24 replies to this topic

[RidingPie]

Tis the way forward. The way A level results are getting better and better, we can safely leave the issue of spent fuel processing in the high-achievers hands as eventually they, or their children or their children's children will eventually be clever enough to develop a solution.

Or, if you read up on thorium MSR as I suggested, the waste products are only unstable for about 150 years with ten time less waste than a conventional LW reactor for the same or greater energy output, with a far more abundant fuel in a reactor which can't go critical.

Sadly the view that all fission reactors are bad is prevalent though. Even though its demonstrably wrong.

Edited by RidingPie, 19 October 2012 - 05:41 PM.

[Steve May]

Haven't got anything to add to this thread apart from laugh at Steve because he's admitted to owning a Clio.

It's a cracking car. It uses almost no petrol and never breaks down. What more do I need?

[tonyXIII]

I heard this story on Radio Tees while driving into work this morning. My first thought was that it was a wind-up, an April fool joke in October, but they had an interview with someone who sounded quite convincing. I am still not convinced by it - I mean 5 litres of artificial petrol isn't going to solve the energy crisis - but I am not so dismissive as I was at first.

You are correct in thinking that such a system as this will require more energy input than it will give out. (The system is a reversible chemical reaction. One way it gives energy out - rolls downhill - and the other way you put energy in - push it uphill - it reminds me of respiration/photosynthesis). Because no system is 100% efficient, you always end up putting more energy in than you get out. This is why you're looking at nuclear or wind power for a cheap source of the energy.

There is a possible alternative, though. Some chemical (and biological) systems need less energy than you might suppose due to the action of catalysts (enzymes). It is just possible that some clever person has developed a catalyst for the uphill reaction which means that the system needs less energy than you might think. That would certainly change the economics of the process.

I emphasise that I do not know that this is the case, I just offer it for consideration.

[Steve May]

I'm completely ignorant on this: is this where the debate turns to nuclear and everyone starts mumbling?

Start here.

http://www.withoutho...m/download.html

[JohnM]

Or, if you read up on thorium MSR as I suggested, the waste products are only unstable for about 150 years with ten time less waste than a conventional LW reactor for the same or greater energy output, with a far more abundant fuel in a reactor which can't go critical.

Sadly the view that all fission reactors are bad is prevalent though. Even though its demonstrably wrong.

I may have misled you. I am pro nuclear power..done properly and lifecycle costs properly accounted for. Security of supply, etc etc.

My first trip to Dungeness B was in the late 1960s during construction. However, it was so late that the control computers we were putting in were actually obsolete before the station was generating. Similarly Dounreay PFR. The UK nuclear industry has a record of cost and time overruns second to none in the world. We have to avoid the problems also that France is having with its 80% reliance on nuclear.

State-owned EdF said its third-generation nuclear reactor EPR project at its Flamanville, northern France, plant will be delayed until 2016, due to "both structural and economic reasons," which will bring the project's total cost to EUR6 billion.Similarly, the cost of the French EPR to be built at Olkiuoto, Finland has escalated. Areva and the utility involved "are in bitter dispute over who will bear the cost overruns and there is a real risk now that the utility will default."

"Following Holland's victory in 2102, there may be a partial nuclear phase-out in France, with the Socialist party in favour of closing the oldest 24 reactors by 2025"

We are paying a huge cost for decommissioning existing plant. No problem wit that apart from teh fact that these costs were ignored, hidden or unknown when the stations were commissioned. Thorium, fusion, it doesn't matter. We have to know what we are letting ourselves in for.