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Re:1MW Molten-Salt Test Reactor by Copenhagen Atomic for €88... by Someone on Friday December 11, 2020 @01:21PM (#25388843)
Even ignoring the radiation, how do you test that it keeps working with a 100 MW heat source inside it without putting nuclear material in?

Edit: where did I get the idea it’s 100MW from? Title talks of 1MW. That makes it a lot easier.

Re:1MW Molten-Salt Test Reactor by Copenhagen Atomic for €88... by bob1029 on Friday December 11, 2020 @01:53PM (#25389242)
If 1MW is the actual design limit, it should be possible to test the loop with a mock heat source. At this scale, you could pay for grid power ($40-60/hr).

100MW would be a lot trickier to test due to infrastructure limitations, but you could probably figure something out with natural gas or propane burners.

Re:1MW Molten-Salt Test Reactor by Copenhagen Atomic for €88... by AnimalMuppet on Friday December 11, 2020 @01:53PM (#25389243)
By putting enough resistors inside, and pumping 100 MW of electricity in? If you're a utility trying this out, you can probably handle that (for some hours, maybe not for weeks).
Re:1MW Molten-Salt Test Reactor by Copenhagen Atomic for €88... by BlueTemplar on Friday December 11, 2020 @06:20PM (#25393013)
Are there any resistors that would not melt under this situation?
Re:1MW Molten-Salt Test Reactor by Copenhagen Atomic for €88... by AnimalMuppet on Friday December 11, 2020 @07:02PM (#25393474)
Good question. There are two issues, the power and the temperature. The power is easy(ish) - just put enough resistors in there, and you're good. (If you physically can put enough resistors in that space, which... I don't know.)

But you also want to run it at reactor temperatures. I don't know what that is, but finding resistors that won't melt may be anywhere from difficult to impossible.