Ecologically-friendly nuclear

[Undertoad]

Updating this thread, in which we argued over transmission lines four years ago --

Exelon has announced that they are shutting down the Cromby Generating Station (and Eddystone, probably xoB's provider) on May 31 2009.

NOW how much of my power will be nuclear?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Why those pricks! For 24 years they've been dumping gritty crap on my car, and now I'm retiring, they're shutting down.

[Lamplighter]

Who says we can't conserve our way out of nuclear power argument...
This is the full article, except the pic which is out of google images...



Forbes
William Pentland
8/1/13

Duke Pulls Plug On Planned Nuclear Project in Florida

The downsizing of America’s nuclear fleet appears to be accelerating.

Earlier today, Duke Energy (DUK +0.72%), the largest U.S. utility company based in Charlotte, NC,
said it would abandon the Levy nuclear reactor project in Florida.

“The Duke decision to pull the plug on Levy follows by just one day
the announcement that the French-subsidized nuclear giant EDF

EDF is pulling out of the U.S. nuclear power market due to the inability
of nuclear power to compete with alternatives and the dramatic reduction in demand growth
caused by increasing efficiency of electricity consuming devices,”
said Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at
Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment.

Cooper published a report earlier this month forecasting that three dozen reactors are at risk of early retirement.

(Ummmm but then, Vermont is a leading producer of solar panels in the US )

OTOH, I was just starting my career when the 5-Mile Island event occurred,
and it influenced my thinking (negatively) about nuclear power ever since.
At times, I have to admit that maybe nuclear power is ultimately the way
the world will have to go, what with environmental pollution, global warming, etc., etc.,
But still on balance, I think doing away with nuclear power may be the best decision.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

I was just starting my career when the 5-Mile Island event occurred

Three, sir!

[Lamplighter]

... details, details...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Yet, Th-fueled reactors remain fascinating. The fuel itself is less bother and more common, and it's antiproliferative nuclear power too. Sounds like it can drive anything that needs nuke power.

The most recent wrinkle seems to be a mainly-thorium, some-plutonium fuel rod, not only consuming the plutonium but using it as an alpha-source to bombard the thorium, which is thought (experimental assessment pending) to work quite as well as hitting it with thermal neutrons to light it and keep it lit. If I understand the technicalities.

[Lamplighter]

...experimental assessment pending...

details ... details

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

details ... details

Well, the big new diff in this study reactor up in Norway is that the first method considered for Th-fuel fission was "we need a neutron source" to bombard the thorium, making it U233 -- a short half life and lots and lots of hot, consuming the thorium, decaying readily itself, and turning the steam turbines. Now they're trying the same but using alpha particles, this being what plutonium mostly spits, and plutonium is alloyed in the thorium fuel rods for the purpose. They may be making specific use of Pu240's high rate of spontaneous fission here. Pu240 seems a nuisance in bomb making; Pu239 is much more cooperative for waiting around in an arsenal, but 240 is more immediately useful generating power.

Part of the "experimental results pending" is that after running the fuel rods for a goodish while, a few years if memory serves, they're going to pull the rods and analyze them -- to see if they're ending up with what they expect, I gather. And what all that will mean to the business of nuclear power -- what if anything they might need to do differently from the use or reprocessing of enriched-uranium rods.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's not the alpha from the plutonium that will make the Thorium viable. Alpha's only good for making Helium.

[tw]

What happens when neutrons get cold? Do they emit darkness?

[Clodfobble]

They ask the proton to go get them a blanket.


And the proton's like, "Seriously? I've been at work all day, you've just been orbiting around the house and watching soap operas. Now you want me to wait on you?"

And the neutron's all, "What happened to chivalry? You're not the particle I bonded with."


And then they split, and that's how fission works kids!

[Undertoad]

I had to do it. It was a Grail reference.

[Lamplighter]

1,2,5

[Undertoad]

Three, sir!



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