SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Mass-produced floating nuclear reactors use super-safe molten salt fuel
Copenhagen startup Seaborg Technologies has raised an eight-figure sum of Euros to start building a fascinating new type of cheap, portable, flexible and super-safe nuclear reactor. The size of a shipping container, these Compact Molten Salt Reactors will be rapidly mass-manufactured in their thousands, then placed on floating barges to be deployed worldwide – on timelines that will smash paradigms in the energy industry.
[...] [Perhaps] the most impactful change to the business model is Seaborg's proposal to install these reactors on barges, and float them offshore rather than buying up land to develop nuclear power plants. There are several advantages here. For starters, you can manufacture them in bulk at a single facility. Seaborg is looking at Korean shipyards, which are already closely and efficiently connected to supply chains with enormous production capacity.
"If you want us to build not one reactor to start with, but a thousand, we could start by building a thousand," Schönefeldt told Radio Spectrum. "That will take, like, three or four years on these shipyards. So it's basically unroofed in how fast you can scale it."
These barges can be moved just about anywhere on the planet, either moored offshore or on large or small rivers, depending on how big a reactor it is. There's virtually no site preparation required; it's fully self-contained and very easy to connect to a power grid. Seaborg estimates it can service 95 percent of the world's population this way, putting basically no land requirements on a baseload or load-following power station up to a healthy 600 MW, which could supply nearly 100,000 homes.
Some imagineering required.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday June 21 2021, @02:44PM (4 children)
Anyone with plans for a molten salt bom... device ... Also can I get a small one that will just power my compound? It might not be entirely legal tho. But asking for a ehhh ... friend ... right ... yes ...
But one a more serious note. How small can they be? Could you get personal power plants? Or at least plants so small it could say be put into a house or a car or things like that.
(Score: 2) by Sourcery42 on Monday June 21 2021, @05:00PM (1 child)
Found the Texan ;)
Seriously though, it is a good question. Transmission losses are huge. There is a lot of efficiency to be gained in making the power close to where it gets used. Your evil lair...err compound would be much better off that way.
I'm still waiting for Foundation Series technology where everything is powered by a miniaturized fusion reactor. I won't hold my breath.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday June 21 2021, @06:24PM
IIRCC the small reactors in the Foundation series were Fission, not fusion. If your thinking about the bracelet sized shield generator that is.
You can build incredible small fission reactors if you pick the right fuel. The trick is getting the super heavy elements (atomic numbers >110) with long enough half-lives to be useful. No one has managed it yet but some of the predictions put the size of a critical mass at just a few tens of grams (U-235 needs about 1kg ). With that you could have a reactor, or low yield bomb, the size of a cigarette lighter, getting it to produce electricity at that size however is another matter entirely.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday June 21 2021, @05:49PM
House yes, car no. (the reactor would be too big for it, but you could charge your electric car while it's at home.)
You could build a self sustaining reactor core with only a few kilos of fissionable fuel. A MSR big enough to power your home wold be about size of a large refrigerator or small car and would probably not need to be refueled for a decade or more if you picked the core was large enough and used the right fuel chain. I'd recommend Thorium, it is cheap, abundant, doesn't produce much waste, wouldn't need refueling for potentially decades and is less regulated than Uranium so it would be easier to get.
The only real technical problem you would need to deal with would be cooling, not the reactor itself but the steam that drives the turbine /generators. If you have a place you can dump the waste heat and re condense your working fluid your all set. A large pond would be perfect, you could even raise Tilapia [wikipedia.org] in it since they love warm water.
MSRs [wikipedia.org] have some wonderful passive safety features that make them a great choice for home power plants.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by anotherblackhat on Monday June 21 2021, @07:36PM
Not really. You might consider an RTG [wikipedia.org]