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nuclear power option

Listened to Mr. Pickens on Larry King last night. Why no questions on Nuclear power?? Isn"t Nuclear a better long term solution??

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Koch on December 20, 2008 at 11:25am
This waste problem has been greatly mitagated by the French by recycling fuel. It is solved by the intergrated fast breeder reactor which was developed between 1984 and 1994. Google for IFR reactor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor
Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on December 20, 2008 at 12:52pm
Then fund the IFR for commercial-scale reprocessing and fuel production, but don't pretend that the IFR was a success so let's just keep doing it the dumb way. Uranium-based Nukes must go. Build a few IFRs to see if they meet the test. Old thorium reactors all failed to complete even one refueling cycle. WHY NOT???
Permalink Reply by Kenneth Koch on December 20, 2008 at 1:25pm
The IFR reactor was operated safely for 30 years!!!!!!!!!!!!
Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on December 22, 2008 at 9:31pm
Ken,
IFR was a highly-enriched (67%) U235 reactor, not a thorium breeder, and was sodium cooled. It was not used to passivate spent fuel, breed U233, or any of the great new ideas. It was an experimental reactor that proved one could use another U235 cycle more efficiently, but not necessarily economically. Now that we're out of uranium for all practical purposes, what's the point? I don't think that Clinton had much to do with shutting it down, but old age may have been the trigger. 30 years is a long time for an experiment in futility.
Permalink Reply by Ida-Russkie on December 23, 2008 at 10:57pm
EBR II may have been 30 years old but it was generating electricity and yes Clinton did shut it down . He did it by killing the project with his line item veto.I do not know what is so hard to accept in this when Clinton said this himself in pain words. The age did not matter. The reactor could have found other missions such as breeding thorium. But they shut it down in such a way that it could never be restarted. The Clintons also shut down a reprocessing plant that was 50% completed and sold off all the expensive parts for a song. The thing is we are going to need all kinds of energy from all kinds of sources and we can not afford to waste resources.
Permalink Reply by Lock Piatt on December 20, 2008 at 5:56pm
Dr. Paul,

Keep the faith, but some form of nuclear power is the only way America will be energy independent.

Merry Christmas and my all the Buckey Balls stay together.
Permalink Reply by Ida-Russkie on December 22, 2008 at 8:42pm
EBR II was a commercial sized IFR that produced electricity for 30 years. as soon as they proved it would reprocess fuel the Clintons shut it down. This is a recorded fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II

The old molten salt reactors were not developed because they were different and not understood by utilities. And they did not produce the plutonium needs to weapons programs. It was not developed because it would not work.
Permalink Reply by Kenneth Koch on December 22, 2008 at 9:00pm
Why would the molten salt reactor not work?

thanks
Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on December 22, 2008 at 9:39pm
It worked, but there were problems that prevented building a working thorium blanket prototype (materials problems were rampant). D*** Greeley worked on these back in the '60's, but never was an advocate. He was a director at MITRE when I was there.
Permalink Reply by Ida-Russkie on December 22, 2008 at 8:32pm
There are ways to transmutate the waste. It has not been done not because it is not possible but because it is always cheaper to do nothing. If you made it a requirement to transmute or reprocess the waste then the companies would use the ways that are profitable, such as using a Liquid Fluoride thorium reactor.

The thorium cycle needs to be investigated. The fuel is plentiful and cheap.
Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on December 22, 2008 at 9:41pm
But it is not a simple matter to build a working prototype on a fast schedule with so many problems unresolved. I agree that it must be done, but it needs to get in line behind more promising non-nuclear solutions.
Permalink Reply by Lock Piatt on December 24, 2008 at 4:53pm
Dr. P there you go again - THERE ARE NO NON-NUCLEAR PROMISING SOLUTIONS WHEN YOU CONSIDER COST PER KWH.

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