Quote:
Originally Posted by vtwinwilly
This!
Molten Salt Thorium Reactors
Technology has be around since the 1950s. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory operated one for roughly 4 years in the 1960s.
97% efficient leaving only 3% nuclear waste, that cannot be weaponized.
China and India are already moving in this direction. When it comes to energy, they’ll be kicking our butts in a few years while we bicker over matters of stunning insignificance like preferred pronouns!
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I have been involved with providing energy that provides freedom to travel and live comfortable for 50 years. My mother's house had a coal furnace because rich people built it. It has been converted to oil because it was cleaner. When I left for the navy, heating oil was 15 cents. Ten years later when I got out of the navy, it was $1.15. A natural gas furnace was installed.
I was talking to sailing friend who is building a new house. Apparently, heating with natural gas is not acceptable anymore.
Here is what I know, providing the energy you need is not an engineering problem. Predicting how much you need and what will be acceptable is.
It is true the MSR have been around since the 50s. Both MSR and light water reactors were considered for navy reactors. LWR for the navy and commercial reactors are what we are using today including China and India.
How do I know. My last job was a at a 1600 MWe LWR in China.
One modern nuke will provide electricity for a million BEV. If it happens it will be in France or South Korea. Not the US!
We have coal, lots of it. We have oil, lots of it.
When we run out, long after we are dust, how we do it? High temperature gas cooled reactors will produce hydrogen for refineries to make synthetic diesel.
Storing electricity in batteries is a terrible idea. Find me another planet to mine minerals and a few space ships, and we can talk about building nukes for large scale BEV production.
The US has locations already approved to double nuclear production. So what are we doing? Renewable energy manufactured with slave labor coal in China
The good news is that there are lots of good solution when our grandchildren need them.