Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?

On 12/15/24 11:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

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:
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Just saw this:
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"China to build first-ever thorium molten salt nuclear power station in Gobi Desert"
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-06/china-building-thorium- nuclear- power-station-gobi/104304468
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Will be interesting to see if they will succeed!

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If you are interested, there is a thorium startup, Copenhagen Atomics, that have put out a couple of good promo videos.
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The first describes the worlds general energy problem:
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<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVue7cgmM00>
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The second details Copenhagen Atomics "Onion Core" thorium molten salt reactor.
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<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqxvBAJn_vc>
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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.
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As I understand it, molten salt reactors have two main tech problems, corrosion and continuously separating out unwanted fission products.

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No fission reactor is perfect. It's engineering, not religion.
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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.
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 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.
 

This is not an established technology. It needs to be demonstrated to work in volume and scale up before we can rely on it.
AIUI, there are doubts about it.

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
 

I understand the current cost of Uranium is low, but for a zero carbon solution we need a massive global expansion. That will put a very rapid squeeze on fuel availability, Until things like sea water extraction have been proven. Fuel availability, i.e. cost is an issue.
Like sea water extraction, breeder reactors are also a solution.

 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.
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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.
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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.
 

I don't know what near means, 200km isn't that far. In the past we had at least 3 reactors that close to London. Sizewell is still running.

 

Once we have avoided the renewable energy catastrophe, *then* its time to look at thorium.
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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. 

I think you misunderstood my intended meaning. I was talking about building big reactors, existing designs, Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C, etc. The government should just get on with it. SMRs are just another excuse for politicians to delay.

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.
 

I understand thorium/molten salt is research, not a current solution, but, if we hadn't stopped work on breeders 40 years ago...

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,

Yes, I agree, Sizewell C. If Rolls-Royce can knock out SMRs in the near future, great, but we shouldn't wait. That's what I mean about needing to invest in energy security, rather than delay for something which might be better/cheaper. It was a mistake to reduce energy to pure economics, while ignoring security of supply.

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.
 

I understand uranium is plentiful now, I'm not entirely convinced it will be plentiful if the entire world transitions to nuclear in the next 30 years. The strongest green, zero carbon strategy, is to make nuclear cheaper. Which I think is possible.