Alan,

As I said, I haven't been able to find much specific detail about the
problems that need to be resolved before the various new reactor
technologies can be commercially deployed. All I know is that they have to
do generally with materials -- sorting out what materials will hold up best
in the extreme environment of a high temperature reactor core with high
neutron flux, understanding and characterizing the failure modes for
components, working out designs that allow components that are likely to
fail to be replaced, and so on. It's all aimed at safety and reliability.
And one of the obvious reasons that the development cycles are long is that
it's hard to simulate the evnironment for testing, and hard to extrapolate
from limited testing to an expected mean time between failures in an
operational environment.

I've read that the goal of the generation 4 studies currently under way is
to be able to select, by sometime next year, the technology or small set of
technologies on which subsequent work will be focused. But commercial
deployment of the selected technology is not projected to begin until 2050!!
Talk about a "go slow" approach.

Of course, that's the plan of record carried over from a period when reactor
technology was almost as dead as rocket science. But it's still the case
that fast spectrum, high-burn reactors are treated as a low priority. There
are no business interests lobbying for them, and no perceived problems with
near-term uranium supplies or waste storage that would force their priority.
The pro-nuclear factions within the DOE will be happy to see construction
started on any new reactors at all in this country. Everybody wants to
minimize risk up front, and that's interpreted to mean sticking with proven
conventional designs. At least until the industry is judged to be back on
track.

Could development be accelerated? Most certainly. In fact, the fastest way
to resolve the open issues would be to start building test reactors
tomorrow, operate them, and see how they fare. Kind of the way aircraft
were developed during WW II, when planes went from open cockpit wood and
fabric to experimental jet fighters in a period of four years. But that
would require a very different atmosphere of public opinion than we have
now. Nobody wants to repeat the PR disaster of the French Super Phoenix
reactor. As a learning experience, it was a great success. But because it
had been billed as a commercial reactor, the black eye that its various
accidents and frequent down times gave to breeder technology still haunts
the field today.

Roger Arnold
Sunnyvale, CA

----- Original Message -----
From: Alan
To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 7:40 PM
Subject: [energyresources] Re: Revolutionary Thorium Reactor


Good reply, thanks.

You write: "All will require long cycles of development
and testing before they can be certified and licensed
for production."

Why is this? Is it necessarily so? I presume you are
talking about government channels and hoops -- the
certifications and licenses. Are those channels and
hoops truly necessary? (If they are, fine; I'm just
asking.)

Also, why do you say that long cycles of development
will be required? Again, I'm not saying you're wrong;
just wondering what the basis is for the statement.
Are the "long cycles" secondary to bureaucratic
crap that could (at least theoretically) be quickly
cleared away? Or are there substantive engineering
issues that really will, inevitably, take a long time to
work out?

Alan

PS: I loved your last paragraph. Yes, "how we're going
to save the planet if depletion of fossil fuels isn't
going to do if for us." And I suppose next thing
you're going to expect us to start THINKING.
Damn! Slave-driver! ;-)

--- In energyresources@yahoogroups.com, "Roger Arnold" <roger.arnold@...>
wrote:
> <snip>