Comments on: NUKULAR REEAKTOR FIZZICS.

By: Adam Benton

Adam Benton — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 09:43:22 +0000

Well then I await further posts with great anticipation, since I keep hearing professionals espouse one position, think its settled, and promptly hear someone else disagree with it.

By: hentzau

hentzau — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 09:16:52 +0000

This whole sorry story was started by a question about thorium reactors. In order to explain what I think about thorium reactors I have to explain the physics behind nuclear power plants, how you do nuclear power plants badly and how you do nuclear power plants correctly in order to discuss the merits (or not) of the thorium designs.

By: hentzau

hentzau — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 09:15:40 +0000

It was an on-off thing; groundwater acted as a moderator which enabled a chain reaction to start, this boiled away the groundwater and stopped the reaction, then the groundwater came back etc. etc. So it was self-controlling, in a way, and never got powerful enough to meltdown.

By: Adam Benton

Adam Benton — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 01:17:32 +0000

What about thorium? I’ve heard people arguing its both not viable and the best thing since sliced bread.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:57:57 +0000

And so it begins… Thank you hentzau!

This is the first I have heard about Oklo, fascinating! I did not think such a thing was possible. What would this site have been like while the reactor was cooking? Would the “reactor material” have been in a constant meltdown liquid state? I also wonder if there is any evidence of this from organisms that lived around this area at the time.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:37:41 +0000

Blimey and yikes!

By: hentzau

hentzau — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:58:44 +0000

Yes and yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill
You tend not to hear this sort of thing reported world wide because ash isn’t quite as sexy as toxic radiation and nuclear meltdowns.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:43:14 +0000

You’ve referred top the safety issues in this post and on some previous occasions – are you planning to do a post going into detail on how the dangerous stuff arises and how we prevent it. And why it has gone wrong when it has in the past?

More importantly, are there any lower profile dangers associated with other methods of energy production (including renewable ones) that have caused problems?