Sodium reactors?

If the United States Navy can spend millions in research over the past 50 years into sodium reactors for onboard use in submarines with such effiency, why hasn't this method been adopted by private corporations?

Seems odd that we live with the fear of the next Three-Mile Island or Chernobyl while the USN has not had to sweat one bit over the methods they use. To me it seems as though there is hesitation involved in the advancement of nuclear facilites due to the above mentioned disasters while a clear path towards cleaner and more efficient energy has been right in front of us all along. My thought is that is nothing more than pure ignorance on the part of the corp heads. Or have companies already emplored the use of sodium reactors?

Just a question: Are these sodium reactors unsuitable for breeding weapongrade plutonium ?

The only information I could find on sodium reactors are fast breeder reactors, which only use sodium as a coolant. So I'm assuming that's what you're talking about.

There was a fast breeder in the US, Fermi 1 in Michigan. It ran until 1972, I believe when it's license was not renewed. The only remaining reactor in the world is somewhere in Japan.

Right now, it's been pegged on tha fact that fuel for conventional reactors is so cheap that Fast Breeders cannot compete. In my own opinion, it also has to do with the attitude towards nuclear pwoer in the US. We haven't built new reactors in, what, 25 years? Economic and social reasons are holding back nuke reactors, not any sort of underhandedness.

Originally posted by Countermeasures
Just a question: Are these sodium reactors unsuitable for breeding weapongrade plutonium ?

No, they can if they are designed 'incorrectly'. So can regular nuclear reactors, the stuff is usually produced by purpose-specific reactors. So that doesn't seem to be a reason for or against them.

Fast Breeder Reactors

[edit on 2-14-2005 by Esoterica]