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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 21 8:18 am Post subject: new nukes

gates and buffet have hired mr burns

they have decided that green needs mr burns

if i understand their plan they want to build a test plant on an old coal mine site for the optics, one can only hope that the other site specific criteria are met

afaik they are going for a small fast reactor with liquid sodium as primary coolant and liquid salt as the secondary transfer coolant to transfer heat to the steam generation/turbine/generator plant

they work, have some advantages and some big disadvantages, not least in that the fuel needs to be highly enriched uranium(near weapons grade) mixed with plutonium and a few other things and that molten sodium is a mare when it leaks which it does and the nuke industry only has to get it wrong once
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my favourite chemistry teacher played with them at windscale/sellafield in the late 1960's/early70's
he had retrained as a teacher after getting several lifetimes permitted exposure in a single moment

this is where that story gets real in terms of "should we trust folk with nukes?"

after a couple of beers i asked him why he swapped a huge posh chemistry set for teaching

once upon a time there was a chemist and his assistant working on sodium based coolant, they enjoyed cutting edge energy making research etc. they were good at it and got given a nice big lab to play in, this made them happy but they did need to tidy it a bit as the last occupants had left in a hurry a few years before

a couple of days pass quietly putting papers in plastic bags and emptying cupboards to make room for their kit, just before elevenses they found a bucket of oil with a multi kilo lump of probably sodium in it.

at this point dear reader they were not fully aware of azides and the fun of bulk

after a cuppa and bacon butty the took the bucket and its contents for disposal, as it clicked a bit they decided the best place was in one of the "ponds"

they knew that small bits would fizzle and become dissolved as naoh in water so scale up to a few kilos and a "swimming pool" should be fine

they chucked it in, it fizzled, made bubbles and ceased to float, it sank and then the azides kicked off

it stirred the pond, sent a plume of FKW a long way up and what goes up comes down(mostly)
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they send robots into those ponds nowadays and that is decades of decay later

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28239
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 21 6:53 am Post subject:
Nothing about nuclear is safe, nothing about nuclear is cheap. As we have seen in the last year, money for graft can come out of thin air. The only problem remaining with renewable is power storage, if you don't care about the expense then you could probably solve that with a big enough reservoir on a high enough mountain.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 21 7:58 am Post subject:

lots of small stuff well interlinked is maybe better than some huge projects

storage is almost sorted, pump/turbine and water is one, decent battery banks another thing that is almost sorted

re thinking "the grid" for modern tech is a priority

most stuff we seem to want or "need" is fairly low energy with new tech

heating is an issue(spose cooling to a lesser extent as well in some places) as leccy is not an ideal way to deliver bulk heat

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 21 8:09 am Post subject:

the only "new"nuke thing i can think of as a less than terrible idea is using the stockpiled Pu for about 300 yrs worth of leccy and making it a bit less nasty while we work out some clever stuff to deal with that and do things better

iirc a figure of 500 tons got a mention for the UK stockpile, the fast breeder reactor thing went full tribble to breed well and the product that resulted is vaulted(as oxide?)in cumbria

(it would be rash to keep it as metal)
ps dounray beach still has hot particles from the "bits and bobs" silo incident

bulk energy seems to be required by modern humans, it could be done sustainably

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 21 9:49 am Post subject:

dpack wrote:

That's definitely useful. Regardless of where we stand on this the documentary on the building of the new Hinckley reactor is pretty good

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 21 5:33 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

dpack wrote:

That's definitely useful. Regardless of where we stand on this the documentary on the building of the new Hinckley reactor is pretty good

i cannot remember the exact physics but tis basically

stored nasty stuff >energy and a bit less nasty stuff
and far less dangeroos than owt dr strangelove might do with it

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15998

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 21 7:49 am Post subject:

I thought nuclear energy was a good idea in the 1960s and 70s to tide us over until we got renewable energy going. I didn't expect it to take quite this long to get there though. Encouraging that so much work has been done and it is now a viable way of producing electricity, but as said above, we do need storage, either in batteries, pumping water, or even to break down water to produce hydrogen so that can be burnt.

Shane

Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 21 5:26 am Post subject:

dpack wrote:

stored nasty stuff >energy and a bit less nasty stuff

Interestingly, this could also apply to the proposed solution for decarbonising shipping. The latest thinking is leaning towards using liquid ammonia as a fuel source for shipping, with the ammonia produced sustainably. Take a look at the kinds of industrial accidents that have occurred in the past involving ammonia and you'll see why I get very nervous at the thought of a significant inventory being stored in a confined space that potentially has people in it.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15998

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 21 8:50 am Post subject:
Why ammonia? It is going to produce oxides of nitrogen, and then those will be the next pollutant. If they have to go that way, hydrogen, possibly made and used on board, or partial sail power.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 21 9:56 am Post subject:

ammonia seems a bad idea on many grounds

if storage from 0 carbon sources is prioritized over production for base load and peak demands nukes, coal etc are not required

as for transport, burning oil and before that coal is "cheap"

building and using sail that can do the same job is very expensive

without numbers etc i do not know if a big cargo boat could be electrified, big sail boats are about a million quid per foot

Shane

Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 21 12:00 pm Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

Why ammonia? It is going to produce oxides of nitrogen, and then those will be the next pollutant. If they have to go that way, hydrogen, possibly made and used on board, or partial sail power.

If you use modified low-NOx burners the NOx emissions aren't significantly higher than from any other combustion (don't forget that the air used in pretty much every form of internal combustion engine is predominantly nitrogen). Of all the reasons not to use ammonia, a slight increase in NOx emissions isn't near the top of my list, especially given it is zero carbon if from a sustainable source.

As to the "why ammonia" question, safety issues aside it is looking like a reasonable way of storing and deploying hydrogen as a fuel - at least from a number-of-hydrogen-molecules-per-unit-volume viewpoint.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15998

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 21 7:39 am Post subject:
As you say, nitrogen is all around us in the air, and any burning will produce oxides. Large engines are something that needs to be addressed as at present I understand the only electric tractors are about the size of an 'alpine' tractor, or next size up from a quad bike in laymans terms. Any thoughts on those or lorry engines?

Shane

Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 21 8:50 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

As you say, nitrogen is all around us in the air, and any burning will produce oxides. Large engines are something that needs to be addressed as at present I understand the only electric tractors are about the size of an 'alpine' tractor, or next size up from a quad bike in laymans terms. Any thoughts on those or lorry engines?

There are a few small companies that are converting old vehicles (buses, bin lorries, etc.) to electric motor-driven (see here). It's a developing sector, so prices are currently very high, but I'd imagine it will more affordable to get an old oil-burner converted within a short number of years. Ideally, it won't be long before you can take your tractor in and get it electrified for less than the price of buying a new one.

I guess space for battery storage might be more of an issue for a tractor than for a bus or a truck, but I'd assume that if you have the facility to plug it in during breaks and leave it on charge overnight it should manage most of a day's tasks without running out of juice. Might struggle for a full day in a field with PTO running at high load, I'd imagine, but storage capacities and charge times are improving all the time, so there is hope.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 21 12:10 pm Post subject:

i have worked with hydrogen, there are assorted issues with pressurized gas.
it can slither between the atoms and crystals of many metals to escape or to change their properties in ways that may not be beneficial, it has other dark skills

a chemical hold and release and hold again is plausible to make a "hydrogen battery", but this sort of compounds are horrible to work with and contain

have a look at the fun nasa et al have had with hydrogen.

for mobile or small size i have serious reservations re H, plant scale can be a bit iffy, getting the recipe correct needs bottle

etc

ps i considered getting a h2 o2 electrolysis torch(with mek afterburner capacity) for very hot tiny metal
no, i have played with all three and have other means to do very hot

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15998

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 21 8:03 am Post subject:

I agree it will come. I can't see tractors being viable until the storage of whatever will give a full day working using heavy machinery. Not sure how we would manage ours, as in the middle of a wood is a tricky place for power. Currently we use partially solar power, and hope to expand this, but a deciduous wood in summer isn't the best place for solar. Wind power similarly as the trees make it unstable. No doubt we will find a way as time goes on. All but one of our tractors count as 'classic' anyway, as we can't afford new ones.

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