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Tylemahos

2,672 Posts.

01/09/14

17:01

Post #: 13906722
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Originally posted by tobyjack ↑

Jonni Thunder - I didn't know who she was - had to "google"..."Jonni Thunder is a private detective from DC comics Earth 2. Her powers come from a small gold statue that give her the ability to turn into living lightning. When she used it though, her human body was left behind."...OK, I can live with that

Natural graphite has found new uses in an advanced “pebble bed” nuclear reactor (PBR) design that uses neither rods nor cooling towers but instead inserts the radioactive uranium dioxide fuel as tiny flakes into a round graphite tennis-ball sized (pebble) shell coated in a number of chemical layers. The graphite in the pebbles is a mixture of 75% natural graphite and 25% synthetic (pyrolytic) graphite. The small uranium dioxide spheres are each coated with a layer of porous carbon, then high density pyrolytic carbon, silicon carbide, and then another layer of pyrolytic carbon. This is known as Triso fuel.

This type of reactor is deemed to be passively safe thereby removing the need for redundant, active safety systems. Because the reactor is designed to handle high temperatures, it can cool by natural circulation and easily survive in accident scenarios. It’s high temperatures design allow higher thermal efficiencies than possible in traditional nuclear power plants (up to 50%) and have the additional feature that the gases do not dissolve contaminants or absorb neutrons as water does, so the core has less in the way of radioactive fluids.

China has an active prototype with stated plans to construct 30 reactors by 2020 and aims to ramp up to 300 gigawatts of new reactors featuring PBRs as a significant component of the planning. The modular reactor scenario is of notable interest for smaller centers and industrial applications in remote locations. West Virginia University researchers have estimated 500 modern 100 GW PBR installed in the US by 2020 would require an estimated 400,000 tons of graphite. This projection equals the world’s current annual production of flake graphite without taking into account global demand for additional PBRs and other traditional uses for graphite.

Natural graphite is also found in multiple other materials used in nuclear reactors including gaskets, sealants, and liners. The table below outlines some of the properties associated with nuclear graphite.

http://alabamagraphite.com/uses/

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Yeah - at least your not a blundering idiot who accidentally saves the day like me...

"During the 21 years that the AVR operated successfully, 18 different types of pebble fuel were tested. Until the AVR was shut down in 1988, new types of fuel pebbles were loaded into the core."

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles 2008/F-W_2008/HTR_4.pdf

1988 and 18 different types of 'secret herbs and spices'. One can only wonder how many different formulations can actually be used today. What struck me was that I think they proved you could use various 'types of pebble' at the same time - maybe 3 or 4 different types of spheres at any one time?? Boggles the mind if they actually meant that they used all 18 different types in the reactor at the same time...
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