The Fate of Nuclear Power

[crashtech]

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[Colonel Sun]

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[Colonel Sun]

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[crashtech]

Make sure it's iodized salt, OK?

btw, are you one to speak of being "forthcoming," you unapologetic poster of fraudulent material?

[Colonel Sun]

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[Colonel Sun]

[Azrael]

[Colonel Sun]

[Azrael]

[Caskhades]

[Azrael]

[Colonel Sun]

[Sennacherib]

[Colonel Sun]

One mostly forgotten type of nuclear reactor is the .

It has a record of high efficiency and safety.
"A heavy water aqueous homogeneous reactor can achieve criticality (turn on) with natural uranium dissolved as uranium sulfate."
No enriched uranium is required for this type of reactor.

Side benefits:

Efficient production of high purity 99Mo which decays to 99mTc - the major isotope used in nuclear medicine. Currently there is a very serious global shortage.

DIssociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen by alpha particle radiolysis for those interested in a hydrogen economy.

[crashtech]

So many interesting designs, but all we get are LWR's. Like the x86 instruction set, not the best, but by fate became ubiquitous.

[Torchwood]

[Colonel Sun]

Anecdotes.

China is investing heavily in the MIPS chip architecture.

I recently purchased and downloaded two papers, important to my field of interest, that were only available in Chinese.
Fortunately, the equations of mathematics are a truly international language. I can see myself doing more of this in the future.

[Torchwood]

I notice that, after a decent year's interval, when everybody is distracted by other energy news, that BP are once again allowed to drill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Fukushima - Daiichi crisis will end eventually, probably in a concrete tomb for reactors 3 and 4. On the principle that news is worldwide these days, but with the attention span of a goldfish, how long before nuclear plans are quietly dusted off again?

There are two influences, acting in opposite directions. Except in France, investment virtually ceased in nuclear after Three Mile Island for two decades - but so did serious investment into alternative energy. While researching into solar energy for another thread, I noted that papers were either very recent or written in the '70s. After the second oil crisis finished in 1980, carbon fuels were dirt cheap until the "Chinese demand shock" lifted them into the stratosphere, as with all other commodities (a much more important factor than MENA political turbulence). Price seems a much more important driver of decisions than worthy green intentions. On this basis, nuclear will revive after a decent pause.

On the other hand, people are much more fearful of nuclear than of oil spills. You can tell them until you are blue in the face that the half life of Iodine 131 is shorter than the time it takes for spilt oil to disperse, and fossil fuel plants kill far more people than nuclear - but it is going to be a tough sell in democratic societies, and even in China.

I honestly don't know how this will play out. I have some friends who write reports on uranium mining. They glumly suggested that instead of PowerPoint, their next report would feature a brief disaster movie, with an intro by Homer Simpson. I suggested that they diversify into polycrystalline silicon and gallium arsenide.

[Colonel Sun]