Traveling Wave Fission Reactor

[rashidas]

Here is a link to an article on Traveling Wave Nuclear Reactors. Could this give Focus Fusion a run for its money?

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22114/

[Aeronaut]

rashidas wrote: Here is a link to an article on Traveling Wave Nuclear Reactors. Could this give Focus Fusion a run for its money?

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22114/

It couldn’t compete directly with any aneutronic fusion technology since its uranium fuel and nuclear fission reaction are designed to lower the horrendous capital expense of operating existing and proposed near-future fission power plants.

[Tulse]

rashidas wrote: Could this give Focus Fusion a run for its money?

Making electricity by boiling water to run a steam turbine is inherently inefficient and capital-intensive. Doing so with highly radioactive fuel that produces highly radioactive waste is not only inefficient and (even more) capital-intensive, but risky.

There is no way such technology could compete with successful Focus Fusion.

[emmetb]

rashidas wrote: Here is a link to an article on Traveling Wave Nuclear Reactors. Could this give Focus Fusion a run for its money?

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22114/

A breeder like this will not be cheap to build and maintain. It is sodium cooled, because of the high temperatures involved. Yet this traveling wave concept is kind-of creative. Funny how it burns down like an extremely long lasting candle: 1 cm per year (conceptually at least, in reality i believe the burn region remains static). If the technical difficulties are overcome it may make a very real contribution to solving our energy problems in the short to medium term, especially because it has the potential to burn down depleted uranium.

For a while at least, we probably need to use everything at our disposal to simultaneously kick our carbon habit and deal with humanity’s rising energy needs. But once aneutronic fusion is realized to its full potential, we can phase out this messy, dangerous fission technology once and for all 😉

[Author]

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