First US molten salt reactor in over 50 years to be built
First US molten salt reactor in over 50 years to be built
Most nuclear reactors use water as a coolant. Molten salt reactors use salts with higher boiling points. Kairos Power will build the US's first in decades.
One study suggested that the reactors could produce more nuclear waste than current systems and that they "will use highly corrosive and pyrophoric fuels and coolants that, following irradiation, will become highly radioactive."
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Why can’t this country build a modern reactor? Why do we keep investing in outdated, polluting-style nuclear energy?
Molten Salt reactors are great at recycling spent uranium and don't really cause pollution. If anything they reduce pollution because they create less nuclear garbage.
Over here in Germany it has already shown that you can't fully replace nuclear power with green power. What you instead get if you try to shut down all the nuclear reactors is an increase in coal fossil fuel based plants, which are far worse for the environment
So, do you want nuclear power and have us learn how to recycle nuclear waste, or do you want to abolish nuclear power and have us return to fossil fuels? These are your only two options.
I want to get off Mr. Bones' Wild Ride.
Molten Salt reactors are great at recycling spent uranium and don’t really cause pollution. If anything they reduce pollution because they create less nuclear garbage.
If it was that big of a problem folks would be doing PUREX reprocessing with all nuclear fuel. Not a clean process, but reduces the overall mass problem you have with spent fuel rods. No matter what you do, you just can't burn off the fission products that last forever and ever. You can put them in a container the size of a coffee can that still emits a similar amount of radiation as a whole rod if you want, but I'm not sure I see the utility. They just take those and vitrify them to make them bigger to take advantage of the inverse square law and make them safer to handle.
As long as uranium stays cheap, neither reprocessing, breeders, or reactors that eat the plutonium they produce really makes sense. You still need a similar site to store the waste regardless. As it stands I don't think we'll see uranium being a significant part of running a reactor in the foreseeable future. (As long as you're not a nuclear weapons state that doesn't have a robust fuel enrichment program, like India).
Sounds like it will be a "modern" reactor that uses molten salt as coolant instead of water. I wonder what they'll make the coolant loops out of: steel glows at 900 deg Freedom.
I wonder what they’ll make the coolant loops out of: steel glows at 900 deg Freedom
That's always been the problem with the reactors. High heat, corrosion resistant, and resistant to neutron spallation is a very very tall order.
Just use Duranium, duh
Everything starts to glow north of 900, but your point stands
You would use materials that perform completely fine at those temps. This could be anything from high nickel alloy steel, to Inconel, to an HEA (high entropy alloy). You can even do high heat resistant metals with ceramic coatings on the inside for protection if creating a passivation layer is too difficult for the application or the exposure environment does not allow for one to form.
There is an entire subsection of engineering studies focused on purely coaxing specific properties out of a material or developing materials to custom suit extreme applications, known as material science. They generally work very closely with chemical engineers (my background) and metallurgists in order to manufacture the designed product in either batch form, or in continuous fashion.
I work in a steel mill and we have Inconel furnace rolls that hang out in 1600 F heat 24/7 and are rated (iirc) to ~2300F max operation temp. For reference medium carbon steel melts between 2600 and 2800F, and loses a lot of its mechanical strength well before 2300F (I am trying to find a stress strain curve for carbon steel over multiple temperatures for reference. I will update if I find one)
Edit: Okay so I found one that does show what I am trying to convey. As you can see, the higher the temperature of the sample material, the lower the yield strength. Example: the 100C sample was strained to >25% before failure, while the 700C sample began to plastically deform (fail) before 10% strain. Take note of the second link, all the test temperatures are MUCH higher than any of the carbon steel samples
Carbon Steel Curve: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Stress-strain-curves-at-different-temperatures-for-steel-4509-2_fig11_236341600
Inconel Curve: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Stress-strain-curves-of-Inconel-625-alloy_fig11_338984803
This kind of reactor could be installed on cargo ships
The last try at a modern reactor in the US started around 2009, was supposed to cost $14 billion, and was supposed to be operational 7 years later in 2016.
Instead, it wound up costing over $30 billion and just now became operational.
In other words, it was a total shit show. No one likes to risk that much time and money very easily.
Smaller and cheaper reactors that shouldn't take decades to build are a lot more palatable to the people putting up the money.
Cause some rich fuck or fucks have their hand(s) so far up politician’s asses that progress is slowed by their own greed and ineptitude
Thorium salt reactors are great, what's your hangup? Even the dirtiest reactor has a better track record than any other form of power including solar.