Are nuclear reactors safer at sea?

Here's an idea:

Why not put reactors in orbit, and "beam" the energy to a receiving station on Earth? Outer space is full of radiation anyway...

originally posted by: the owlbear

originally posted by: greencmp

grey580
reply to post by flammadraco

 

There are alot of naval nuclear reactors out on sea right now.

en.wikipedia.org...

Relatively safe.

But they are all light water reactors that produce waste.

My former bro in law is a nuke tech on a sub.
He will even admit most of the people he works with can barely do their job of reading a few gauges and what not.
Just like the purge of all of the people in the silos with the icbms...it scares me to think of the destruction that could be caused by the ineptitude of those who monitor these reactors and warheads that seem "safe".

Since the early 50's and above ground hbomb testing, birth defects, cancer rates, and hmm...I'm not unconvinced autism spectrum disorders are increasing exponentially...

No nukes is good nukes. Just ask those guys in Washington state and New Mexico. At sea or on land, we can create cheap power without fossil fuels. We just need to revamp the system. Was done under FDR. Why isn't it being done now?

Greed.

When I lived in Georgia. Georgia Power charged $10/month for a nuclear plant that was not even green lighted. Shouldn't there own profits pay for that? Plus they get government handouts...

I agree that no public money should be spent, it should be private competition. We just need more competitors.

The reactors that we are talking about can recycle the nuclear waste which would decrease the need for long term cold storage. More importantly, since I think we can agree that at least some of the massive arsenal of warheads could be decommissioned, we can recycle that material as well.

originally posted by: greencmp
reply to post by flammadraco

 

That's a decent plan though, the best reactors are breeders which recycle most of the would be waste into the fuel cycle. Not sure how seaworthy they would be.

Breeders were developed for making weapons grade material, not power generation. Thats why they call them "breeders".

In contrast to most normal nuclear reactors, however, a fast reactor uses a coolant that is not an efficient moderator, such as liquid sodium, so its neutrons remain high-energy. Although these fast neutrons are not as good at causing fission, they are readily captured by an isotope of uranium (U238), which then becomes plutonium (Pu239). This plutonium isotope can be reprocessed and used as more reactor fuel or in the production of nuclear weapons. Reactors can be designed to maximize plutonium production, and in some cases they actually produce more fuel than they consume. These reactors are called breeder reactors.

Breeder Reactors

The bomb making community squeals with delight.

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: greencmp
reply to post by flammadraco

 

That's a decent plan though, the best reactors are breeders which recycle most of the would be waste into the fuel cycle. Not sure how seaworthy they would be.

Breeders were developed for making weapons grade material, not power generation. Thats why they call them "breeders".

In contrast to most normal nuclear reactors, however, a fast reactor uses a coolant that is not an efficient moderator, such as liquid sodium, so its neutrons remain high-energy. Although these fast neutrons are not as good at causing fission, they are readily captured by an isotope of uranium (U238), which then becomes plutonium (Pu239). This plutonium isotope can be reprocessed and used as more reactor fuel or in the production of nuclear weapons. Reactors can be designed to maximize plutonium production, and in some cases they actually produce more fuel than they consume. These reactors are called breeder reactors.

Breeder Reactors

The bomb making community squeals with delight.

You don't have to extract the material, you can just recycle it.

That's what is holding up the gaseous fuel cycle too and why we only sell or give light water reactors.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Here's an idea:

Why not put reactors in orbit, and "beam" the energy to a receiving station on Earth? Outer space is full of radiation anyway…

Cost prohibitive. And what happens during launch mishaps? The only thing worse in my mind than a nuclear reactor melt down is a nuclear reactor fall down from orbit.

Finally, the Sun is already there.

a reply to: greencmp

Problem with that is they are just less efficient. Thats why they were abandoned by the US. Mostly because of costs. See, the maximum profit margin is achieved when the reactor is designed to a) produce power to sell, and b) to sell the spent 'product' to the defense Industry to make bombs.

Recycling spent fuel is the most toxic industry on the planet. Thats why its stored, primarily. For future posterity.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

That sort of reactor cannot meltdown.Ever.

Its already "melted down" when operating. The danger is a leak in operating mode.

a reply to: Shepard64

Oh man I can already see them dumping there waste in the ocean so no I do not think they are safer at sea.

Ditto. People tell you how safe nuclear reactors are… yah, while they're working.

Its when they break that "safe operations" takes on a whole new meaning.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

From your link…

Disadvantages…


Little development compared to most Gen IV designs - much is unknown.
Need to operate an on-site chemical plant to manage core mixture and remove fission products.
Lithium containing salts will cause significant tritium production (comparable with heavy water reactors), even if pure 7Li is used. Tritium itself is valuable, but also decays (half-life 12.32 yrs) to helium-3, another valuable product.
Likely need for regulatory changes to deal with radically different design features.
Corrosion may occur over many decades of reactor operation and could be problematic.[43]
Nickel and iron based alloys are prone to embrittlement under high neutron flux.[38](p83)
Being a breeder reactor, it may be possible to modify an MSR to produce weapons grade nuclear material.[44]

Add all those reasons up. You're talking about scrapping an entire industry and replacing it with a new as yet untried one that is way more expensive to operate. Thats why they haven't been developed. But you can try to convince the mega nuke industry of your ca$e…

good luck

a reply to: intrptr

This is why you would assemble the reactor in orbit from pre-fab modules. Heck, we could even mine asteroids to see if they have the right material for fission.

I'll just drop this here...

higherperspective.com...

But hey, this is actually a good idea so they probably won't use it since obviously the people making the decisions for everyone out there don't want a perfect world, they just want to be above whatever s*%t they created themselves.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: intrptr

This is why you would assemble the reactor in orbit from pre-fab modules. Heck, we could even mine asteroids to see if they have the right material for fission.

Yes, a huge dipole at a lagrange point could work for a fusion reactor. The Artificial Sun Project.

a reply to: greencmp

Yes, a huge dipole at a lagrange point could work for a fusion reactor. The Artificial Sun Project.

Whats wrong with the real sun? Its clean, limitless and strikes the earth with trillions of watts.

Artificial suns… the real one already exists. It already rains down more energy per day than man generates yearly.

Shakes head…