Nuclear power is too slow

Re:Nuclear power is too slow by pfdietz on Friday December 16, 2022 @08:07PM (#34023022)

Yes, let's vaporize nuclear fuel. What could possibly go wrong with this stunning large brain engineering. It is surely no more burdensome on materials than solid fuel sealed away in metal tubes. /s

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Re:Nuclear power is too slow by akiselev on Friday December 16, 2022 @08:16PM (#34023107)

Yes that's how civilization was built. By pushing material science further and further. Do you think pressurized steam turbines just magically appeared?

Read the papers, they explain it all and characterize the tests.

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Re:Nuclear power is too slow by pfdietz on Friday December 16, 2022 @08:41PM (#34023325)

Civilization advances by trying huge numbers of things, most of which are horrible and bad. The rare winning technologies survive.

Implying that nuclear lightbulbs for terrestrial generation would have been in this elite group of winning technologies is just ludicrous.

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Re:Nuclear power is too slow by akiselev on Saturday December 17, 2022 @07:31PM (#34033795)

Vaporizing nuclear fuel is how we enrich it. Uranium => Uranium Hexaflouride sublimed at 57C => Gaseous centrifuge to separate the isotope. We've been doing it since the Manhattan Project, since before nuclear power plants were even a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium#Centrifuge_te...

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Re:Nuclear power is too slow by pfdietz on Sunday December 18, 2022 @07:52PM (#34046666)

Comparing uranium hexafluoride vapor at 57 C to incandescent vaporized uranium + fission products at 22,000 C. The materials problems with the latter are just a bit more severe!

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