New Thorium Reactor - Better than fusion - Will end energy crisis forever - Cheap energy again!
John Smith
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christopher-Calder-090628-214.html
Limitless, low cost energy is now possible through a revolutionary new
fission reactor that provides all of the benefits of pure fusion
power, but with a simpler and more practical design. This will change
the world like television, the discovery of DNA, and the Internet.
Revolutionary Thorium Reactor - The most environmentally beneficial
power source on earth
There are many so-called "Generation IV" nuclear reactor designs
being studied to replace the world's aging fleet of light water
nuclear power plants. Light water nuclear reactors use ordinary H2O
to moderate nuclear fission, for cooling, and to create steam for
running turbines. All of the newer reactor designs have clear
advantages over the old light water standard. China and South Africa
are rapidly perusing meltdown proof pebble bed reactor technology, and
the Idaho National Laboratory is experimenting with prismatic block
reactors, reported to be even more efficient and stable. Most of the
proposed new designs represent evolutionary improvements, but the LFT
(liquid fluoride thorium) reactor design is truly revolutionary. LFT
reactors are an earth friendly power source that solves all of the
major problems associated with nuclear power.
LFT reactors transform thorium into fissionable uranium-233,
which then produces heat through controlled nuclear fission. The
reactor only requires input of uranium to kick-start the initial
nuclear reaction, and as the uranium can come from spent nuclear fuel
rods, LFT reactors will inevitably be used as janitors to clean up
nuclear waste. Once started, the controlled nuclear reactions are
self-perpetuating as long as the reactor is fed thorium. As the fuel
is a molten liquid salt, it can be cleansed of impurities and
refortified with thorium through elaborate plumbing, even while the
reactor maintains full power operation. This reduces reactor downtime
and increases total yearly energy output.
LFT reactors produce electric power via a waterless gas turbine
system that can use helium, carbon dioxide, or nitrogen gas. The
reactors are small and air cooled, so they can be installed anywhere,
even in a desert. Robert Hargraves, an LFT advocate, states that
"Liquid fluoride thorium reactors operate at high temperature for 50%
thermal/electrical conversion efficiency, thus they need only half of
the cooling required by today's coal or nuclear plant cooling
towers." LFT reactors will be manufactured on an assembly line,
dramatically lowering costs and enabling electricity generation at a
projected rate of about 3 cents per kilowatt hour. It has been
estimated that a physically small 100 megawatt LFT reactor would cost
less than 200 million dollars to build, which is a bargain. Multiple
reactors can be installed at one location and connected to a single
control room. With convenient modular design, LFT reactors can be
transported in pieces by truck or barge for easy assembly on site.
This allows for swift construction with reliable results, avoiding
delays and cost overruns. Rapid assembly line construction also
allows for easy updating of the design, which will get better and
better, like the evolution of automobiles, airplanes, and computer
chips.
LFT reactors are much more fuel efficient than other designs,
because they burn up 100% of the thorium fed them. Light water
reactors typically burn only about 3% of their loaded fuel, or about .
7% of the fundamental raw uranium, which must be enriched to become
fissionable. Because of their high energy conversion efficiency, LFT
reactors produce less than 1% of the long lasting radioactive waste of
light water reactors, making the controversial Yucca Mountain
Repository for nuclear waste unnecessary.
A LFT reactor can never meltdown, because its fuel is already in
a molten state by design. Any terrorists who obtained forceful entry
into the reactor complex could not realistically remove any of the hot
molten fissionable fuel. Coolant in LFT reactors is not pressurized
as in light water reactors, and the fuel arrives at the plant pre-
burned with fluorine, a powerful oxidizer. This makes a reactor fire
or a coolant explosion impossible. LFT reactors do not require large,
cavernous pressure vessels designed to contain an internal explosion
of superheated steam, so LFT enclosures are tightly fitting and
compact, which makes them less expensive to build. The reactors will
be installed underground with a thick reinforced concrete cap, making
an attack by a kamikaze airplane pilot ineffective. Overheating of a
LFT reactor expands the molten salt fuel past its criticality point,
making the design intrinsically safe due to the unchangeable laws of
physics. Even a total loss of operational reactor control would not
cause disaster. In addition to the fuel's natural safety, any excess
heat in the reactor core would automatically melt a built-in freeze-
plug, causing the liquid fuel to drain via gravity into underground
storage compartments, where the fuel would then cool into a harmless,
noncritical mass.
We have enormous amounts of low cost thorium fuel available, with
estimates of efficiently recoverable reserves ranging from a supply
lasting thousands of years, to a supply lasting over 2 million years.
LFT reactors can be used to manufacture synthetic gasoline made from
atmospheric CO2 and water, or can produce high energy methanol fuel.
The French Reactor Physics Group is leading in LFT research, and there
are LFT experiments being conducted in Japan, the Netherlands, Russia,
and in the Czech Republic. If the U.S. Government committed a
relatively modest amount of money to LFT research in cooperation with
France, a fully operational TOTAL ENERGY SOLUTION might be possible
within as little as 5 years, because most of the basic research has
already been accomplished and is well proven. LFT research at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory was ended in 1976, because the reactor's
design cannot practically produce weapons grade plutonium. LFT
reactors will not lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
LFT technology will have a very small footprint on planet earth,
unlike renewable energy schemes that use up impossibly large amounts
of land and vital resources. Scientist Jesse H. Ausubel, Director of
the Program for the Human Environment, found that to meet U.S.
electricity demand for 2005 with wind power would require about four
million megawatt hours of electricity. Even with impossible around-
the-clock-winds, he calculated this would require a wind farm covering
over 301,159 square miles, which is about the size of Texas and
Louisiana combined. It has been proven by real-world experience that
solar and wind power schemes are far more costly than a simple price
per kilowatt hour comparison would suggest. Their unreliable on-
again, off-again nature requires huge backup power reserves from other
energy sources, which greatly increases costs.
The Energy Information Administration, which provides official
energy statistics from the U.S. Government, has projected the
estimated cost of electricity from U.S. power plants of different
varieties that will come into service in the year 2016. These average
levelized costs, expressed in 2007 valued dollars, includes all costs
of construction, financing, fuel, and all other operating costs. The
EIA also listed the expected Capacity Factor (CF) for each power plant
type. A power plant with a CF of 85 generates energy at its rated
capacity an average of 85% of the time during a given year. The ideal
power plant would have a CF of 100, meaning it could output energy at
full power 100% of the time. As capacity factor drops, economic
efficiency drops, usefulness drops, and real-world costs increase. In
the comparison below I have inflated the projected cost of electricity
produced by LFT reactors from the projected 3 cents per kilowatt hour
(kWh) to 6 cents per kWh in order to allow for unexpected cost
overruns.
Natural Gas in Conventional Combined Cycle @ 8.34 cents per kWh (87
CF) - Not carbon free; small footprint; cost effective and cleanest
fossil fuel available.
Conventional Coal @ 9.3 per cents per kWh (85 CF) - Not carbon free;
medium footprint; causes approximately 24,000 U.S. deaths per year due
to air pollution, which also damages buildings. Judged in total, coal
is not cost effective due to the environmental damage it creates.
3rd Generation Light Water Reactor Nuclear Power @ 10.48 cents per kWh
(90 CF) - Carbon free; small footprint and cost effective.
Geothermal @ 11.67 cents per kWh (90 CF) - Carbon free; small
footprint and cost effective.
Wind @ 11.55 cents per kWh (35.1 CF) - Carbon free; extremely large
footprint; not cost effective due to unreliability and very low CF.
Solar Thermal Mirror Oven @ 25.75 cents per kWh (31.2 CF) - Carbon
free; extremely large footprint; not cost effective due to
unreliability, high construction cost, and very low CF.
Solar Photovoltaic Panel Power Plant @ 38.54 cents per kWh (21.7 CF) -
Carbon free; extremely large footprint; very high construction cost;
cannot be updated after manufacture; relatively short lifespan; solar
panels are not cost effective for large scale power production.
LFT Nuclear Reactor @ 6.0 cents per kWh (over 90 CF) - Carbon free;
small footprint; highest CF available; highest cost effectiveness. If
things go well, the actual eventual cost per kWh may be at or close to
the original 3 cents per kWh projection, which would be wonderful.
LFT technology's tiny ecological footprint on planet earth makes it
the most environmentally harmless energy source available.
Reference links:
Aim High (brief overview) - http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh
Aim High slide show on 3.2MB PDF - http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/AimHigh.pdf
Energy from Thorium - http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Paradigm - http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4971
French Reactor Physics Group - http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/gpr/gpr/
EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2009 - http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html
Turning nuclear power into gasoline -
http://www.lanl.gov/news/newsbulletin/pdf/Green_Freedom_Overview.pdf
dlzc
...
> In addition to the fuel's natural safety, any excess
> heat in the reactor core would automatically melt
> drain via gravity into underground storage
> compartments, where the fuel would then cool into
> a harmless, noncritical mass.
I wonder which is the case? It says overheating decreases density
below critical mass, yet cooling does the same?
David A. Smith
Carl Ijames
smaller compartments, each of which would not contain enough fuel to go
critical.
-----
Regards,
Carl Ijames
"dlzc" <dl...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:ebe9adbc-ad08-4411...@h2g2000yqg.googlegroups.com...
John Smith
> Since he said "compartmentS", I assume the fuel would be divided into many
> smaller compartments, each of which would not contain enough fuel to go
> critical.
Exactly! There are multiple compartments so there will be no fission
and thus no heat produced. It never goes BOOM critical no matter what
you do with it. Check out the slide show on PDF. I will blow your
mind.
What A. Fool
So, will any be in operation 10 years from now?
Michael Coburn
Not if the oil companies can stop it.
--
"Those are my opinions and you can't have em" -- Bart Simpson
What A. Fool
Why would the oil companies care, the only power
plants fueled by oil are those where it isn't feasible or
economical to use coal or natural gas, like islands.
Michael Coburn
Because it is rather easy to make methanol using nuclear power (I think),
but more importantly because hybrids and then full on electric cars will
replace most of the gasoline powered vehicles we have now. This is
actually a must if we are to retain our American life style past peak oil
or even past the current choke point. We cannot afford to keep buying
oil from other nations. The oil companies want to squeeze every last
nickle out of the oil before the technology runs away from them.
Buerste
"What A. Fool" <Wh...@fool.ami> wrote in message
news:l7di45tnhqkm5bev7...@4ax.com...
No, the "environmentalists" will stop it. They don't want solutions, they
NEED problems to perpetuate their existence.
Michael Coburn
I was actually thinking about giving a talk to a group of lefties that I
sometimes fraternize with because of this very problem. They really will
need educating as to the realities. Some of them are rightarded just
like the righties. They have a religious position and they do not want
to remove the steel helmet and let the rationality get in.
Bill Ghrist
original article:
"such breeder reactors will not be deployed industrially before the next
20 to 25 years so that any transition towards extensive and sustainable
nuclear power production will have to call on second or third generation
light water reactors, which will have to be built."
and
"Molten salt reactors (MSR). These are fourth generation reactors based
on the 232Th/ 233Ufuel cycle, with a neutron spectrum that can be
anything from thermal to fast. These begin production in 2030 in our
scenarios."
Fran
Well I'm a lefty, and I'm in favour of nuclear power in any
jurisdiction where it is better than all the alternative ways of
securing power, all things considered. I'm especially keen on Thorium
as a fuel, and that is on the record here.
Fran
John M.
I agree. But note that present methods of nuclear generation create
more unpleasant questions than they supply useful answers. Thorium
could do it but let's not get too excited.
The sooner we can power up Africa and Asia, the sooner those regions
will start to see an end to their run-away over-population which is
currently causing such misery.
John M.
> "What A. Fool" <Wh...@fool.ami> wrote in messagenews:l7di45tnhqkm5bev7...@4ax.com...
WOW! The stupid ... it burns.Thanks for the laugh, anyway.
Siobhan Medeiros
> SEE:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christ...
>
> Aim High slide show on 3.2MB PDF -http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/AimHigh.pdf
>
>
> read more »
I like it, I like it!
Fran
wrote:
In truth though even the latest generation of uranium fuelled reactors
still compare very well with coal-fired reactors on most criteria one
ought to take seriously in most jurisdictions.
That's not enough for preferring them in all cases -- specific site
considerations, the health of the jurisdiction attending the plant,
the capacity of the jurisdiction to raise the recurrent funds to
maintain them, the existence of a stable grid and of course the
support of the local populace are important considerations.
> The sooner we can power up Africa and Asia, the sooner those regions
> will start to see an end to their run-away over-population which is
> currently causing such misery
That's true.
Fran
Fran
> SEE:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christ...
>
> fission reactor that provides all of the benefits of pure fusion
> power, but with a simpler and more practical design. This will change
> the world like television, the discovery of DNA, and the Internet.
>
> Revolutionary Thorium Reactor - The most environmentally beneficial
> power source on earth
>
I'm not opposed to nuclear energy but I don't agree with overselling
the technology
Let's be quite clear on a few things.
1. No energy technology can ever be carbon neutral -- except through
dodgy or dubious accounting. Even windfarms have some carbon
footprint. Digging up uranium, filtering it, reprocessing it, building
a nuclear plant, securing it, operating it, storing the waste and so
forth all takes energy -- and that releases CO2. It's likely as rich
uranium ores are depleted, the CO2 footprint will rise. Much of this
is diesel fuel or coal. How one does one's accounting. It's probably
going to be 1/3 that of coal per energy output unit, but it's not
nothing.
2. Unless one goes to breeders, which have their own problems, uranium
nuclear power isn't going to be able to last the world very long.
Thorium is in more abundant supply but even here, the speed with which
one could build the plants is a limiting factor.
3. It's going to take about 20 years to pay back the energy going into
nuclear plants. In the long run, there are carbon savings to be had,
but in the short to medium run -- which is where we are most worried,
it's a cost to the carbon budget.
Really, nuclear will probably play a quite limited role in getting us
to a lower carbon future.
Fran
T. Keating
<fireint...@gmail.com> wrote:
>SEE:
>
>http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christopher-Calder-090628-214.html
>
>Limitless, low cost energy is now possible through a revolutionary new
>fission reactor that provides all of the benefits of pure fusion
>power, but with a simpler and more practical design. This will change
>the world like television, the discovery of DNA, and the Internet.
>
>Revolutionary Thorium Reactor - The most environmentally beneficial
>power source on earth
Unlikely... this reference explains why...
Reactors based on thermal fission events will NEVER produce more fuel
than they start with. Thus quickly leading(within a century) to
depletion of available U-235 worldwide.
If one switches to Fast-breeding technology,
PU-239 generates 3.04 neutrons per event.
Fast breeders need careful attention to design to prevent neutron
absorption by non-fuel elements. (metallic (instead of
ceramic/oxides) fuel, molten sodium coolant, etc.)
feely filly
What she said.
(extra 'u's and all)
Feely
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"Fran" Fran...@gmail.com ha scritto nel messaggio
news:5f0eedb5-6188-4be6...@b9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
>I'm not opposed to nuclear energy but I don't agree with overselling
>the technology
>Let's be quite clear on a few things.
>1. No energy technology can ever be carbon neutral -- except through
dodgy or dubious accounting. Even windfarms have some carbon
>footprint.
Of course it's right but it's a quite irrelevant problem, even current (non
breeders) nuclear has a carbon production, considering the whole fuel cycle
(including decomissioning and waste storage), of less than 20 grams per kWh,
thorium MSR is certainly even better vs 450 and even 1000 grams per kWh for
natural
gas or coal; at last, *any* energy sources, including fossiles, need an
energy input.
Moreover, most of the energy input for nuclear is not in minning but uranium
enrichment, an activity easily electrificable (and not necessary at all with
thorium MSR)
>2. Unless one goes to breeders, which have their own problems, uranium
>nuclear power isn't going to be able to last the world very long.
>Thorium is in more abundant supply but even here, the speed with which
>one could build the plants is a limiting factor.
You have to consider this a (thermal) breeder reactor based on thorium as
fuel, that burns *only* the waste (plutonium + transuranics) we have STILL
produced and currently stored in waste repositories, with no need of new
uranium to mine; with a single tonn of natural thorium we can produce more
than 11 billions of kWh of electricity (not heat) vs "only" 40 millions of
kWh per tonn of natural uranium (and only a few thousands kWh per tonn of
coal) - the thorium can cost like gold without any escalation in the cost of
electricity produced, while we have *billions* (not milions) of tonns in the
planet extractable at a cost of few thousands $ per pound
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4971
"Famed Climate Scientist James Hanson, recently spoke of thorium's great
promise in material that he submitted to President Elect Obama:
The Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is a thorium reactor concept
that uses a chemically-stable fluoride salt for the medium in which nuclear
reactions take place. This fuel form yields flexibility of operation and
eliminates the need to fabricate fuel elements. This feature solves most
concerns that have prevented thorium from being used in solid-fueled
reactors. The fluid fuel in LFTR is also easy to process and to separate
useful fission products, both stable and radioactive. LFTR also has the
potential to destroy existing nuclear waste.
(The) LFTR(s) operate at low pressure and high temperatures, unlike
today's
LWRs. Operation at low pressures alleviates much of the accident risk with
LWR. Higher temperatures enable more of the reactor heat to be converted to
electricity (50% in LFTR vs 35% in LWR). (The) LFTR (has) the potential to
be air-cooled and to use waste heat for desalinating water.
LFTR(s) are 100-300 times more fuel efficient than LWRs. In addition to
solving the nuclear waste problem, they can operate for several centuries
using only uranium and thorium that has already been mined. Thus they
eliminate the criticism that mining for nuclear fuel will use fossil fuels
and add to the greenhouse effect.
The Obama campaign, properly in my opinion, opposed the Yucca Mountain
nuclear repository. Indeed, there is a far more effective way to use the $25
billion collected from utilities over the past 40 years to deal with waste
disposal. This fund should be used to develop fast reactors that consume
nuclear waste, and thorium reactors to prevent the creation of new
long-lived nuclear waste. By law the federal government must take
responsibility for existing spent nuclear fuel, so inaction is not an
option. Accelerated development of fast and thorium reactors will allow the
US to fulfill its obligations to dispose of the nuclear waste, and open up a
source of carbon-free energy that can last centuries, even millennia. "
"...
Thorium is extremely abundant in the earth's crust, which appears to contain
somewhere around 120 trillion tons of it. In addition to 12% thorium
monazite sands, found on Indian beaches and in other places, economically
recoverable thorium is found virtually everywhere. For example, large-scale
recovery of thorium from granite rocks is economically feasible with a very
favorable EROEI. Significant recoverable amounts of thorium are present in
mine tailings. These include the tailings of ancient tin mines, rare earth
mine tailings, phosphate mine tailings and uranium mine tailings. In
addition to the thorium present in mine tailings and in surface monazite
sands, burning coal at the average 1000 MWe power plant produces about 13
tons of thorium per year. That thorium is recoverable from the power plant's
waste ash pile.
One ton of thorium will produce nearly 1 GW of electricity for a year in an
efficient thorium cycle reactor. Thus current coal energy technology throws
away over 10 times the energy it produces as electricity. This is not the
result of poor thermodynamic efficiency; it is the result of a failure to
recognize and use the energy value of thorium. The amount of thorium present
in surface mining coal waste is enormous and would provide all the power
human society needs for thousands of years, without resorting to any special
mining for thorium, or the use of any other form or energy recovery.
Little attention is paid to the presence of thorium in mine tailings. In
fact it would largely be passed over in silence except that radioactive
gases from thorium are a health hazard for miners and ore processing
workers.
Thorium is present in phosphate fertilizers because fertilizer manufactures
do not wish to pay the recovery price prior to distribution. Gypsum present
in phosphate tailings is unusable in construction because of the presence of
radioactive gasses associated with the thorium that is also present in the
gypsum. Finally organic farmers use phosphate tailings to enrich their soil.
This has the unfortunate side effect of releasing thorium into surface and
subsurface waters, as well as leading to the potential contamination of
organic crops with thorium and its various radioactive daughter products.
Thus the waste of thorium present in phosphate tailings has environmental
consequences.
The world's real thorium reserve is enormous, but also hugely
underestimated. For example the USGS reports that the United States has a
thorium reserve of 160,000 tons, with another 300,000 tons of possible
thorium reserve. But Alex Gabbard estimates a reserve of over 300,000 tons
of recoverable thorium in coal ash associated with power production in the
United States alone.
In 1969, WASH-1097 noted a report that had presented to President Johnson
that estimated the United States thorium reserve at 3 billion tons that
could be recovered for the price of $500 a pound - perhaps $3000 today. Lest
this sound like an enormous amount of money to pay for thorium, consider
that one pound of thorium contains the energy equivalent of 20 tons of coal,
which would sell on the spot market for in mid-January for around $1500. The
price of coal has been somewhat depressed by the economic down turn. Last
year coal sold on the spot market for as much as $300 a ton, yielding a
price for 20 tons of coal of $6000. How long would 3 billion tons last the
United States? If all of the energy used in the United States were derived
from thorium for the next two million years, there would be still several
hundred thousand years of thorium left that could be recovered for the
equivalent of $3000 a pound in January 2009 dollars "
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5002
"...our nuclear technology still has faults:
a.. it uses only a fraction of the energy in the uranium we mine,
b.. it leaves much more waste than is necessary, and
c.. it presents proliferation hazards that could be avoided.
We should do better, and we can.
The USA has developed technologies to address all of these problems, and
then mothballed them. The failure to develop our capabilities was not
technical, but political, and came mostly from within your own party. This
is another luxury we can no longer afford. These should go back on the
front burner as soon as humanly possible.
The neglected technologies are:
a.. The molten-salt reactor (MSR) [...and the IFR, the integral fast
reactor]
These two technologies have several very valuable properties in common:
1.. They reprocess their fuel at the reactor site.
2.. Because of the on-site reprocessing, there is no storage of spent
fuel.
3.. Also because of this, the volume of waste is minuscule; the waste from
a reactor's entire lifetime can be stored on-site and not removed until
decommissioning.
4.. They can use roughly 100 times as much of the raw fuel material as
today's reactors.
A ton of raw nuclear fuel (uranium or thorium) can make approximately one
gigawatt-year of electric power in an MSR or IFR. The total electric power
needs of the USA could be satisfied by less than 500 tons per year of
either, and a great deal of this could come from material already mined or
even designated as "waste". Because of these properties, the MSR and IFR
are potential solutions to both the USA's energy difficulties and the
nuclear waste problem.
The Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR)
The Molten-Salt Reactor was originally developed for nuclear aircraft, but
it was later tested as an alternative to water-cooled reactors. An
experimental reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory was tested using three
different fuels: enriched uranium-235, plutonium and uranium-233 (bred from
thorium). It ran well on all of them. The final run was intended to gather
data to evaluate the feasibility of a thorium-uranium fuel cycle, and was
apparently successful.
Molten-salt reactors have a number of advantages over today's water-cooled
technology:
1.. They cannot suffer a meltdown, because the fuel is already molten. If
the cooling systems are shut off, the reactors shut down through their
essential physics; they are inherently safe.
2.. They cannot explode, because they run well below the boiling point of
the salts and require no pressure vessels. This also makes their components
relatively lightweight and easy to manufacture.
3.. They can run at relatively high temperatures, which increases their
efficiency and makes the heat usable for many industrial purposes.
4.. They can remove fission wastes continuously, so there is never a
danger from "afterheat" when a reactor is shut down.
5.. The extracted wastes are relatively pure rather than containing large
amounts of unused fuel, so their bulk is comparatively tiny. The wastes can
be made ready for permanent disposal right at the reactor site. Fuel cannot
be diverted for weapons because it never leaves the reactor building.
6.. They can be started up with plutonium from spent nuclear fuel or
reclaimed weapons material, and can destroy this fuel while breeding new
fuel from thorium.
7.. The physics of breeding thorium to uranium creates uranium-232 as well
as uranium-233, which is not a difficulty for power production but makes the
material unsuitable for use in weapons. Even more so than light-water
reactors, molten-salt thorium breeders do not pose a risk of nuclear weapons
proliferation.
According to recent news, the USA has approximately 900,000 tons of
high-grade thorium reserves. This is approximately 2000 years of supplies
at current rates of electric consumption, or hundreds of years if thorium
was substituted for all fossil fuel. Lower-grade thorium resources include
coal ash.
In addition to reactors using molten fluoride salts, it appears to be
possible to make fast-breeder reactors using molten chloride salts. This
has not yet been tested, but it probably should be. "
Thus, the efficiency is so high and the need of thorium per unit of energy
produced so small, that the thorium as raw material in the planet in
pratically renewable on a human scale; we have enough thorium to power a
whole planet of 10 billions of inhabitants with a Western need of energy
pro-capita for a pratically infinite time (it's quite interesting current
thorium production is about 30 thousands tonn per year, of course for only
non
energy applications, so we need only an about 1/4 extra to do that)
>3. It's going to take about 20 years to pay back the energy going into
nuclear plants. In the long run, there are carbon savings to be had,
>but in the short to medium run -- which is where we are most worried,
>it's a cost to the carbon budget.
That's not absolutely the case of thorium molten salt reactors. They are
quite simple to build and operate (it's even a non pressurized system), has
a very small footprint and scale-up very quickly, doesn' t need any uranium
enrichment (nor "new" fresh
uranium to mine), use thorium very effectively becoming pratically an
infinite energy source, has strong passive features of safety (an accident
of criticality like Chernobyl or a meltdown for loss of coolant event like
Three mile Island can't physically happen) and produce electricity and heat
cheaply and
with high efficiencies. Moreover, unlike other strategies like fusion
or clean coal, it's pratically a just proven technology today with two
prototypes
successfully built and operated even in the '50-''60s
Rob Dekker
"Romeo Gigli" <rgigli @ (no-spam) libero.it> wrote in message news:inr2m.59668$Ux.5...@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
Romeo, thanks for a nice overview of the promising future of thorium reactors.
Two questions from a newbe on thorium reactors :
(1) If all this is true, why are these reactors not yet being built ?
(2) How small can they be made (practically/theoretically) ?
I am thinking of reactors that produce less than 10MW, 1MW or maybe even 100kW, that could possibly be used for transportation needs
(ships, trucks or maybe even cars).
Rob
Tater Gumfries
> SEE:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christ...
>
> fission reactor that provides all of the benefits of pure fusion
> power, but with a simpler and more practical design. This will change
> the world like television, the discovery of DNA, and the Internet.
Boosterism. It is highly unlikely that all of these claims are true.
Tater
Alan Hill
President Barack Obama should call for a global effort to produce a
world LFT reactor design that can be operational within five years.
He should call for group commitment of the USA, the EU, China, Russia,
India, South Korea and even bring in countries like Iran and North
Korea; divert the world's attention from petty squabbles and useless
hostilities. Reduce world tensions by seeking a global solution to
the global energy crisis. We are all in this together and our ship is
sinking! There are very smart people all around the world who could
help on this, and if each country invested a modest amount of money in
this research (proportional to their GDP), then each participating
country could use the finalized design without paying any kind of
royalties. This way we could get a better design quicker, encourage
friendship and cooperation between nations, and end our global
dependence on fossil fuels ASAP.
GREAT LINKS:
Fran
> "Romeo Gigli" <rgigli @ (no-spam) libero.it> wrote in messagenews:inr2m.59668$Ux.5...@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
>
>
>
Given that the first nuclear reactors in the US were Thorium driven,
and a defintie choice was made in the 1960s to go with uranium, while
there would have been some peripheral technical advantages, one
suspects that the choice was largely driven by the access to
weaponizable plutonium that the latter offered. Certainly when
thatcher geared up nukes in the UK much later -- the demands of
Trident were a key consideration.
If you look at India, which has hardly any uranium but about 12% of
the world's Thorium, this conclusion is hard to resist.
Fran
Bill Ghrist
The objective of a thorium reactor is not to produce more fuel than you
start out with. The objective is to start with thorium and covert it to
U-233, which is then fissioned to produced power. This is not intended
to set up a self-perpetuating breeding cycle; it is a way of using
abundant but non-fissile thorium as the feedstock for a fission power
process. The link you provide has nothing to do with the thorium to
U-233 cycle.
What A. Fool
<starled...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I have read over the links provided and found this very interesting.
>President Barack Obama should call for a global effort to produce a
>world LFT reactor design that can be operational within five years.
>He should call for group commitment of the USA, the EU, China, Russia,
>India, South Korea and even bring in countries like Iran and North
>Korea; divert the world's attention from petty squabbles and useless
>hostilities. Reduce world tensions by seeking a global solution to
>the global energy crisis.
>[snip]
You want the president to act like an activist?
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"Bill Ghrist" notm...@gmail.com ha scritto nel messaggio
news:NFz2m.138$P5...@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
> The objective of a thorium reactor is not to produce more fuel than you
> start out with. The objective is to start with thorium and covert it to
> U-233, which is then fissioned to produced power. This is not intended to
> set up a self-perpetuating breeding cycle; it is a way of using abundant
> but non-fissile thorium as the feedstock for a fission power process.
> The link you provide has nothing to do with the thorium to U-233 cycle.
Actually, a MSR can be indeed a self breeder even operating in a thermal (or
epithermal, with no moderator) spectrum. This can happen because MSRs are
fluid fuel (not solid) reactors and have a mini chemical processing plant on
site to extract on line neutron absorber fission products like Xenon; this
minimizes parasitic neutron looses, a feature physically impossible to
achieve with solid fuel reactors where all fission products are sequestred
until spent fuel is reprocessed/recycled in a central processing facility
Of course, the conversio ratios for MSRs are not so higher than unity like
fast
breeders, only slighty above self breeding, but that' s a big advantage
today from the proliferation point of view
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ans09/Uhlir_MSRReprocessing.pdf
" There are two possibilities of the MSR reactor core design: - One fluid
(single fluid) system - fissile and fertile materials are mixed together -
Two fluid system - with separate channels of fissile and fertile fuel
components :
One fluid system:
Significantly simple construction - relatively low breeding factor
(~1.04 - 1.06)
Two fluid system:
More complicated reactor core design - excellent breeding factor (~1.1 -
1.13)...."
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:vGw2m.2819$OF1....@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...
> (1) If all this is true, why are these reactors not yet being built ?
I think the main reason is political, in the '50-'60 the US government
decided to prioritize weapon grade plutonium, sodium cooled, fast breeders,
rather than thorium thermal spectrum self-breeders, while even in the end of
the '60s MSR was considered a "mature technology". Fast breeders produce a
very pure fissile plutonium very usefull to produce nuclear warheads, an
central argument in those years of COld War; instead the fissile produced in
a MSR, uranium 233, it is inevitably contaminated with uranium-232, whose
decay chain includes thallium-208, both energetic gamma emitters, very
difficult to handling and reprocess (plutonium 239 produced in fast breeders
is instead an alpha emitter, very easy to handle and reprocess)
One of the co-developer, the Physics Nobel Prize Alvin Weinberg, wrote
about:
" Why didn't the molten-salt system, so elegant and so well thought-out,
prevail? I've already given the political reason: that the plutonium fast
breeder arrived first and was therefore able to consolidate its political
position within the AEC...but there was another, more technical reason. The
molten-salt technology is entirely different from the technology of any
other reactor. To the inexperienced, [molten salt reactor] technology is
daunting.Perhaps the moral to be drawn is that a technology that differs too
much from an existing technology has not one hurdle to overcome-to
demonstrate its feasibility-but another even greater one-to convince
influential individuals and organizations who are intellectually and
emotionally attached to a different technology that they should adopt the
new path"..
"It was a successful technology that was dropped because it was too
different from the main lines of reactor development. I hope that in a
second nuclear era, the [molten salt reactor] technology will be
resurrected"
> (2) How small can they be made (practically/theoretically) ?
> I am thinking of reactors that produce less than 10MW, 1MW or maybe even
> 100kW, that could possibly be used for transportation needs (ships, trucks
> or maybe even cars).
Interesting question. Yes, I think that a MSR can be built to be very small,
the only problem I see is that a MSR needs an on site miniaturized chemical
processing to separate the fission products and the fuel, thus we had to
fuel the reactor mainly with high fissile fuel; however, personally I prefer
for many niche applications to produce in a central facility syntetic liquid
fuels (methanol, ammonia or ethanol from agriculture crops) and electrify
what it's possible (train and plugins for transportation, electric heat
pumps for heating/cooling, or district heating from MSRs themself)
I found rather very interesting the possibility of building medium sizes
MSRs, in the range of hundreds of MWs (both for electricity and heat
production)
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2008/11/if-you-design-it-small-they-will-come.html
" Dr. David LeBlanc has some interesting ideas on LFTR design. david's basic
idea is both simple and ingenious. Build a reactor with a simple cylindrical
core. The core is surrounded by a thorium salt blanket. The cylindrical core
design would allow factory built reactors to varie in power output simply by
elongating the core cylinder.
Dr. LeBlanc's design can easily be built as medium size reactors. LeBlanc
has calculated that a core that is one meter (a littleover a yard) in
diameter, and six meters (20 feet) long could produce 400 MWs of electrical
output (more than 900 MW thermal, MSRs are high temperature system that can
achieve very easily efficiencies of about 45% and more vs 30-35% for
nuclear water reactors). Such a core would be easily transportable and would
cost next to nothing to build "
http://gravityloss.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/thorium-msr-design-possibilities/
http://www.torium.se/res/Documents/dleblancnewvisiongenivpdf.pdf
You can find more infos here (there is a forum and a blog dealing daily with
the issue) :
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/
Eric Gisin
"Tater Gumfries" <TaterG...@usa.com> wrote in message
news:91c34eee-b1ef-4bea...@l31g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
What A. Fool
Possibly there is a patent on the design, and the usual way
the government handles major patents is just wait until they
expire and then use the invention.
John M.
Small beer compared to the plutonium they produce. The bad guys will
always be after getting their hands on it, and will do sooner or
later.
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
but thinking deeper about it, I see an interesting potential symbiosis
between MSRs, capable of producing clean and cost effective high temperature
heat, and ethanol or biofuel production. We all well know that current
ethanol production from corn is a non starter, because it has an energy
return of 1 to 1 or even negative (one unity of energy of fossil fuel is
burned for one unit of final product). Certainly, other biofuel options
could do a better work with an higher energy return ratio (sugarcane,
swithgrass, wood, etc...). However, even with corn ethanol more than half of
the energy input need is low temp steam (< 200 �C) to fermetate and
distillate the product and about 2/3 of the primary energy need is low temp
heat + electricity.
http://www.klprocess.com/pdf/USDA_Shapouri.pdf
If this heat + electricity input is produced from a non-fossile clean
source, the ethanol production is easier or, alternatively, we can produce
ethanol or other liquid biofuels from non-food poorer crops or even
agriculture wastes with a decent energy return ratio
I have no idea how much agriculture waste is yearly produced in a typical
industrial country, but supposing we are successfull to develop some biofuel
with an energy return of at least, say, 5 (the final product has five times
the energy used to make it), so to produce 20 billions liters/year (one
liter of gasoline equivalent is ~ 10 kWh thermal) we have to use only 40
TWh/year, half of which is low temp steam and something like 60-70% is
electricity + heat. Not easy, but quite feasible to make. This is, of
course, NOT an alternative of electric/plugin vehicles but a way to
integrate it, for those uses not easy to electrificate (airplanes, ships,
diesel trains or plugins themself for trips longer than daily battery
ranges)
Scotius
<fireint...@gmail.com> wrote:
>SEE:
>
>http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christopher-Calder-090628-214.html
>
>Limitless, low cost energy is now possible through a revolutionary new
>fission reactor that provides all of the benefits of pure fusion
>power, but with a simpler and more practical design. This will change
>the world like television, the discovery of DNA, and the Internet.
>
>Revolutionary Thorium Reactor - The most environmentally beneficial
>power source on earth
>
>
What is the waste product of the thorium that is burned up?
Is it radioactive, or environmentally benign?
What will it cost to trap the waste product, or "deplete" it
of radiation if it is radioactive?
Where would it be stored, etc?
I'm a bit skeptical of claims like "super environmentally
friendly", "super-efficient", etc.
...and you're completely ignoring the fact that the people in
control of US energy policy don't want that to happen at all.
>Aim High (brief overview) - http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh
>
>Aim High slide show on 3.2MB PDF - http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/AimHigh.pdf
>
What A. Fool
libero.it> wrote:
>Maybe I should open an other thread,
>but thinking deeper about it, I see an interesting potential symbiosis
>between MSRs, capable of producing clean and cost effective high temperature
>heat, and ethanol or biofuel production. We all well know that current
>ethanol production from corn is a non starter, because it has an energy
>return of 1 to 1 or even negative (one unity of energy of fossil fuel is
>burned for one unit of final product). Certainly, other biofuel options
>could do a better work with an higher energy return ratio (sugarcane,
>swithgrass, wood, etc...). However, even with corn ethanol more than half of
>the energy input need is low temp steam (< 200 ?) to fermetate and
>distillate the product and about 2/3 of the primary energy need is low temp
>heat + electricity.
>http://www.klprocess.com/pdf/USDA_Shapouri.pdf
>If this heat + electricity input is produced from a non-fossile clean
>source, the ethanol production is easier or, alternatively, we can produce
>ethanol or other liquid biofuels from non-food poorer crops or even
>agriculture wastes with a decent energy return ratio
>
>I have no idea how much agriculture waste is yearly produced in a typical
>industrial country, but supposing we are successfull to develop some biofuel
>with an energy return of at least, say, 5 (the final product has five times
>the energy used to make it), so to produce 20 billions liters/year (one
>liter of gasoline equivalent is ~ 10 kWh thermal) we have to use only 40
>TWh/year, half of which is low temp steam and something like 60-70% is
>electricity + heat. Not easy, but quite feasible to make. This is, of
>course, NOT an alternative of electric/plugin vehicles but a way to
>integrate it, for those uses not easy to electrificate (airplanes, ships,
>diesel trains or plugins themself for trips longer than daily battery
>ranges)
Designing any power plant for any other use than plain
old electric generation doesn't make sense, most of the energy
going into ethanol production is in boiling the alcohol but not
the water.
Maybe advanced stills could have some heat pump
recovery of thermal energy in the condensing process,
and electric would be needed for that, but existing grid
connections would be far more viable than specialized
reactors.
Actually, there should be more small scale production
of ethanol, with the waste heat used for low temperature
applications like space heating or process heat, hot water,
etc.
If any viable design can be built without patent difficulty
or infringement, that would be the thing for immediate government
action.
Chances are some governments that don't conform to
international patent agreements will be the first to act, and
that may prompt all governments to act.
The grid will need new power plants, but not a huge
number, at least once in the past a big surge in electric
demand was predicted for all-electric homes, but it never
developed, and that played a part in the cancellation of
some of the nuclear plants.
The design of nuclear plants doesn't seem to be
the big hold back, France and other countries seem to
be doing ok, and if fossil fuel emissions are really a big
issue, there is not any sane reason to hold back building
nuclear plants.
I prefer using electric baseboard heat, the 1000 watt
panels are easy to install, they only cost about $40 each,
one or two will heat the average room, and each room
can be controlled by line current thermostats or low
voltage thermostats and solenoid contactors.
Any substantial increase in electric rates above the
06 cents per KWH would force me to use natural gas,
and reduce the amount of space I heat.
A nearby nuclear power plant might reduce my
carbon footprint, but would probably raise my electric
rate, the local power plant has contract sales to big
industrial users at less than 3 cents per KWH.
Nuclear power would be more expensive than
coal, the issue may be just how much more expensive.
Rob Dekker
I think you are drifting off-topic a little bit.
There are various uses of waste heat, ranging from industrial processing,
residential heating to de-iceing, depending on it's temperature.
But waste heat usage requires infrastructure.
In my native country of The Netherlands, nice and densely populated, such an
infrastructure of thermally insulated waste heat piping is installed, and
various users and suppiers are tapping into this system. Pricing is based on
the temperature. High heat is valued more than low heat.
Still, in less densely populated areas, waste heat supply/demand system is
not an economical option.
Also, you mention heat transport for distillation of ethanol, and that may
be a nice application, but >100 C heat transprt is difficult because of the
medium (water is low cost). If close to 100 C is enough for ethanol
distillation, then why is that not already done (using waste heat from power
plants). The answer is in the logistics, as explained above.
If waste heat were usable, then the current nuclear power plants would not
need these huge and expensive cooling towers.
So I see this waste heat usage as a separate topic to power generation.
Combined power/heat systems work only economically in certain (high density)
regions. Thorium as power source will change little about this picture, I
think.
Rob
>
Rob Dekker
The issue is still the timeframe (10-20 years from now it will start to pay
off).
But smart, longterm investors should be able to kick in the first few
billion of development of this promising technology...
So I have high hopes for thorium.
Good links. Thanks ! Seems that 100 MW is feasible with this stuff.
But I'm mostly curious about the theoretically minimum size of thorium
breeder reactors like this.
Shouldn't there be a certain mimimum (at least 10 kg or so) of Uranium 233
(bred from Thorium) in the reactor to guarantee a self-sustaining reaction ?
Rob
>
>
What A. Fool
>
>"Romeo Gigli" <rgigli @ (no-spam) libero.it> wrote in message
>news:tZ83m.61935$Ux.5...@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
>> Maybe I should open an other thread,
>> but thinking deeper about it, I see an interesting potential symbiosis
>> between MSRs, capable of producing clean and cost effective high
>> temperature heat, and ethanol or biofuel production. We all well know that
>> current ethanol production from corn is a non starter, because it has an
>> energy return of 1 to 1 or even negative (one unity of energy of fossil
>> fuel is burned for one unit of final product). Certainly, other biofuel
>> options could do a better work with an higher energy return ratio
>> (sugarcane, swithgrass, wood, etc...). However, even with corn ethanol
>> more than half of the energy input need is low temp steam (< 200 ?) to
Actually, the waste heat from a power plant would be almost
perfect for ethanol distillation, but the problem may be too much
volume available for a power plant to bother with the small amount
needed for an ethanol plant.
>If waste heat were usable, then the current nuclear power plants would not
>need these huge and expensive cooling towers.
It is usable, and there is lots of it, and average of twice
the wattage of the power plant output.
Possible a better use for power plant waste heat would be
to power secondary boilers of a low boiling point liquid, even freon,
for co-generation.
>So I see this waste heat usage as a separate topic to power generation.
>Combined power/heat systems work only economically in certain (high density)
>regions. Thorium as power source will change little about this picture, I
>think.
>
>Rob
Chances are there is not enough available land close enough
to a power plant to use the high volume of water and return it to the
plant at a cool enough temperature for feed water, or maybe return
it too cold.
At some power plants the handling of flue ash is becoming
a space problem, apparently it is a useful material, but temporary
storage is needed.
Without space and a profitable use, waste heat is wasted.
Michael Coburn
I am not real sure that this capitalistic methodology is the best way to
go. The appeal of it would be only that the private sector has shorter
time horizons than the public sector, yet you are still touting the 20
year frame. I am not convinced that a 20 year frame is compatible with
current capitalism, nor am I convinced that intellectual property rights
and competition will accelerate the process if that time projection is
correct. As to the costs of the project I am of the opinion that current
efforts would be better funded by a joint venture among nations utilizing
current tax systems.
The problem, of course, with government funded arrangements is the
tendency of the scientists, engineers, and technicians and all the
government managers to want to extend the life of the project in order to
preserve their own nests. When greedy capitalists are involved they do
all they can to shorten the development time so as to maximize and
accelerate profits. The time for capitalism is when you cross the 10
year threshold. Not until. Prior to that point the need is for
research, proof of concept and, and solid projections of scale. And
after this phase, there must still be government oversight to protect the
public from the greedy and the unscrupulous.
--
"Those are my opinions and you can't have em" -- Bart Simpson
daestrom
I don't think so. The temperature of the waste heat from most steam
plants (either coal or nuclear) is in the range of about 90 F (32C).
This is pretty low for distillation.
And while it certainly is *possible* to raise the final temperature in a
steam cycle, it can be quite costly to the plant operator. Reducing the
efficiency of a large plant by as little as 0.1% can cost over $1M a
year in revenue. (3MW*24*365*$40/MW-hr = $1.03M)
If your distiller is going to pay the power plant for that loss in
revenue, they could instead buy an awful lot of natural gas for $1M.
(that's sort of the problem with fossil fuels, right now they are so
cheap that alternatives are seldom economical)
>> If waste heat were usable, then the current nuclear power plants would not
>> need these huge and expensive cooling towers.
>
> It is usable, and there is lots of it, and average of twice
> the wattage of the power plant output.
> Possible a better use for power plant waste heat would be
> to power secondary boilers of a low boiling point liquid, even freon,
> for co-generation.
>
Again, the temperature of that heat is so low that it is hardly worth
capturing. Lowering the plant efficiency in order to raise that
temperature makes the 'waste heat' more usable, but at considerable cost
to the power plant.
daestrom
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"Scotius" <yoda...@mnsi.net> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:hfdq4550s8t9b0e5g...@4ax.com...
>> LFT reactors are much more fuel efficient than other designs,
>>because they burn up 100% of the thorium fed them.
>
> What is the waste product of the thorium that is burned up?
>
> Is it radioactive, or environmentally benign?
>
> What will it cost to trap the waste product, or "deplete" it
> of radiation if it is radioactive?
>
> Where would it be stored, etc?
>
> I'm a bit skeptical of claims like "super environmentally
> friendly", "super-efficient", etc.
I was quite skeptical, too, but indeed here it' s much easier to dealt with
thorium MSR spent fuel.
First of all, for a matter of efficiency, it takes less than one tonn/year
of natural thorium to power a GW electric station, about 200-300 times less
than natural uranium need in current LWR fleet
See http://www.energyfromthorium.com/images/thoriumVsUranium.jpg
Second and more important, thorium spent fuel is pratically almost
transuranics free,
that means does't have radioactive elements with a very long life like
plutonium (a weapon grade material) or americium. All transuranics are put
back the reactor and effectively destroyed into the reactor, besides some
very little reprocessing inefficiences
See slide 45 of the presentation above
http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/AimHigh.pdf
or http://www.torium.se/res/Documents/operationwastecomp.pdf
Moreover, rather than "waste", the spent fuel contains many usefull elements
for several medical, industrial and civil applications
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/download/file.php?id=77&mode=view
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
> I think you are drifting off-topic a little bit.
I think you' re right, maybe I' ll open a new thread
> There are various uses of waste heat, ranging from industrial processing,
> residential heating to de-iceing, depending on it's temperature.
> But waste heat usage requires infrastructure.
> In my native country of The Netherlands, nice and densely populated, such
> an infrastructure of thermally insulated waste heat piping is installed,
> and various users and suppiers are tapping into this system. Pricing is
> based on the temperature. High heat is valued more than low heat.
> Still, in less densely populated areas, waste heat supply/demand system is
> not an economical option.
>
> Also, you mention heat transport for distillation of ethanol, and that may
> be a nice application, but >100 C heat transprt is difficult because of
> the medium (water is low cost). If close to 100 C is enough for ethanol
> distillation, then why is that not already done (using waste heat from
> power plants). The answer is in the logistics, as explained above.
I don' t see any problem to use pressurized hot water, instead of steam. If
I understand correctly, it' s mainly a matter of economics for the
infrastructures need, but it' s quite feasible to avoid natural gas use for
these applications, easing the ethanol production
> If waste heat were usable, then the current nuclear power plants would not
> need these huge and expensive cooling towers.
I don't think this is the point, there are still today many nuclear district
heating system, for example in Switzerland or in the Eastern Europe (not in
US, of course) . Probably, natural gas is today too cheap that nuclear
district heating had economic sense alone
> So I see this waste heat usage as a separate topic to power generation.
> Combined power/heat systems work only economically in certain (high
> density) regions. Thorium as power source will change little about this
> picture, I think
To be more specific, my emphasys on thorium MSRs is not for thorium per se
as energy source, rather
for the fact that MSR is a high temperature (> 700 �C vs 350 �C for LWRs),
high efficiency technology
system, so for them it's quite feasible to increase the temp of heat sink
with very low loss in the power production to produce medium temp
pressurized hot water to feed those applications
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
> Good links. Thanks ! Seems that 100 MW is feasible with this stuff.
> But I'm mostly curious about the theoretically minimum size of thorium
> breeder reactors like this.
> Shouldn't there be a certain mimimum (at least 10 kg or so) of Uranium 233
> (bred from Thorium) in the reactor to guarantee a self-sustaining reaction
> ?
Besides economic considerations, and if we avoid the need of a thorium
blanket and the mini chemical plant to reprocess the fuel (thus the
possibility of self-breeding), as I described previously, I don' t see any
reason why the power size can be very low - infact the two prototype
reactors built at ORNL in the '50-'60s (the ARE and the MSRE) were only less
than 10 MW (thermal, not electric)
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"daestrom" <daes...@twcny.rr.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:h2lhf...@news1.newsguy.com...
>> Actually, the waste heat from a power plant would be almost
>> perfect for ethanol distillation, but the problem may be too much
>> volume available for a power plant to bother with the small amount
>> needed for an ethanol plant.
>>
>
> I don't think so. The temperature of the waste heat from most steam
> plants (either coal or nuclear) is in the range of about 90 F (32C). This
> is pretty low for distillation.
>
> And while it certainly is *possible* to raise the final temperature in a
> steam cycle, it can be quite costly to the plant operator. Reducing the
> efficiency of a large plant by as little as 0.1% can cost over $1M a year
> in revenue. (3MW*24*365*$40/MW-hr = $1.03M)
>
> If your distiller is going to pay the power plant for that loss in
> revenue, they could instead buy an awful lot of natural gas for $1M.
>
> (that's sort of the problem with fossil fuels, right now they are so cheap
> that alternatives are seldom economical)
Indeed, you right. But I wanted to point out that there will be a point
where the NG market price can be no more cost effective than hot water/steam
from a nuclear plant. Moreover, I suspect that with an high temp-high
efficiency MSR (> 700 �C vs 350 �C for LWR) the loss in efficiency (and
revenue) to raise the heat sink is not that high...
N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
"Romeo Gigli" <rgigli @ (no-spam) libero.it> wrote in message
news:P_s3m.372$vG4...@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
...
>> If waste heat were usable, then the current nuclear
>> power plants would not need these huge and
>> expensive cooling towers.
>
> I don't think this is the point, there are still today
> many nuclear district heating system, for example
> in Switzerland or in the Eastern Europe (not in US,
> of course) . Probably, natural gas is today too
> cheap that nuclear district heating had economic
> sense alone
Natural gas does not carry the stigma of radiation in the US
public consciousness. Nuclear power plants are installed "far"
from populated areas. Otherwise, waste heat from them could be
used to heat homes, or drive processes.
David A. Smith
What A. Fool
wrote:
That is after the condensor or cooling tower, but you
are right if the still could not function fully as the condensor does,
I think a still runs near 188 or 190 F.
>And while it certainly is *possible* to raise the final temperature in a
>steam cycle, it can be quite costly to the plant operator. Reducing the
>efficiency of a large plant by as little as 0.1% can cost over $1M a
>year in revenue. (3MW*24*365*$40/MW-hr = $1.03M)
>
>If your distiller is going to pay the power plant for that loss in
>revenue, they could instead buy an awful lot of natural gas for $1M.
Like I said, it might take thousands of stills to use all
the waste heat from one power plant.
>(that's sort of the problem with fossil fuels, right now they are so
>cheap that alternatives are seldom economical)
That is why I drive a gas guzzler, too bad the guzzler crush
credit is only a tax credit, essentially making it only available to
those earning over $50,000 a year, while 80 percent of the
people make less than that, and drive the gas guzzlers.
>>> If waste heat were usable, then the current nuclear power plants would not
>>> need these huge and expensive cooling towers.
>>
>> It is usable, and there is lots of it, and average of twice
>> the wattage of the power plant output.
>> Possible a better use for power plant waste heat would be
>> to power secondary boilers of a low boiling point liquid, even freon,
>> for co-generation.
>>
>
>Again, the temperature of that heat is so low that it is hardly worth
>capturing. Lowering the plant efficiency in order to raise that
>temperature makes the 'waste heat' more usable, but at considerable cost
>to the power plant.
>
>daestrom
I don't know if the cooling tower is part of the condensor
or not, but whatever the temperature is after the condensor could
be used without affecting efficiency, the condensor is what makes
the vacuum.
Many power plants do distribute hot water, maybe even steam,
and just charge what it costs to make plus a profit, if they can sell
electricity to big industry at 3 cents / KWH, then maybe the hot
water could be cheaper to a home owner than natural gas.
The Thorium process seems good enough it should not
need any additional usefulness, too bad the design certification
will take so long.
Tater Gumfries
> Enviro Loon Alert! It is highly unlikely you understand physics.
Interesting. How many papers have you published in top physics
journals? I have three in PRE and 1 in PRL.
Tater
BradGuth
> SEE:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christ...
>
>
> Aim High slide show on 3.2MB PDF -http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/AimHigh.pdf
>
>
> The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Paradigm -http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4971
>
> French Reactor Physics Group -http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/gpr/gpr/
>
> EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2009 -http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html
>
> Turning nuclear power into gasoline -http://www.lanl.gov/news/newsbulletin/pdf/Green_Freedom_Overview.pdf
Thorium is not new. It is however as you say, way better and far
cheaper energy. Unfortunately, thorium doesn't create plutonium, so
our DoD want's nothing to do with it.
~ BG
BradGuth
> On Jun 29, 12:14 pm, "Carl Ijames" <n...@no.com> wrote:> Since he said "compartmentS", I assume the fuel would be divided into many
> > smaller compartments, each of which would not contain enough fuel to go
> > critical.
>
> -------------------
>
> Exactly! There are multiple compartments so there will be no fission
> and thus no heat produced. It never goes BOOM critical no matter what
> you do with it. Check out the slide show on PDF. I will blow your
> mind.
>
We should have had at least 100 thorium fueled reactors by now.
100 reactors of 5 GW each.
~ BG
Eric Gisin
You can't even find a free nntp server, you use google!
"Tater Gumfries" <TaterG...@usa.com> wrote in message
news:f35c9ebb-d866-4344...@g1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
Jerry Okamura
technology could be the key to unlocking a new generation of clean and safe
nuclear power. It could prove the circuit-breaker to the two most
intractable problems of the 21st century: our insatiable thirst for energy,
and the warming of the world's climate.
Please note the phrase "on paper at least...."
"John Smith" <fireint...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:32292126-ff98-447b...@f33g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...
> SEE:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christopher-Calder-090628-214.html
> Aim High slide show on 3.2MB PDF -
> http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/AimHigh.pdf
>
> Energy from Thorium - http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
>
> The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Paradigm - http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4971
>
>
> French Reactor Physics Group - http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/gpr/gpr/
Michael Coburn
> A thorium reactor is different. And, on paper at least, this radical new
> technology could be the key to unlocking a new generation of clean and
> safe nuclear power. It could prove the circuit-breaker to the two most
> intractable problems of the 21st century: our insatiable thirst for
> energy, and the warming of the world's climate.
>
> Please note the phrase "on paper at least...."
Please note the rush to deny any new technology that would curtail the
flow of money into the hands of the current rentiers. The rush to
maintain the status quo and/or to insure an orderly transition of the
rentiers from their current rent sucking positions into new rent sucking
positions.
> "John Smith" <fireint...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:32292126-ff98-447b-86e1-
d88fb9...@f33g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...
>> SEE:
>>
>> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-
--
Jerry Okamura
"Michael Coburn" <mik...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:h2tc8...@news6.newsguy.com...
> On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:41:17 -1000, Jerry Okamura wrote:
>
>> A thorium reactor is different. And, on paper at least, this radical new
>> technology could be the key to unlocking a new generation of clean and
>> safe nuclear power. It could prove the circuit-breaker to the two most
>> intractable problems of the 21st century: our insatiable thirst for
>> energy, and the warming of the world's climate.
>>
>> Please note the phrase "on paper at least...."
>
> Please note the rush to deny any new technology that would curtail the
> flow of money into the hands of the current rentiers. The rush to
> maintain the status quo and/or to insure an orderly transition of the
> rentiers from their current rent sucking positions into new rent sucking
> positions.
>
Michael Coburn
And it is in the interest of the current rent sucking Republicans to
forestall the advance as long as possible. They use an army of
conservative butt suckers to get behind that effort.
Randy
> SEE:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christ...
>
> Aim High slide show on 3.2MB PDF -http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/AimHigh.pdf
>
>
> read more »
One big problem, the crooked rich who make money off of other means of
energy creation, will buy the technology out and suppress it, they
always have and always will, watch and see, this could change the
world but the rich won't let it, here's a few examples of what I mean,
EV1s Electric Car Large Format and Capacity NiMH Batteries, or nano-
tube super capacitors to be used in instantaneously charged batteries,
and the Massive Yet Tiny Engine (MYT) Engine a 125 mpg 850 horsepower
small in size gasoline or diesel engine check these out and explain to
me why they aren't currently mass produced. It's because the rich are
suppressing the patents.
Randy
The only problem is the rich will never let is become mass produced.
See Large Capacity Ovionics NiMH Batteries, Nano-tube Super
Capacitors, EV1 Electric Cars, and Massive Yet Tiny Engines (MYT)
Engines and explain why they're not mass produced. The rich own the
patents and are suppressing the technology in direct violation of
patent laws and congress refuses to act on any of these situations.
Jerry Okamura
is going to stop them from doing that.
What A. Fool
wrote:
I don't agree, the batteries will be made just as soon
as enough money is invested and the military has all they
need.
Why is any 850 HP engine being designed, truck
diesel needs to be heavy to hold up, and no car needs
that much horsepower, a car only needs about 20 HP
on level ground to do 55.
All the talk about 100 MPG carbs and all the
other things that were supposedly bought up and
suppressed is just outhouse gossip.
A water mist will add power to an engine,
but no good atomizer system has been marketed,
it would have to be pretty good sized and need
room under the hood.
Before batteries can make a difference,
electric motors need to get into mass production
and the price come down.
The present problem with the Thorium Reactor
seems to be the recent patent owners, if there is no
way around that patent(s), big companies and
government may just wait 17 years and then
use it.
If the design makes radiation danger negligible,
then there should be a lot of 100 MW units built, that
would help solve the problem of upgrading the grid.
Michael Coburn
If they can "make a ton of money" by not doing something they will do the
big fat nothing. Nothing has a very low cost of operation.
daestrom
> SEE:
>
> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christopher-Calder-090628-214.html
<snip>
>
> LFT reactors transform thorium into fissionable uranium-233,
> which then produces heat through controlled nuclear fission. The
> reactor only requires input of uranium to kick-start the initial
> nuclear reaction, and as the uranium can come from spent nuclear fuel
> rods, LFT reactors will inevitably be used as janitors to clean up
> nuclear waste. Once started, the controlled nuclear reactions are
> self-perpetuating as long as the reactor is fed thorium. As the fuel
> is a molten liquid salt, it can be cleansed of impurities and
> refortified with thorium through elaborate plumbing, even while the
> reactor maintains full power operation. This reduces reactor downtime
> and increases total yearly energy output.
This isn't as simple as that. Many LWR's today have 'reactor downtime'
of less than 15 days a year (<30 day outage every 2 years). And while
it's true that refueling is often the critical path for outages,
eliminating the need for off-line refueling doesn't improve plant
performance very much.
All the 'other' equipment needs service and off-line testing. Plants
that go for 'record runs' and don't do periodic maintenance end up with
longer repair outages and downtime than those with well planned
maintenance outages.
Check CANDU HWR capacity factors. They too can refuel on-line and their
technology has been in use for decades. Yet they do *not* have a CF
better than todays LWR.
> towers." LFT reactors will be manufactured on an assembly line,
> dramatically lowering costs and enabling electricity generation at a
> projected rate of about 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
Many base load plants currently produce at this, or even lower cost.
Three cents is competitive, but it isn't remarkable.
> It has been
> estimated that a physically small 100 megawatt LFT reactor would cost
> less than 200 million dollars to build, which is a bargain.
That works out to about $2000/kW. That's not bad, but it isn't a
'bargain'. NG plants can be built for quite a bit less ($1000/kW to
$1500/kW). Many experts feel that Gen IV LWR's can be built for prices
in the $1500 to $2500 per kW range.
<snip several good points of LFT reactor design>
>
> Natural Gas in Conventional Combined Cycle @ 8.34 cents per kWh (87
> CF) - Not carbon free; small footprint; cost effective and cleanest
> fossil fuel available.
>
> Conventional Coal @ 9.3 per cents per kWh (85 CF) - Not carbon free;
> medium footprint; causes approximately 24,000 U.S. deaths per year due
> to air pollution, which also damages buildings. Judged in total, coal
> is not cost effective due to the environmental damage it creates.
Don't know where you got that price for coal, but it's way off. Coal
power production is about the cheapest there is, second only to hydro.
Of course plants vary, but it usually runs about 2.5 cents or so, not
the 9.3 you've stated here.
daestrom
Jerry Okamura
sense at all.
Fran
Some points:
1. Fairly obviously, the OPs description of the molten salt as "fuel"
rather than the coolant was wrong
2. Wind is generally considered to be in the $1600 per installed KW
range -- and may go lower. Of course, as is usually noted, when one
allows for CF deficit this turns out to be quite a bit more in
practice. If CF is 40% and CF for coal-fired is 85% and one allows the
$2500-$3000 per KW usually quoted for coal or nuclear one can compare
a well sited windfarm with these.
3. As you say, the levelized costs of coal tend to be around the 2-3
cents per KwH but this will likely go much higher if a significant
cost is put on carbon emissions, and/or if lots of plants have to
start doing IGCC or carbon sequestration. Of course, if the full
social costs of coal harvest and combustion were included -- the
health costs for example in mercury poisoning, harm to water ways
etc ... that 9.3 cents might look conservative.
Fran
Bill Ghrist
> On Jul 8, 9:16 am, daestrom <daest...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>> John Smith wrote:
>>> SEE:
>>> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Revolutionary-Thorium-Reac-by-Christ...
>> <snip>
>>
>>
>>
>>> LFT reactors transform thorium into fissionable uranium-233,
>>> which then produces heat through controlled nuclear fission. The
>>> reactor only requires input of uranium to kick-start the initial
>>> nuclear reaction, and as the uranium can come from spent nuclear fuel
>>> rods, LFT reactors will inevitably be used as janitors to clean up
>>> nuclear waste. Once started, the controlled nuclear reactions are
>>> self-perpetuating as long as the reactor is fed thorium. As the fuel
>>> is a molten liquid salt, it can be cleansed of impurities and
>>> refortified with thorium through elaborate plumbing, even while the
>>> reactor maintains full power operation. This reduces reactor downtime
>>> and increases total yearly energy output.
>
>
> Some points:
>
> 1. Fairly obviously, the OPs description of the molten salt as "fuel"
> rather than the coolant was wrong
>
Not so much wrong as just stated too simply. The fuel is dissolved in
the salt so the molten fluid is both fuel and coolant.
<snip>
Fran
That still wouldn't make ther molten salt a "fuel", though one could
have a pedant's argument over the nomenclature of the fluid resulting
from the mixture.
Fran
Randy
> On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 00:47:58 -0700 (PDT), Randy <r...@hickorytech.net>
All I'm saying is the technology already exists, google the above
items before you make comment on them, or it makes you sound ignorant
when you do comment on them.
By the way its not the Horse power of the MYT but the size,
efficiency, and milage that should have made you realize all vehicles
could be retro-fitted with them and the United States would cut fuel
consumption by 800%.
Senator Lamar Alexander TN (R) and alot of republican politicians are
promoting nuclear power. but are they promoting the LFT Nuclear
Reactor? No, Their promoting dirty uranium fueled hazardous waste
producing reactors, Why?, because the special interests lobbyists are
pushing them to.
Also, I sent Senator Alexander a link to this topic thread. Will it
move him to change his choice of reactors, I doubt it.
Randy
All I'm saying is the technology already exists, google the above
What A. Fool
wrote:
>On Jul 7, 1:09 pm, What A. Fool <Wh...@fool.ami> wrote:
[snip]
A lot of technology exists, the public doesn't have
the money to buy the hardware.
>By the way its not the Horse power of the MYT but the size,
>efficiency, and milage that should have made you realize all vehicles
>could be retro-fitted with them and the United States would cut fuel
>consumption by 800%.
The size of the engine means a lot, but if it is high
horsepower, it can't be efficient in a car, to be efficient
it has to run at high enough RPM to accelerate, and
it would take 15 years to get all cars changed.
>Senator Lamar Alexander TN (R) and alot of republican politicians are
>promoting nuclear power. but are they promoting the LFT Nuclear
>Reactor? No, Their promoting dirty uranium fueled hazardous waste
>producing reactors, Why?, because the special interests lobbyists are
>pushing them to.
>
>Also, I sent Senator Alexander a link to this topic thread. Will it
>move him to change his choice of reactors, I doubt it.
He may not be able to do much, the only thing that
could help is if the governments reached agreement with
or forced any patent holders to allow use of all technology,
and overcome any court cases by greens trying to stop it.
I think I can build several different energy machines
that would be green, work 24/7, and possibly be made by
any handyman, but it won't pay me to get all excited about
doing it in any short time span.
The technology is changing, it just takes time,
and a lot of time where lawyers are involved.
Randy
> On Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:29:54 -0700 (PDT), Randy <r...@hickorytech.net>
efficient new technology big horse power 850 hp plus maximum fuel
efficiency 125 mpg.
>
> >Senator Lamar Alexander TN (R) and alot of republican politicians are
> >promoting nuclear power. but are they promoting the LFT Nuclear
> >Reactor? No, Their promoting dirty uranium fueled hazardous waste
> >producing reactors, Why?, because the special interests lobbyists are
> >pushing them to.
>
> >Also, I sent Senator Alexander a link to this topic thread. Will it
> >move him to change his choice of reactors, I doubt it.
>
> He may not be able to do much, the only thing that
> could help is if the governments reached agreement with
> or forced any patent holders to allow use of all technology,
> and overcome any court cases by greens trying to stop it.
>
> I think I can build several different energy machines
> that would be green, work 24/7, and possibly be made by
> any handyman, but it won't pay me to get all excited about
> doing it in any short time span.
>
> The technology is changing, it just takes time,
>
> - Show quoted text -
You really don't get the concept of the MYT Engine, its small enough
to make a trunk out of your engine compartment, it has 4 times the
power of a muscle car engine and probably 10 times the power of a
compact car engine, its like having a drag racing engine in your full
size car, only unlike a drag racing engine it is so efficient it gets
125 miles per gallon that 250% better than a current top milage Toyota
Prius Hybrid. It has less moving parts and provides max efficiency,
this is transportation's holy grail with unlimited applications.
Please don't dismiss this as nothing, like your LFT Reactor, this is
world changing if only we can get them mass produced.
What A. Fool
wrote:
>On Jul 8, 4:34 pm, What A. Fool <Wh...@fool.ami> wrote:
Did you notice the links go back to at least 2006, the
guy still needs 10 million to build a factory, no vehicle was
found by me that has an engine installed.
Did you miss the part where he said for a car, the
engine would be the size of a coffee can?
I was an aircraft mechanic instructor in 1946, and
worked on engines up to 3000 HP, so seeing a prototype
claiming to be 850 HP with no water cooling, no radiator,
no fan, raises a red flag, any ICE has at least 70 percent
waste heat, without superior cooling, and engine with
those specs would melt if run very long.
Don't get your hopes up until you see it a vehicle
with 10,000 miles on it.
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"daestrom" <daes...@twcny.rr.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:h30l0...@news2.newsguy.com...
> This isn't as simple as that. Many LWR's today have 'reactor downtime' of
> less than 15 days a year (<30 day outage every 2 years). And while it's
> true that refueling is often the critical path for outages, eliminating
> the need for off-line refueling doesn't improve plant performance very
> much.
>
> All the 'other' equipment needs service and off-line testing. Plants that
> go for 'record runs' and don't do periodic maintenance end up with longer
> repair outages and downtime than those with well planned maintenance
> outages.
>
> Check CANDU HWR capacity factors. They too can refuel on-line and their
> technology has been in use for decades. Yet they do *not* have a CF
> better than todays LWR
I don' t think this is the main point, the LFT are not solid, but fluid
fuel reactors, that means that don' t refuel nor reprocess, simply add new
fuel in a solid salt form, thus are intrinsically easier to operate.
However,
even current LWRs and Candus are very good on this, with CF higher than 90%
it's just optimal
>> towers." LFT reactors will be manufactured on an assembly line,
>> dramatically lowering costs and enabling electricity generation at a
>> projected rate of about 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
>
> Many base load plants currently produce at this, or even lower cost. Three
> cents is competitive, but it isn't remarkable.
Not if you consider *new* electric plant, including sunk capital costs, not
only
fuel and O&M costs (or decomissioning for nuclear)
>> It has been
>> estimated that a physically small 100 megawatt LFT reactor would cost
>> less than 200 million dollars to build, which is a bargain.
>
> That works out to about $2000/kW. That's not bad, but it isn't a
> 'bargain'. NG plants can be built for quite a bit less ($1000/kW to
> $1500/kW). Many experts feel that Gen IV LWR's can be built for prices in
> the $1500 to $2500 per kW range.
Very unlikely to believe it, current price for new nuclear (third
generation, indeed) is in the range of 5000 $ per kW. However, we will
see...
> <snip several good points of LFT reactor design>
>
>>
>> Natural Gas in Conventional Combined Cycle @ 8.34 cents per kWh (87
>> CF) - Not carbon free; small footprint; cost effective and cleanest
>> fossil fuel available.
>>
>> Conventional Coal @ 9.3 per cents per kWh (85 CF) - Not carbon free;
>> medium footprint; causes approximately 24,000 U.S. deaths per year due
>> to air pollution, which also damages buildings. Judged in total, coal
>> is not cost effective due to the environmental damage it creates.
>
> Don't know where you got that price for coal, but it's way off. Coal
> power production is about the cheapest there is, second only to hydro. Of
> course plants vary, but it usually runs about 2.5 cents or so, not the 9.3
> you've stated here.
Indeed, this happens only for coal rich countries (Germany, Australia or
US),
not for countries that using coal have to import it from abroad. For
example,
last year summer coal price in the European markets raised to 220 $ per
tonn, considering a heat value of about 6500 kWh thermal per tonn and an
efficiency of 40%,that means the cost component alone would be about 8 cent
per kWh electric, not considering O&M and capital costs (nor pollution
impact or carbon emissions). Contrary to many beliefs, coal is not always
that cheap for countries that don't have large reserves of it
@libero.it Romeo Gigli
"Fran" <Fran...@gmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:ab189d71-cd0d-4c79...@f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
Indeed, one of the BIG advantage of the molten salt reactors is they have
the coolant *inside* the fuel in a liquid salt form
Tater Gumfries
> Delusions of grandeur! You could not debunk a single point!
Sure I could. The article is a puff piece. I don't doubt that these
might be superior reactors, but when something is touted as perfect,
it is child's play to pull it apart.
> You can't even find a free nntp server, you use google!
Why do you think google posting implies a lack of news service? I have
posted from my account with SDC using Gravity a number of times.
> "Tater Gumfries" <TaterGumfr...@usa.com> wrote in message
>
> news:f35c9ebb-d866-4344...@g1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 1, 9:03 am, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
>
> > Enviro Loon Alert! It is highly unlikely you understand physics.
>
> Interesting. How many papers have you published in top physics
> journals? I have three in PRE and 1 in PRL.
What is your science education? Do you know what PRL and PRE are?
Tater
Rob Dekker
"What A. Fool" <Wh...@fool.ami> wrote in message
news:pbeb55112bcc66e2l...@4ax.com...
I tend to agree. See it before we believe it.
Seems that there are multiple designs similar to the MYT, and I'm sure that
if they perform as expected, and the inventors have reasonable expectations
for return on their patents, that some deal will be closed to get them into
mass production.
Since they are compact, with few rotating parts, and efficient, they may
make perfect sense as auxiliary power generators in plug-in hybrid-electric
vehicles....
On the technical side, the MYT is a rotary engine, just like the Wankel.
Only Mazda still makes Wankels, and maybe they are interested in an
upgrade...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistonless_rotary_engine
Wiki reports the following on them :
"In the MYT engine, the rotary pistons are toroid-sections (curved cylinders
sliding inside the toroidal stator) and connected to either of two inner
discs. This principle of operation can be traced back to the 1968 Tschudi
engine. The main problems of this type of engine is getting a constant
rotation on the output shaft from the two oppositely accelerating and
decelerating rotors (planetary gears are used on some versions of Trochilic
Engines, while the MYT makes use of a more complex connection system using
camshafts) and preventing the rotors from turning in the wrong direction. On
the other hand, these designs do not suffer from the sealing problems of
Wankel engine or Quasiturbine, and use very few moving parts (5 in the
simpler model of Trochilic Engine)."
and :
"Trochilics the science of rotating mechanical devices describes the array
of TrochilicEngines ranging from Stirling cycle, internal combustion, to
high-pressure gas or steam and with adaptive alterations to gaseous or fluid
pumping. The piston is composed of two mirror image gull wing segments
intermeshed and rotating about a common central axis. Varying the relative
segment velocities in rotation, forms four variable quadrants. The quadrants
are functionally a four-cylinder engine requiring no mechanically driven
valves. Each segment is integrally connected to a rotating gear cage that
converts the undulating piston motion to a liner rotating output shaft. The
segmented piston has a preferred direction of rotation imposed by the
mechanically leveraged action of the gear cage. Trochilic engines do not
employ compression rings, as conventional engines. This design approach
improves efficiency through the reduction of friction losses and reduced
engine wear. The air-fuel mix is aspirated, compressed, ignited and burnt
between each rotor's forward and back faces as each rotor advances or
retreats relative to the other during operation, varying the volume of the
chamber continuously. Currently being developed by the Trochilic engine
team."
>
>