Us Finally Getting Back To Nuclear Power

[Derek]

From the latest Pop Sci. Article.

25 years after we stopped making Reactors the goal for nuclear power is finally heating up again! YES!

A new reactor called the Very High Temp. Reactor (VHTR) is designed to generate intense heat, cooled by helium, it would operate at 1,000 degrees C. twice as hot as today's water cooled reactors.

Since extreme heat is required to snap the chemical bonds of various compounds and release hydrogen, the reactor is ideal for producing the new fuel.

In addition to turning turbines to make electricity, the intense heat generated by the VHTR reactor will also power an adjacent hydrogen plant, where one of two chemical processes will produce 10 tons of hydrogen an hour.

The process yields hydrogen without producing "green-house gases"

Another selling point: Thanks to the configuration of its uranium fuel, the VHTR would be meltdown-proof. In today's reactors, the uranium is stuffed into hollow rods of zirconium, a metal that catches fire if the coolant is somehow drained off, resulting in a potentially disastrous radiation release, like the one at Three mile island. (Which wasn't that bad, because the accident was contained.)

In the VHTR, the uranium will be either in the form of pebble beds---stacked pellets of urnaium covered in graphite---or prismatic blocks---uranium encased in 3 ft. high, 2 foot wide hexagons of graphite.

Using graphite instead of zironium to cradle the uranium means a Three Mile Island--style disaster is impossible: instead of combusting in the absence of coolant, graphite allows nuclear heat to radiate away faster than it is produced.

Making the VHTR more difficult to sabotage.

Though, if this is approved a test reactor won't be built 'till 2015. Thats what sucks.

[nova_satori]

hopefully we will have some sort of Fusion before that.

Or harness hydrogen on a massive scale.

Or harness deep ocean currents.

However, no matter what type of power source we have, disaster is ALWAYS possible.