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apart from cost/benefit thing, one point everyone seems to miss is nuclear waste. Where the nuclear waste will go? And who will make sure that nuclear waste does not get into hands of people who want to use it for wrong purposes.

I don't really give a fuck about reducing costs if there are sodium leak dangers. Or any other leak for that matter. This is stupid, when you consider whole towns are fueling themselves with energy based on wind-power and other totally clean, safe, renewable kinds of energy.

The fact is, safe or not, money went into this. Money has to come out, or a lot of really rich people are going to be really angry. So, they sell it, and they use anything they can to do that -- "interesting articles" and supportive "real" comments on blogs and in forums where those informative articles just happen to be published. Get the geek community behind it, because they can show off how much they know. I'm wary, and I hope you all have your thinking caps on. This is a backward step on the energy front.

I think this idea has great potential. We need to explore more effecient means of power generation and a self-contained reactor that is design to be buried underground sounds like a good option to explore.

Funny thing about this article is that I recently gave an oral presentation on the benefits and affordability of nuclear power. This just further supports my thesis.

Ah yes the Toshiba 4S reactors. I believe that Mitsubishi has a similar, but larger version.
I suppose that there is an inherent risk to any type of nuclear power, although risks need to be realistically assessed. Following information is from http://www.primidi.com/2005/02/06.html

Here are some details about the 4S reactor.

Toshiba calls its design the 4S reactor, for "super-safe, small and simple." It would be installed underground, and in case of cooling system failure, heat would be dissipated through the earth. There are no complicated control rods to move through the core to control the flow of neutrons that sustain the chain reaction; instead, the reactor uses reflector panels around the edge of the core. If the panels are removed, the density of neutrons becomes too low to sustain the chain reaction.

Is this really a Super-Safe nuclear reactor?

The design is described as inherently safe, but it does have one riskier feature: It uses liquid sodium, not water, to draw heat away from the core, so the heat can be used to make steam and then electricity.

Designers chose sodium so they could run the reactor about 200 degrees hotter than most power reactors, but still keep the coolant depressurized. (Water at that temperature would make steam at thousands of pounds of pressure a square inch.) The problem is that if sodium leaks, it burns.

WDChipman posted:

"the molten glass solution and the use of Plasma generators along
with pocket Nuclear systems makes a great deal of sense and produces
a lot less toxic waste than any of the alternatives."
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That is an interesting idea. Would you happen to know of any websites which discuss the nuclear waste glass subsystem theories? This topic has interested me for some time even before this article was posted, being that there is a Fermi II reactor not too far from where I live, relatively speaking. To date, I have only found one site that attempts to explain it in straight forward terms, even though the entire process is extremely complicated. I'm not an engineer, but took quite a few pre-engineering courses in the past, and the following paper talks about it in probably the most straight forward terms which I have found.

The introduction explains the issues with a follow up on the models and calculations which provide a more defined explanation involving thermodynamics and chemical reactions. Apparently, database models have been and are being developed in order to assess the process, but it seems like there is still quite a bit of research to be done before a final conclusion can be made.

Just thought that I would share what I have found regarding the topic......

See link to paper below:

https://www.ms.ornl.gov/researchgroups/SPM/methods/THERMO/PDF/5-mrs...

I agree with you Steel546 this is great energy source but to wasteful and to dangerous to be done this planet. This would be great for space technology because any waste can be shot out towards the nearest star. And would further our space program 10 fold. I mean really when was the last cool thing we did in space a small space station. We should be making it bigger and exploring more of our galaxy to colonizing other planets we have a major problem going on it's called over population it causes disease, famine, war since we can't get along, all I'm saying is I hope the dick heads in charge use this properly and don't screw us over