scholarly journals Molten Salt Reactors

Author(s):  
Thomas Dolan

Nuclear power is advancing slowly because of public concerns about nuclear accidents, radioactive waste, fuel supply, cost, and nuclear proliferation. The development of molten salt reactors could alleviate most of these concerns and prevent water-cooled reactor accidents like those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The purpose of this article is to provide information about the potential advantages and problems of molten salt reactors.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Dolan

Nuclear power is advancing slowly because of public concerns about nuclear accidents, radioactive waste, fuel supply, cost, and nuclear proliferation. The development of molten salt reactors could alleviate most of these concerns and prevent water-cooled reactor accidents like those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The purpose of this article is to provide information about the potential advantages and problems of molten salt reactors.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Dolan

<p><br></p> <div> <table> <tr> <td> <p>Molten Salt Reactors</p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <br> <div> <table> <tr> <td> <p>© Thomas J. Dolan, Member, IEEE 2021</p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <br> <p><i>Abstract</i>— Nuclear power is advancing slowly because of public concerns about nuclear accidents, radioactive waste, fuel supply, cost, and nuclear proliferation. The development of molten salt reactors could alleviate most of these concerns and prevent water-cooled reactor accidents like those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The purpose of this article is to provide information about the potential advantages and problems of molten salt reactors. The coolants could be either <i>fluorides</i> or <i>chlorides</i>, operated above their melting temperatures, to avoid solidification, and well below their boiling temperatures, to prevent evaporation losses. “Fast” reactors use energetic fission neutrons, while “thermal” reactors use graphite to slow the neutrons down to thermal energies. We describe four reactor types: solid fuel thermal, liquid fuel thermal, liquid fuel fast, and “stable salt” fast reactors (liquid fuel in tubes). We discuss load following, reactor design projects, and development problems. Liquid fuel reactors will require a chemical processing plant to adjust fissile fuel inventory, fission products, actinides, and corrosivity in a hot, highly-radioactive environment. </p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Dolan

<p><br></p> <div> <table> <tr> <td> <p>Molten Salt Reactors</p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <br> <div> <table> <tr> <td> <p>© Thomas J. Dolan, Member, IEEE 2021</p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <br> <p><i>Abstract</i>— Nuclear power is advancing slowly because of public concerns about nuclear accidents, radioactive waste, fuel supply, cost, and nuclear proliferation. The development of molten salt reactors could alleviate most of these concerns and prevent water-cooled reactor accidents like those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The purpose of this article is to provide information about the potential advantages and problems of molten salt reactors. The coolants could be either <i>fluorides</i> or <i>chlorides</i>, operated above their melting temperatures, to avoid solidification, and well below their boiling temperatures, to prevent evaporation losses. “Fast” reactors use energetic fission neutrons, while “thermal” reactors use graphite to slow the neutrons down to thermal energies. We describe four reactor types: solid fuel thermal, liquid fuel thermal, liquid fuel fast, and “stable salt” fast reactors (liquid fuel in tubes). We discuss load following, reactor design projects, and development problems. Liquid fuel reactors will require a chemical processing plant to adjust fissile fuel inventory, fission products, actinides, and corrosivity in a hot, highly-radioactive environment. </p>


Author(s):  
Tatiana Grebennikova ◽  
Abbie N Jones ◽  
Clint Alan Sharrad

Irradiated graphite waste management is one of the major challenges of nuclear power-plant decommissioning throughout the world and significantly in the UK, France and Russia where over 85 reactors employed...


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-71
Author(s):  
Nobuo Kazashi ◽  

This reflective essay brings to light the career and thought of nuclear chemist Jinzaburo Takagi (1938–2000), who devoted his whole career to the critique of nuclear power generation and the promotion of citizen-centered science. Looking at his life history, one recognizes some clear turning points. However, Takagi’s true engagement with the nuclear question began when he came face-to-face with the ubiquitous contamination of the earth by human-made radiation. It was a deep, revelatory astonishment that shook Takagi into radical questioning of his vocation as a scientist. It was, so to speak, an experience of “thaumazein at the nuclear anthropocene,” involving his whole person as a human being. In 1975 Takagi co-founded Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo, and he became a catalytic “citizen scientist” in the anti-nuclear power movements through his nation-wide and international activities spanning over a quarter-century. Takagi was a prolific and engaged writer, and he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1997. Soon after, however, he was diagnosed with a variety of last-stage cancers. He penned books entitled To Live as a Citizen-Scientist, Liberation from Nuclear Power: Nine Spells that Would Annihilate Japan, and Why Are Nuclear Accidents Repeated? These books would be read widely, though quite belatedly and with deep regret, after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. This essay is a look at the warning messages Takagi emphasized in the books he left as his testaments not to repeat the disaster.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Zou ◽  
Shuliang Zou ◽  
Changming Niu

An emergency evacuation route is an important component of emergency rescue of for nuclear accidents. A reasonable evacuation route can reduce evacuation times and protect people’s life. The evacuation route of the nuclear power plant is abstracted into a network diagram and a mathematical model of evacuation optimization route based on the graph theory and the parity of spot diagram method in this paper. Road traffic capacity and other external factors that may affect emergency evacuation are considered in the time weight factor for each road. Finally, an example is given to verify the feasibility of the model.


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