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From: The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2024 11:14:29 +0000
Organization: A little, after lunch
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On 15/12/2024 10:07, Pancho wrote:
> On 12/14/24 13:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 14/12/2024 11:37, Pancho wrote:
>>> On 12/14/24 10:31, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> Just saw this:
>>>>
>>>> "China to build first-ever thorium molten salt nuclear power station 
>>>> in Gobi Desert"
>>>>
>>>> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-06/china-building-thorium- 
>>>> nuclear- power-station-gobi/104304468
>>>>
>>>> Will be interesting to see if they will succeed!
>>>
>>> If you are interested, there is a thorium startup, Copenhagen 
>>> Atomics, that have put out a couple of good promo videos.
>>>
>>> The first describes the worlds general energy problem:
>>>
>>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVue7cgmM00>
>>>
>>> The second details Copenhagen Atomics "Onion Core" thorium molten 
>>> salt reactor.
>>>
>>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqxvBAJn_vc>
>>>
>>> Obviously it is typical startup hype, but the guy touches on most of 
>>> the issues. In particular he addresses the fact we need cheap energy, 
>>> which a lot of the renewable discussions try to cover up. Secondly he 
>>> discusses non electrical energy use, which many renewable discussions 
>>> also skip over.
>>>
>>> As I understand it, molten salt reactors have two main tech problems, 
>>> corrosion and continuously separating out unwanted fission products.
>>
>> No fission reactor is perfect. It's engineering, not religion.
>>
> 
> But, if we are to adopt nuclear for the bulk of our global energy it is 
> clear that fuel price/availability will be affected, and hence breeder 
> reactors with their massively improved fuel efficiency will be more 
> significant.
> 

Again that is a qualitative, not a quantitative comment, and is not as 
true as you think it is.

Foe example, the cost of the actual raw uranium mined ore in a reactor 
(before its been turned into fuel rods) is something like a tenth of a 
cent per kWh.

Uranium ore is around $50/lb last time I looked.

Now the Japanese, who prefer not to have to import stuff, did a study on 
extracting  Uranium from seawater, There are 4 billion tonnes of the 
stuff in the sea.

They estimated $200/lb.  So worst case £0.004 increase on the final kWh.

Hardly earth shattering.

The uranium cost is to all intents and purpose *completely irrelevant*.

The cost of nuclear electricity is completely dominated by the up front 
cost to build the reactor and the interest paid on the money to do that. 
High interest rates killed Britain's nuclear construction. And the rise 
of anti-nuclear regulations quadrupled the cost and time to build a reactor.

Fast breeders cost even more. They simply are not in the current 
climate, cost effective returns on investment


Which is why we are all talking 'SMR' designed to circumvent the 
regulations with type approval, so that buoild times and hence capital 
costs, go back to where they used to be.

About 1/4 of what they are now.

>> Currently the best bet are modern straightforward PWR designs that are 
>> well understood, shrunk to a size that makes mass factory production 
>> possible.
>>
> 
> If we understand the design we might just as well build big ones. Small 
> mass production is more to get around research and regulation problems 
> of new systems.
> 
Well exactly. Samll reactors are safer and cheaper to install if they 
have type approval. No one is trying to optimise uranium efficiency. 
Just to get some reactors built is all, before the Greens wreck the country.

And there are other benefits of small reactors. You can build more of 
them near to where the energy is needed reducing the cost of high power 
transmission lines...yoir grid becomes what it used to be - a 
lightweight *balancing* system, not intended for massive power flows.


>> Once we have avoided the renewable energy catastrophe, *then* its time 
>> to look at thorium.
>>
> 
> We should do both. People are scared of building big reactors with long 
> payback times because it seems likely cheaper systems will be developed 
> to undercut them. However, I think energy security should be viewed like 
> military security, the government should pay to give us that security, 
> just in case.

Then you think wrong.  Look deeper. People will of course develop all 
sorts of reactor tech including thorium - India especially - but there 
is simply no shortage of fuel whatsoever in the world at large, In fact 
there is enough fore 10,000 years of today's populations all having a 
Western lifestyle.

There is no point in diverting any money we might save on renewable 
energy cancellation into yet more ego projects of different technologies.

If we don't build out what we can do right now, there wont BE any money 
for vanity projects.

Stevenson didn't wait for a steam turbine to get the railways started, 
he just modified a two cylinder pumping engine, stuck it on wheels and 
was the first-to-market.

It didn't matter how inefficient it was, there was plenty of cheap coal 
and no competition.


-- 
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, 
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
― Groucho Marx