one solution to maintain stable population despite low birth rates is to selectively birth women. japans 1.3 babies per women would more than sufficient. read about it here: https://lvenneri.com/blog/sexratioed
IT kind of is true. Sure the death count directly attributable to nuclear reactors is low. But Fukushima caused the entire countries fleet to shut down - to the present day. Safety isn't about lives lost or health, it's about financial repurcussions of the accidents - both directly at the site (take a look at Fukushima today) and the effects on the wider industry, shutting down all the surrounding power plants, and forcing Japan to import fossils to compensate.
And in the 60s the nuclear industry was just as confident of its own safety as it is today.
The only measure of nuclear safety I trust is the liability cap. Currently in America it stands at 0.04% ($300 million) the cost of 1 Fukushima ($800 billion).
But they didn’t. Because it cost money. Because the cost of building a new reactor was so large that they decided to take risks and run the old one past it’s lifetime.
Fast forward to today, where governments are now facing pressure to extend the life of old existing nuclear plants past their shutdown date to reduce dependence on gas.
Molten-salt-fuel reactors, as described in this article, are so lame... "It's already melted, so you can't have a meltdown." lol. More seriously, molten-salt-cooled reactors have some promise. They use solid fuel, usually TRISO particles, and are cooled by molten salts, which we now have lots of experience with from solar salt power systems. If you are interested in molten-salt-cooled reactors outside of this lame press release - check out Kairos Power. Their website sucks butt. But they are the main player in molten salt-cooled reactors - funded by Henry Laufer of Renaissance Technologies. They actually have the engineering and financing to get one built, and are reportedly doing very well with NRC (unlike OKLO - lolz).
Not an expert but I believe the problem with molten salt cooling for reactor designs is that nuclear reactors are supposed to just run for decades without replacing major parts that are really really radioactive. We just can't make parts that will resist corrosion for that long, unlike those towers in the solar arrays, which are really simple to replace. That's leaving aside the high level waste recovery, disposal, and storage issues.
Not sure it's a justified reduction in exclusion zone. Yes they use natural circulation to get rid of decay heat if they lose power to run the pumps. BUT - they can't tolerate multiple reactors failing at once, they can't tolerate more than a few control rod withdrawals, and they can't tolerate clogging of the flow channels - Which to me, seem like reasonable accidents. The reduction in exclusion zone for NuScale is not really justified. If they get a reduction, you can expect the big ass reactors to also get a reduction...
I don't really have an opinion on the matter and I think it's a fair question to consider, but I'll note that the NRC obviously disagrees. At least for now, they could always change their mind. I seriously doubt that they would ever significantly reduce the exclusion zone requirement for any of the currently operating reactors, however.
Which is equally a problem for a molten salt cooled reactor. If molten salt leaks or pumping stops, you're gonna get a melt down in your molten salt reactor. That is unless it's running at super low power density - like these guys: https://www.usnc.com/mmr/, in which case no cooling fluid or pumps or even natural circulation apparently are needed to keep it from melting.
MSRs have an advantage though, which is that a) fuel melt is obviously not a problem and b) if something goes out of control you can pull the drain plug and drain the entire core into multiple crit-safe storage pools. Dividing the core up makes it easier to handle the decay heat, though I'm not sure exactly what any of the current designs do in detail. Fission product gasses are also not soluble in most of the fuels for MSRs which makes it easy to filter them out, which reduces the decay heat to an extent and also mitigates the reactivity feedback effect from xenon that caused the Chernobyl disaster.
Not that it's all sunshine and roses, hot salts are awfully corrosive and that's been the primary engineering challenge on every MSR design I'm aware of.
Yeah. Decay heat is still an issue but MSRs are inherently able to handle it without the need for active circulation. Plus if shit hits the fan like I said you can drain it out just with gravity into a configuration that is inherently unable to continue fissioning without the need for reactivity control. So, no need for active circulation pumps nor a reliance on the ability to ram in control rods... plus you don't have to worry about hydrogen buildup either.
The idea with molten salt reactors is that they aren't under pressure. Unlike a PWR, which will experience more and more pressure until it pops, a molten salt reactor can handle much higher temperatures before failing. This enables designs that can be passively cooled in the event of coolant system failures.
Dark matter is probably a grouping of several phenomena like this. Should not discount MACHOs just because it doesn't explain all the dark matter observations. I think I remember reading in Carroll's Astrophysics Intro that MACHO's can explain about 10-20% of dark matter. Dark matter could be potentially be explained fully by multiple dark matter explanations, each adding to the overall phenomena.
This is not true. Every power plant that produces waste must pay money into the waste repository fund totaling nearly $50B - which is probably overkill for building a long term facility by a factor of 5 or more.
Nope. These reactors can be placed anywhere. They used air cooled condensers, which is only possible whe nyou have higher temperature heat than conventional light water reactors in use today. It's 350 degrees C versus 600 degrees C. So you can stick these in the desert no problem.
Something that isn't begin mentioned, is that a lower IFR partially reflects the reduction in at risk groups. Those most at risk of dying have already succumbed to the disease.
