Uranium Seawater Extraction Makes Nuclear Power Completely Renewable

It's beastly out there.

If we don't shovel the deck soon, the snow could break a window.

I was just reading about thorium reactors (which might be considered breede r reactors because Thorium itself is not fissile). India is building one i n Kakrapar which should go online this year. A US company was pushing a de sign that deals with the waste disposal issue by vitrifying the waste an st oring in situ in the reactor at the time of decommissioning.

There are approximately 100 nuclear power reactors making up about 20% of t he US electricity supply. Getting to 25% would require... 20 more similar units or likely fewer since they are a bit larger now.

A few plants are scheduled for decommissioning so that will likely make it an even 20 again.

The real problem is new nuclear plants seem to be rather expensive. Notewo rthy are the two new reactors at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant which has st opped construction and will be decommissioned even before completion.

The two reactors at the Vogtle plant appear to be continuing, but at a cost of $27 billion! Not sure how close to "too cheap to meter" that works out to be.

There are a lot of claims about how much safer and cost effective Thorium r eactors can be. When will the US spend a dime or two to find out if the cl aims bear scrutiny or not?

Rick C.

The Chernobyl approach! Melt the core down on top of a whole bunch of sand.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Impossible. waste outgasses helium.

Not a problem. Lots of materials are permeable to helium - it doesn't diffuse as fast as hydrogen, but it wouldn't be that difficult to balance the diffusion rate against the kind of pressure difference that a "hermetic" seal could survive.

Never? Never is a very long time. You may be right but this cat is still living (today).