Japan to close ALL their nuclear power plants

Originally posted by jadedANDcynical

Because, you know, they don't have accidents either.

Oh, they do?

Sorry. Still not a good idea.

An industry that has waste products which are dangerous for longer then human history does not seem like the best way to go to me, but what do I know. Apparently not very much.

uh, i'm certainly no fan of the industry (as it developed), i think i made that much clear in my previous post and their designs have very serious flaws, which stem mostly from their origin, the bomb, which means solid fuels among other things. worse yet, the oxides in use have a low thermal conductivity and very high melting points, making them almost impossible to contain when overheated.

fast neutron spectrum breeders have controllability issues, which are difficult to overcome and most importantly, they require much more fissile material than thermal neutron reactors, which is always at a premium.

some people always proclaim the safety of thorium based designs, but rarely if ever state the underlying reasons, namely that a thermal spectrum breeder reactor can only function with thorium - 232 fuel, due to its larger capture cross section at low neutron velocities, in comparison with U-238. Of course, a workable design would have to include on-line fission product extraction, which only works with liquid fuel, which the Chinese are currently pursuing. beneficial side effects include precious material extraction, improved controllability from neutron poison removal and partitioning of the wastes according to longetivity and re-usability (transuranics are fuel, not waste), reducing the bulk of the waste and leveling the path towards incineration (in the reactor, but at the expense of breeding) of the longest lived isotopes.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

the required materials are of course expensive and sometimes unproven, which is unsurprising since nearly all nuclear research after the 1960s seems to have been channeled towards the same old designs. how much improvement can there be when the core assembly remains practically the same? the industry appears dead and stagnant from the outside, probable reasons can be found in my previous post here. one thing is certain, imho, developing nuclear incineration could have hardly hardly cost more than Yucca mountain (and other repositories) and would have yielded that much more than just a hole in the ground.




www.abovetopsecret.com...


www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by jadedANDcynical


I agree nuclear was a huge mistake. I ask that all that disagree to take a look at the lessons being learned in our neck of the woods.
Please visit www.hoanw.org
rbrtj