This is distressing for me. Terra power principally owned by bill gates Developed traveling wave reactors Tried for years for permits to build a demo size reactor in US. and several other countries. Could not obtain permits. Traveling Wave are an order of magnitude safer than Pressurized water enriched Uranium, the NUKE word still causes emotional responses in people. So yet again a technology developed out side china is given to them.
Thorium does work well in these reactors. So does
Depleted
Uranium DU. DU is left over from bomb and fuel rod production. It is estimated that there is enough depleted uranium in US storage to power the world for about 200 years. Right now the US is spending 100s of millions a year just to store it. It is already dissolved in Florine as UF6. Very little processing to make it reactor ready. Verses a expensive process to mine thorium and produce reactor ready thorium.
More info if you want it. Traveling wave are safer because they are cooled with metal rather than water which builds up pressure when overheated. Because in TWR fuel is very hot it is less dense. If it starts overheating it expands more reducing critical mas slowing the reaction substantially. Almost totally eliminating chance of overrun and melt down. Nothing is Zero but Traveling waves chance of of melt down is several orders of magnitude less than traditional reactors. To pull more power you cool the liquid metal by converting more water to steam creating more steam for generators. The cooling causes temps to drop concentrating fuel which raises the reaction. You start the reaction using a traditional Nuclear reaction with enriched Uranium then never shut down. Traveling waves usually are not refueled. They are loaded with enough fuel to last for 50 to 100 years at time of construction. The reaction moves through the fuel as a Wave. When fuel is done you walk away for about a 100 years then disassemble the plant. TW creates nothing with high radioactive long life's. The travelling wave is an offshoot of The US fast breeder reactors
A Solution to the Nuclear Waste Problem - TerraPowerBreeder reactor - WikipediaNote breeder reactors make more highly radio active fuel for bombs and some reactor rods. Though the principles are the same Traveling wave does the opisit. Its about fuel used and dispersing electrons vs concentrating them. Most countries that have N bombs have breeder reactors to day. The fuel in Bombs decays rapidly to keep a bomb at full capacity it has to have its fuel recycled fairly often. Which is why countries need so much bomb grade fuel even while reducing their inventory of actual bombs. Recycling periods is a closely held secrete by all countries with bombs. Finding a very old bomb and detonating it is great for drama movies but it is not reality. The explosives would explode and very deadly fuel would be dispersed and that would kill many people but unlikely to have a big boom. All depends on type and how old.
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