I wish the videos were longer.....
He was talking about the traveling wave reactor that this buddy Bill has invested in. He too does not like the NRC regulations that will make “his” (I bet he has money in that project) reactor expensive to develop. From the Edison Electric Institute Annual Conference:
It's been interesting to realize that the country, through its talent like people like Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, and many others, and their investment in fundamental research, has oftentimes anticipated these problems and be able to forecast engineering solutions to them.
Back in 1996, Teller and Wood published a paper where they proposed a novel type of nuclear power, one that specifically solved for many of the things that had become a deterrent to the use of nuclear power in the United States, the concern over weapons proliferation, the concern over leakages and nuclear reactor safety. And they posited that there, in fact, was a form of nuclear power, built around fast neutron reactors and a concept called the traveling wave reactor, that doesn't have virtually any of these problems, is wildly more efficient than nuclear power as we currently deploy it worldwide today, and has virtually none of the traditional proliferation risks.
Ah, the burning cigar. A very elegant and simple design.
Most things that I have read about Traveling Wave Reactors have been over simplified to the point that it can't work.
I have found a few articles that are very deep and get into gravity waves. I don't know for sure if they are even talking about the Traveling Wave Reactor or not. In any case, they went way beyound my understanding. It would be great if we could find a rocket scientist with an interest in nuclear power who could explain it to us.
"I have found a few articles that are very deep and get into gravity waves."
Gravity has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear fission.
Richard - I have a recently received some good papers from TerraPower and am working on an article about Traveling Wave Reactors. As Soylent stated; there is nothing about gravity associated with these fission reactors.
The problems I've seen mentioned are the liquid sodium coolant and questions regarding the kinetics of the traveling wave reactor.
Technology Review has an article about the concept.
The problem is when you Google "Traveling Wave Reactor", you get pages about physics experiments and not about reactor design. I did find a couple of articles once about using gravity waves to control how a neutron travels and reacts with atoms.
Rod,
Is the Traveling Wave Reactor, just so simple that I can't believe that no one has done it before?
My unfamiliarity with the Traveling Wave Reactor comes from the fact the I think of how a moderated reactor acts while it is a fast reactor. Something I need to learn more about.
I am now thinking that The TWR is like an atomic explosion that occurs over one hudred years, rather than a fraction of a second.
Commenting by HaloScan
