American teenager designs compact nuclear reactor

reply to post by Agit8dChop

maybe its a cost worth paying to incinerate this stuff, safely!

I agree.
But it's so much easier and cheaper to ignore it.

You cannot "launch it into the sun". The amount of energy required to launch something into the sun is immense, as you would essentially have to eliminate its current orbital velocity around the sun by firing retrograde. It would be far easier to launch it into an orbit around the sun. However, there is also the risk that the launch would fail leaving the waste to smash back into the earth. That, and there's much waste that it would take a significant number of launches to launch it into space (unless you separate into its constituents and fire the nasties into space).

We Need to consult Dr. Stanton Friedman, He's a Nuclear Physicist too you know!!!...

Teenagers.....They never change......Dave Adair build a Nuclear rocket engine in his garage out of soda cans, paperclips and duct tape when he was 18...

Well at least he got to see Area 51 and Alien Tech.

What has this kid seen yet?

When I was 15, I built a flying saucer out of cardboard and balsa wood, I got the design from some "Old Tech"....on the side of a crackerjack box. Then I flew to Venus. Apparently Adamski made such a bad impression, they told me not to come back...oh well.

Geological repository seems like one of the most effective ways to dispose of spent nuclear fuel. Or it could be used as fuel in fast reactors.

Here is a good lecture on Yucca mountain:

Perspectives on the Back-end of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Present and Future
Dr. John Kessler
Manager
Used Fuel and HLW Managemet Program
Electric Power Research Institute
Charlotte, NC
Presented February 24, 2010

www.engr.utk.edu...

A LOT of information on that site.


reply to post by Agit8dChop


It was 24 billion total, not per year.

Originally posted by purplemer


Something special about a fresh mind. This lad is only 18 and he has just invented a new type of reactor. It is capable of eating all sorts including unwanted bombs.

I do not really like nuclear energy. Fukishma says it all. But these things on paper are a lot safer than the conventional reactors we use and can be turned off with ease. In the event of an accident you drain the core off..

We are facing an energy crisis and we need to move away from fossil feuls. Windmills, wave, solar and geothermal all help. But you cannot put all you eggs in one basket

Maybe one day we will see small reactors powering homes and alike.

www.rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Maybe one day we will see a Oil executive or a suit from the Natural Gas distribution company sitting in our living room rubbing two sticks together to keep us warm and cozy. Perhaps.

This is why we cannot stifle the young generations! They can break our old and outdated paradigms!

This is why I take such offense when I look around and see them being systematically and purposefully dumbed-down.

I think as the price on solar continues to drop we're going to see a lot more people going "off grid". The problem is, people simply need to learn to conserve power and that is easily learned once you know the powers shuts off when you run out. As it is, solar panels are still up there in price. I'd say give it a good 10 years for price and technology and a lot more will be making that switch.

There is absolutely nothing new about this reactor design.

The Air Force had similar portable models back in the early 60ies already.

Seems to me like this article is used to push the agenda of the nuclear industry, making reactors appear harmless and a nice addition to every familys home.

Seriously that sounds like the Atomic Energy propaganda government movies from the 60ies.

Seems like I read 10yrs ago some company had designed a self contained reactor in a concrete tube.

You could swap the tubes out like batterys at nuke plants, and since its all encased in concrete you can give one to iran and be like here this is your nuke power for the plant now you dont need all these materials

It wasnt mini like fit it in your car or terminator, looked like a 20ft concrete missle.. Might have been GE was making it, Since then nothing, and it was supposed to be out by now

The first and last words on power and energy of any kind is hidden in the 'secret' works of Nikola Tesla. In a collusion of theft and deception of great proportions the governments of Russia and the United States conspired against the general well being of the entire world taking Tesla's great works, most of which are unpublished, and used them, not for the betterment of mankind, but to their own evil ends and bad intentions.

Molten salt reactors or LFTRs, while indeed being VERY promising, are not a new idea. They have been researched in the 60s at Oak Ridge (the program was unfortunately killed, even though the results were favorable, because the establishment favored the fast breeder due to easier weaponisation and other political reasons), and the Chinese launched a program to develop thorium molten salt reactors some time ago. If anyone should be credited with putting the MSR concept back on the table after its shelving during the cold war, its Kirk Sorensen, founder of the EnergyFromThorium.com.

Are there any youtube videos on this ?

Congratulations to this guy, really. He's undeniably super-intelligent to be able to achieve such feats at such a young age. But after the Fukushima-Daichi incident after the Tohoku Earthquake in 2011, I don't like Nuclear-energy at ALL.

While it may be efficient and powerful, it's fragile. What does it have to take for the world to realise that Nuclear dangerous to mess with and generally just "bad"???

All kinds of these small reactors were tested by the US Navy near Idaho Falls for power plants.

43°31'16.49"N, 112°49'19.00"W

They tested throttle-able designs, high efficiency designs, tiny reactors that could fit in a small submarine etc.

They all ended up producing radioactive waste that would need to be buried in a salt pit somewhere for a long time.
I agree a third generation fission design should be much safer than first generation but it might take a major fossil fuel shortage to make the contaminated storage issue seem less important.

Be a while before you can build a mobile home park on Fillmore ave.

reply to post by intrptr


I guess you missed the part where they had one of these "operating" back in the 50s? They decided to not build these types of reactors because of political reasons, not technical.

That's ok, pal. Apology accepted.

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by purplemer

 

I would feel more comfortable with a clean energy reactor! Nuclear stuff is all bad IMO.....

This just let's the government know they can continue to make nuclear bombs and test them because they can dispose of the materials with something like this!!

I like people making new things, but nuclear stuff I think we need to stay away from!

Would you really feel comfortable having one of these powering your home? Knowing you have a mini nuke right outside your house?

edit on 3/1/2013 by Chrisfishenstein because: (no reason given)

Nuclear reactors don't explode! Chernobyl (Russian for black cloud!) gasses exploded, not the reactor, if reactors get too hot, they melt. The Japanese reactor gasses exploded.

reply to post by purplemer


It's fake deliberate scarcity with energy. Also we've never ever faced the true financial cost of nuclear power from construction to production through to shutdown and disposal. Look at what's been happening here in the UK wasn't it sellafield that hit the headlines again recently.

No industry on the planet can be trusted. Corruption is pervasive and universal. At the end of the day when all is taken into account it will turn out to be cheaper to produce energy by employing millions to ride bicycle dynamos 40hrs a week.

As far as I'm aware every company who genetates nuclear power underetimates decommissioning costs and in reality makes no provision for that cost in advance. Profits go to shareholders and when the disposal bill becomes due they will plead poverty and the state will pick up the tab.

oilprice.com...

www.guardian.co.uk...

Also sending the spent fuel to space is ridiculous. I know it was said in jest here, but some people have seriously looked at this. I think we'd need at least 100 years of accident free rocket launches before even considering this option.

What we need is some young genius to create a small manageable wormhole or black hole and then dispose of the waste there.

reply to post by pikestaff


That's semantics.

The argument holds. Small reactors everywhere is a sure way to end up with a global extinction event.

If we can't extract useful energy from the vacuum, as well as using tidal energy what we need to do is crack photosythesis and make efficient solar panels. Even if we do it from space and beam the power down. Also if there's such a danger of a trillion tonnes of methane escaping from artic tundra why not collect it and use it. I think even us humans are capable of building a huuuuuge air tight tent to collect it.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
reply to post by Phage

 

yeah, no doubt it will be expensive.. but, maybe its a cost worth paying to incinerate this stuff, safely!

Also, if all the nations got involved with this, think of the technological advances we would achieve with so much money pumped into the design and innovation of rocketry and space.

edit on 2-3-2013 by Agit8dChop because: (no reason given)

Ah, no. One cannot incinerate radioactive waste to get rid of it, as you can dioxin. The nuclei are unaffected by mere chemical reactions, or freezing, vaporization, irradiation with EM or almost anything else you can think of. The only viable options are "burning" it nuclearly in a reactor, allowing it to decay in its own good time (that time also unaffected by chemical or physical reactions), and dispersing it (shooting it into the sun falls in this category, as it won't destroy the radiation, only mix in through the solar gases/plasma).

Originally posted by Bacardi
I think as the price on solar continues to drop we're going to see a lot more people going "off grid". The problem is, people simply need to learn to conserve power and that is easily learned once you know the powers shuts off when you run out. As it is, solar panels are still up there in price. I'd say give it a good 10 years for price and technology and a lot more will be making that switch.

Heh, heh. Kind of too bad no one thought that was a good idea back when Carter started all sorts of solar power incentives and then Regan came in a squashed them all. Martin-Marietta (part of later Martin-Lockheed), McDonnell-Douglas and Boing were all in competition to develop solar power plants (tower designs, with mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a boiler in the tower). We had three contracts (one with Spain, one with PG&E/DoE, and another) a solar energy division and a plant in Pueblo, CO building heliostats (the mirror mechanisms). Within 6 months of Regan's election, all we're closed, and it would have happened faster if we hadn't had to complete the contracts. Maybe in ten more years...