Marcus, "The goal is to have one or more new plants operating by the end of the decade. That means the commitment has to be made in the next couple of years."
Marcus and Alan Levin of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission detail many of the near and long term options for nuclear power plants in the April 2002 issue of Physics Today (New Designs for the Nuclear Renaissance, pp. 54-60).
This is kinda funny. I am a proponent of
nuclear power generation. That said, the
above is a cute spin. High temperature
reactors evidently put out a lot of hot water.
To put a positive face on evident insufficiency
if cooling ponds in this application, we go
for a ju-jitsu takedown of supplying a
town with hot water. In my house,
I have cold water piped in,which I heat
on demand. Anything else, and the
community has double the water lines,
one hot and one cold to each home.
As it is now, I have to run water down
the drain for what seems like forever to
get it hot at the spigot, maybe 30 feet
of pipe. Imagine how long you would have
to run it in the middle of the night to get
hot water from the reactor. Heh. And
this in no way addresses the peak demand/
minimum demand problem of supplying hot water from a
continuously operating reactor.
Additionally, I don't see how a high temp reactor
is any different from a 'regular' reactor in terms
of water desalinization, inasmuch as the major
drawback of desalinization is the voracious power
required to pump large amounts of water through
a semi-permeable membrane. Power is the key
here, not the temperature of the reactor or its
effluents.
This article doesn't state which desalination process is envisioned. However, if you click on the link I provided in one of my replies above, that article will explain that there are apparently two types of distillation processes that are usable on a large scale, in addition to the reverse osmosis that you describe.
Incidently, providing hot water (or steam) services to the local community has often been a side benefit of small, local power plants for decades. Separate from potable water, it provides heat for buildings in the wintertime. (One northern community I lived in ran the steam lines under the sidewalks, kept them relatively free of ice and snow in addition to heating the buildings.)
Yes. this is how the Navy heated the Naval Operations Base in Norfolk. But
this was from a steam plant with variable output to match demand. What happens
to the continual effluent of a hot reactor in the summer, when there is no demand?
But then ANWAR reindeer are more important than US citizens.
Want to read more on cold fusion?
The Navy report released this month confirms cold fusion.
This is not sonofusion, but the original Fleischman Pons system.
NAVY report is here (ping)
Your assumption is that such applications are only a means of dispersing heat that would otherwise be "wasted". There is no reason why such reactor sytems cannot also be designed to provide variable output to match demand of a variety of different applications. In some instances, where the need for desalinated potable water is great, the entire reactor could be dedicated to operation of the desalination plant without providing electricity to the community.
Not really.
But please let us know when the technology can produce enough energy in the laboratory to boil a decent cup of coffee. Perhaps it could then be scaled up for widespread commercial application in 3 or 4 decades.
I'm not being snooty, just more interested in technology that's currently available.
Nuclear desalination is not a strategy to utilize the reactor during low periods of demand for electricity. It is an alternate application of nuclear power to provide continuous fresh water supply year-round for those coastal regions that need it.
I which case, blow it off. We need nuclear power generation to replace
imported oil, not to make water so expensive that the users have
to be subsidized in their use of it by the rest of us. Let Santa
Barbara pay for Santa Barbara's own water. And it's gonna
cost a lot to pay for that reactor.
(One northern community I lived in ran the steam lines under the sidewalks, kept them relatively free of ice and snow in addition to heating the buildings.)
One little town that uses steam piped underground to heat buildings: New York City.
Ask a tourist (and too many natives) why there's steam wafting from Manhattan asphalt in the winter and they'll say "it's the subway".
Actually it's emanating from pipes transporting steam from an enormous power plant on the East River to most major skyscrapers. The New York Steam Company, a subsidiary of Con Edison, has been in business for many decades, possibly a century.
Oh, that Navy report? It isn't a Navy report.
Off topic, but there is at least one community that does just this: Ouray, Colorado.
They ran a pipe into one mountain...and got cold spring water.
They ran a pipe into another mountain...and got hot spring water.
Ouray is a great place to take a bath or a shower. Every home is its own spa, with hot mineral water coming straight out of the tap.
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