Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too

Re:Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too by bh42222 on Monday May 16, 2011 @05:16PM (#2554221)

I think that both the industry and the anti-nuke forces are keeping nuclear from advancing.

When people like the founder of Greenpeace are pro nuclear, the only people anti-nuclear are radically anti-nuclear. They do not give a damn about old versus new tech.

The nuclear industry just wants to save money by pushing the old tech.

Together they create the false dichotomy of either old or nothing.

I wish we had an anti-nuclear movement which distinguished between old and dangerous and what we could have with new tech. Even if they were against both, if they were at least much more against the old an dangerous, that would be great.

But the current ani-nuclear forces are not that rational.

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Re:Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too by nodata on Tuesday May 17, 2011 @05:32AM (#2555847)

To support your point, can you link to some information about the new tech? I'd be interested in a layman's comparison to the old tech.

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Re:Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too by VladRussian on Tuesday May 17, 2011 @07:48AM (#2556064)

you can Google on your own and there are a lot of different designs in different states, from pure concepts to successfully prototyped. My point is the absence of any significant technological development by the entrenched and monopolized industry (and intentional preventing of others through regulatory machinery - i.e one can't disrupt the industry short of producing the fusion reactor in the garage).

From practical point of view, the most developed, i.e. it was successfully prototyped 40 years ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment), is Molten Salt Reactor :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

nice quote from the article: " Since it uses raw fuel, basically just a mixture of chemicals, current reactor vendors do not want to develop it. They derive their long-term profits from sales of fabricated fuel assemblies." :)

The principal difference of this type of reactor is that all the stuff (fuel, fission products, etc) aren't piled and accumulated in the reactor core. Instead, it is flows in, burns, flows out, filtered/reprocessed, flows in ...

General scare tactic utilised by the industry to preserve status-quo is expressed nicely here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

"As one director of a U.S. research laboratory put it, "fabrication, construction, operation, and maintenance of new reactors will face a steep learning curve: advanced technologies will have a heightened risk of accidents and mistakes. The technology may be proven, but people are not"

Basically - if you force us to make something new, it will be even more risky and we've warned you.

Another quote from there : "Nuclear engineer David Lochbaum has explained that almost all serious nuclear accidents have occurred with what was at the time the most recent technology. " .

Complete BS - nor Chernobyl, nor Fukushima have nothing to do with their technology being most recent as 1.their technology hasn't been most recent 2.it has to do with morons - Chernobyl, and unplanned for high tsunami - Fukushima and if i remember TMI was also not about new technology.

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