Posted on 10/09/2017 5:38:11 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Nice to see it could happen on a smaller scale.
Using Pu239 and Submarine technology, you can probably do this.
Not sure Congress or the public would ever go for it.
“Hot” tubs, indeed.
there is a compay in Texas pioneering small reactors. Underground power, can power a small city for up to 20 years. For peanuts. Replace and Remove every 20 years. Great technology and would remove the grid from being a national issue.
There’s one for the nattering nabobs of negativity to sink their maws into.
We used small SNAP reactors for power during the moon landing missions.
Just for reference, an average home uses about 1 kW continuously, excluding air conditioning and electric heating, which can easily triple that number in hot/cold climates. But for other stuff, reefers, plasmas, lighting, etc., figure 1 kW average.
So a 25 MW unit can power 25,000 homes (with the above exception). One of them huge nuke reactors is close to 1 GW, so about 40 times these little dudes (and nuke power plants typically have 2 to 4 of the big reactors). Large conventional power plants also total several GW.
Still, to fly-in 25 MW of capability in a transport plane is pretty darn good, considering the decade or so it takes to build a conventional power plant, and the multiple decades it takes to build a nuke.
Yes, now time to get the Delorean and complete the set!!!
Finally, finally, finally someone is making sense about nuclear energy. You have to envision this as a new revolution as the power plants can be small to run planes, cruise ships, even cars and trucks. Used in rockets.
Finally, someone is talking about that makes sense instead of this stupid, and I mean stupid wind and solar BS.
There are several devices that could be used but the people behind the government could not be in control. There was a traveling wave design that could consume depleted uranium. The green people fight these development.
The Navy has been using nuke power for generations, since the 60's.
Nukes can power an aircraft carrier, with hundreds of planes, and thousands of people, why not use the same kind of approach for emergency electrical power?
Thorium-fueled Molten Salt reactors can be made MUCH smaller than Uranium-fueled Light Water reactors. And there is one HUGE advantage to the thorium MS reactors - they are not fissile, so there is no such thing as “runaway” core meltdown. But the thorium fuel is fertile, meaning that once reaction is started (by mixing in a small amount of “spent” uranium fuel rod material) to initiate the chain reaction, the thorium continues to produce power until depleted, at which time there are far fewer long-lived radioactive isotopes, than there are with “spent” uranium fuel rods.
The thorium fuel cycle has several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle, including thorium’s greater abundance, superior physical and nuclear properties, reduced plutonium and actinide production, and better resistance to nuclear weapons proliferation (very little plutonium is produced, most of which is “burned” in the breeder cycle).
Are any of these based on Thorium? I’ve watched a few promos on it.
Very interesting. No high pressure water cooling. No thermal runaway. Very cheap, highly efficient fuel.
5:05 video (very powerful): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY
36:02 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI
The only thing preventing us (US) today from having nuclear powered locomotives, ships, and possibly even Semis is irrational fear of radiation hazards. I can remember in the 50s when one of the first US nuclear power plants was being built in Elk River, Minnesota, people feared having that “nuclear electricity” pumped into their houses. It’s almost as bad today when discussing technology such as this that Perry is showcasing.
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