[HN Gopher] Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor Proliferation Resistance Wh...
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Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor Proliferation Resistance White Paper 2021
Author : DrNuke
Score : 28 points
Date : 2021-12-28 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gen-4.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gen-4.org)
| baybal2 wrote:
| I would say proliferation resistance is nearly completely
| irrelevant.
|
| There are hundred of weaponizable reactors in not really good
| places of the world. In case of the next big war, nobody will ask
| IAEA for permission to build the nuke.
|
| As some the saying goes, the genie is long out of the bottle.
| brazzy wrote:
| It's not an all-or-nothing issue. Every single reactor that
| produces weapons-grade material _increases the risk_.
|
| Because it's not just state actors you need to be worried
| about. A gun-type fission bomb is simple enough for a well-
| funded terrorist group to construct from scratch - if they can
| obtain enough enriched Uranium.
| philipkglass wrote:
| There are currently no commercial power reactors that use
| highly enriched uranium. A terrorist group that stole a
| trainload of fresh fuel for one of today's power reactors
| would be unable to make a bomb from it.
|
| Fast spectrum reactors require a larger core inventory of
| fuel and higher concentrations of fissile material within the
| fuel. That makes fuel diversion more dangerous with fast
| reactors. Presumably that's why people interested in fast
| reactors are trying to improve their proliferation
| resistance, to bring it in line with what's considered
| acceptable today.
|
| As a side note, purely technical measures cannot render
| reactor designs proliferation-proof against rogue
| _governments_ that might repurpose reactors to make weapons.
| At best you get some warning from breach of anti-
| proliferation measures so other countries know when legal
| /diplomatic countermeasures become warranted.
| akiselev wrote:
| This is short sighted. This isn't about getting the genie back
| into the bottle but about sharing nuclear technology with
| developing countries that we otherwise can't help because
| they'd need a source of enriched uranium and it'd provide them
| with an industrial source of weapons grade radioisotopes.
|
| This is one of the few ways we can shortcut the developing
| world's reliance on fossil fuels while still supplying
| plentiful base load power that can grow with them.
| baybal2 wrote:
| "Developing countries" with an axe to grind on USA already
| have dozens of research, or power reactors. This is my point.
|
| If somebody will bomb your cities with nukes, killing
| millions in the process, you will not need Mariano Grossi, he
| will be useless to USA. You will need capable military
| allies.
|
| So far, the US does everything to turn away any potential
| ally, including by denying them access to powerful weapons,
| with thermonuclear weapons being the biggest one.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> "Developing countries" with an axe to grind on USA
| already have dozens of research, or power reactors
| reactors._
|
| Right. This isn't about them. This is about all the other
| developing countries that don't. This is about making them
| allies by giving them nuclear technology, something that
| the developed world is terrified of doing because of
| nuclear proliferation. That's why proliferation resistance
| is relevant.
| baybal2 wrote:
| If any of them really wanted so, they would've build a
| small clandestine reactor somewhere long time ago.
|
| Nuclear bombs are forties technology. Industrial output
| of forties USA is met by dozens of countries today.
|
| People continuing to advocate for non-proliferation
| cannot believe the that the most basic point of theirs is
| false: from technical viewpoint, from logical, political,
| and military one.
| akiselev wrote:
| Of course they can, but they don't. It's extremely
| expensive and the vast majority of countries can't afford
| the massive upfront cost without nasty consequences. Most
| of the 32 countries with nuclear reactors built them
| using technology from Russia, France, the US, UK, or
| China. China _still_ builds nuclear reactors using
| imported Russian technology because its own industry can
| 't keep up with the demand - the demand for exporting
| Chinese nuclear reactors to countries that US/EU won't
| sell nuclear technology to.
|
| The article we're commenting on is part of the EU and US
| response - they want to sell their reactor technology to
| a bunch of countries to prevent China from getting that
| business and gaining influence, but they want to do it in
| a way that reduces proliferation because the constituents
| that vote for them _care about nuclear proliferation._ It
| 's entry level geopolitics.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > they would've build a small clandestine reactor
| somewhere long time ago.
|
| And have some advanced nation genocide all the relevant
| brains on your country? I would try to lead them in some
| other enterprise, even better if it doesn't have to be
| clandestine.
| pyrale wrote:
| But then, they would have to get fissile material, which
| isn't exactly an open market. It's easy to justify buying
| the material if you have a commercial reactor to feed it
| to, not so much if you don't.
|
| In fact, international inspection mechanisms worked
| pretty well so far.
| pyrale wrote:
| > There are hundred of weaponizable reactors in not really good
| places of the world.
|
| Usually, a reactor is considered a proliferation problem if it
| allows you to produce plutonium easily. Getting radioactive
| material isn't good enough to be a significant security risk,
| because dirty bombs are much more complicated than conventional
| explosives, for an impact that isn't significantly bigger.
|
| So a reactor can be a risk if it lets you get plutonium easily
| (and, specifically, the Pu239 isotope). The other plutonium
| isotopes are not good weapon material, and so you want to be
| able to use a reactor that lets you produce material with as
| much pu239 as possible.
|
| Depending on design, if you can get easy access to the nuclear
| fuel, you can filter it frequently to retrieve the pu239,
| before it has a chance to react with another neutron and become
| one of the bad Pu isotopes.
|
| BWR and PWR reactors are bad for enrichment, because in order
| to access the fuel, you need to stop the reactor and
| depressurize the primary cooling circuit, which takes time. On
| the other hand, if you let the fuel spend a long time in the
| reactor, you end up with spent fuel that has lots of Pu240 and
| Pu241, which sucks.
|
| Other types of reactor, like CANDU, RMBK or UNGG reactors let
| you access the fuel more easily, without shutting down the
| reactor. Therefore, it is easier and quieter to retrieve the
| fuel frequently and get the Pu239 before it has time to react
| again.
|
| That is why some types of reactors are nicer to have if you
| want to build a bomb: they take less time and would raise less
| suspicion from other countries to collect the same amount of
| Pu239. Currently, most commercial reactors in the world use
| BWR/PWR technology.
|
| I think that sums up the gist of what it means to make a
| reactor less proliferation-friendly, and why it's important in
| order to make that technology more friendly to export.
| threeseed wrote:
| I am far more interested in white papers on how nuclear fission
| can be made significantly cheaper. Otherwise advancements in
| design are great but ultimately pointless.
|
| Solar and wind continues to get cheaper and battery technologies
| continue to get better e.g. solid state in the medium term. And
| that makes once crazy ideas like shipping power from Australia to
| Singapore or from Africa to Europe economically feasible.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You mean fusion? Because fast breeder, metal cooled,
| proliferation resistant are some extremely relevant concepts
| for making fission cheaper.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Solar and wind are only cheaper when you don't count the
| adaptation the network needs to make to accommodate them
| (storage or gas plants to deal with intermittency, but also
| regional interconnections, frequency stabilization mechanism,
| the "smart grid" thing, etc). And people usually bring that
| "nuclear doesn't account for the decommissioning cost", as if
| renewable did...
|
| It's the same issue as trucks vs trains: trucks are cheaper
| because they don't pay for the roads at all.
| Retric wrote:
| Nuclear isn't load following either. To get close to 100% you
| need to have vastly more power plants constructed which then
| mostly sit idle, but trying to do that is horrifically
| expensive.
|
| It's actually cheaper and safer to pair Nuclear with
| batteries than it is to have that many idle nuclear power
| plants which makes it directly comparable to wind and solar.
| Unfortunately, in a head to head competition to fill
| batteries, Nuclear simply loses. It would even loses when
| directly compared to solar + batteries in most areas for a
| grid with steady 24/7/365 power demand.
| pyrale wrote:
| > Nuclear isn't load following either.
|
| That's simply not true.
|
| [1]: https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-
| following-npp...
|
| > To get close to 100% you need to have vastly more power
| plants constructed which then mostly sit idle
|
| There's a difference between being forced to build enough
| capacity to provide 100% of your power, and have some idle
| when usage is at the cycle's low point, and not being able
| to load-follow i.e. not being able to adjust within that
| cycle...
|
| > to have that many idle nuclear power plants [which] makes
| it directly comparable to wind and solar.
|
| ...And that's where that difference is important: a
| renewables production system has to install way more
| capacity than what's used on average, because they can't
| control the load factor, not just because they have to
| adapt to consumption cycles.
| Retric wrote:
| You can get a nuclear reactor to quickly adjust power
| output across a wide range just look at nuclear subs. You
| can't however do that _and_ meet close to 100% of annual
| demand by keeping average power output below 50% _and_
| sell electricity at under 25c /kWh without truly
| monumental subsides.
|
| That's why nuclear isn't load following in practice. Sure
| you can build reactors that occasionally dip few a few
| hours each night but something else needs to be covering
| your daily peak demand.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Nuclear isn't load following either. To get close to 100%
| you need to have vastly more power plants constructed which
| then mostly sit idle, but trying to do that is horrifically
| expensive.
|
| You mean France doesn't exist?
| philipkglass wrote:
| France meets its peak electricity demands with fossil
| fuel generation, hydropower, and imports. It doesn't have
| enough nuclear capacity to service annual peak demands
| without fossil power because that would leave expensive
| reactors idle much of the year, as the grandparent post
| said. Throttling down nuclear is not technically
| difficult but the high cost would sink a commercial
| reactor that operates at only 50% of its technically
| achievable capacity factor.
| pas wrote:
| What'd be the best way to have reliable and clean peak
| capacity? Batteries (gravity or chemical)?
|
| So how come large consumers' usage is not shifted to
| smooth out the peak? (Or it's simply not enough or too
| unpractical?)
| pyrale wrote:
| That, however, is an economic decision unrelated to load
| following. Being able to load follow but deciding not to
| build the last plant that would be used 5% of the time is
| not the same as not being able to load follow, and being
| forced to have batteries or alternative production means.
|
| > France meets its peak electricity demands with fossil
| fuel generation, hydropower, and imports.
|
| Hydropower is used for peaks a lot, because France has a
| lot of reversible hydro, but fossil plants and imports
| aren't routinely used for peak use.
| Retric wrote:
| Take a second look at those imports, they only did that
| when nuclear was unable to meat demand which was every
| single weekday.
|
| Exact numbers get tricky as they would export and import
| at the same time due to grid balancing still they needed
| to export ~1/5 of all nuclear power generated at a loss
| and import ~30+tWh just to meet demand. Even then
| utilization tells the story it was in the 70% range where
| the US saw utilization in the 90% range, and again that's
| with exporting at a net loss. Low utilization increased
| prices by about 30% and that's with heavy dependence on
| fossil fuels and a relatively low percentage of nuclear
| consumption in the country. Nuclear simply doesn't scale
| across an electric grid unless you want to more than
| double the price of electricity or provide subsidizes on
| that scale.
|
| In the end France was only really "nuclear powered" the
| way a town sitting next to a nuclear power plant is. In
| terms of actual power consumption not generation they
| where almost evenly split between fossil fuels and
| nuclear during peak demand and only got that close
| because nearby counties had such a low percentage of
| nuclear power. If Germany etc had say 40% nuclear power
| France would have been stuck with utilization in the low
| 50% range _doubling_ cost per kWh.
| DrNuke wrote:
| Gen-IV forum is a worldwide consortium with a long-standing
| effort in making nuclear fission viable for the second half of
| this century. It is less glamorous than fusion but much
| steadier, and at least three of the six Gen IV reactor designs
| under development are now approaching the technical readiness
| level for demonstrators. China and Russia are a bit ahead, to
| be fair, but the European Union is also doing well with their
| sodium and lead fast reactor concepts. This white paper just
| shows they care about more issues than blunt commercial
| viability. Also consider that they cannot rely upon Russian gas
| for much longer, and that the C02 zero emission target for 2050
| is going to be tough, without nuclear (if they put it into the
| incoming tassonomy). United States are more pragmatic, and with
| a dual path: big national laboratories + commercial startups.
| pas wrote:
| Nuclear Power has the same cost problem as public transit
| infrastructure (and healthcare & education for that matter
| too). It's not mass produced, there's no competition, capital
| productivity factor is very low.
|
| But! Uniquely from that group nuclear power can be very easily
| industrialized. Basically if there would be a group that orders
| 100-200 (and of course more) plants ... the unit costs would go
| down dramatically.
|
| As long as each one is a unique little bespoke snowflake, each
| site needs special plans, every pipe and valve and weld and
| button needs loving care and precious human attention ... it's
| going to be expensive.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > how nuclear fission can be made significantly cheaper
|
| Build bigger, more powerful reactors, with faster, or online
| refuelling.
|
| Cost of fuel is completely nothing, even with the most
| inefficient reactors out there.
|
| The cost of doing refuelling is actually more than the cost of
| the fuel being refuelled.
| bell-cot wrote:
| My impression is that dis-economies of scale in fission
| reactors (safety systems, low-volume manufacturing &
| construction, local grid management, etc.) are severe enough
| that neigh-all more-recent proposed designs are for far
| smaller reactors than the older generation (~1GW per
| reactor).
| jabl wrote:
| Small Modular Reactors (SMR) are currently the darlings of
| the nuclear world. They promise cost reduction through mass
| production in factories rather than on site, smaller size
| enabling simpler passive emergency cooling, hypothetically
| simpler licensing through something like type certificates
| used for, say, airliners rather than starting from scratch
| for each reactor, etc etc.
|
| This all sounds promising, and it's certainly worth
| investigating further, however for actual reactors that
| have been built and operated, cost reduction through
| increasing the size has been one of the very few approaches
| that has been empirically demonstrated to work.
| pas wrote:
| The reactors can be small, the plant has to be big to
| have economies of scale, right?
| jabl wrote:
| Sure, even if all the previously mentioned SMR advantages
| would turn out to be true, it would still make sense to
| place multiple SMR's at the same site in order to take
| advantage of common grid connections, security, etc.
|
| IIRC Nuscale is designing for up to 12 of their 60 MW
| reactors in the same plant.
| jcims wrote:
| Lex Fridman had an interview with his dad on his podcast a
| while back. His dad is a plasma physicist and had some
| interesting thoughts on your point here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JipQNWuYnA&t=10217s
|
| In summary, he thinks hot fusion is obviously possible but the
| system is too complex to ever scale. He has an interesting idea
| about doping atoms with muons to increase the overall density
| of the material. I don't know that there's any substance to it,
| but I like his perspective that the ultimate solution will
| likely come out of nowhere by an individual or small team
| that's allowed to pursue wild ideas.
| RBerenguel wrote:
| Note: haven't watched the video (I might). Using muons as
| catalyst is "old news" [0], it didn't seem to work well
| enough in experiments. It was used by Arthur C. Clarke as the
| energy source for the ships in 2061: Odyssey III
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion
| jcims wrote:
| Oh wow! Thank you for this! I clearly didn't understand the
| mechanism that Alexander was discussing, definitely not
| that the change the atom was sufficient for it to
| effectively self-fuse and release the muon afterwards.
|
| So all we need for a Mr Fusion on our Delorean is a
| portable muon gun. :P
|
| Edit: Video from MinutePhysics -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDfB3gnxRhc
| RBerenguel wrote:
| IIRC creating muons is not that hard, but the fusion
| ratio was too small anyway. I still think combining it
| with some weak containment might work... I guess it
| doesn't and this is why it's not worked on anymore
| jcims wrote:
| Yeah I don't know anything at all but it does make me
| wonder if you could use the energy created by the muon-
| catalyzed fusion to push a lower-temp hot plasma into
| fusing over the edge. Almost like hierarchical catalysis
| of fusion.
|
| Again per your observation, if it had any value we would
| do it so i'm missing one to many major things. I just
| enjoy thinking about it.
| baybal2 wrote:
| There is no "ultimate solution"
|
| The biggest point which stood the test of time, and is the
| easiest to validate is that if you build a TOKAMAK big
| enough, it will work.
|
| Plasma instability decreases with the device size, and
| efficiency rises.
|
| Every experiment so far validated this.
| jcims wrote:
| Sure. Definitely wouldn't advocate we stop following that
| path.
| api wrote:
| Interesting. If solar/wind and batteries continue their
| downward price trajectory we may never see commercial hot
| fusion on Earth, not because it's impossible but because it
| could never be economically competitive with the giant free
| gravitational confinement reactor at the center of the solar
| system. Fission and fossil fuels would eventually be eaten
| too, though I think you might still see some use of them in
| regions that are isolated and have very poor solar and wind
| options.
|
| Fusion _would_ be very important in the far future for the
| potential of interstellar probes or even interstellar
| migration. AFAIK it 's the only power source that could
| enable flight at a meaningful (e.g. double digit) fraction of
| the speed of light.
| kleton wrote:
| China has 150 new reactors planned to go online in the next 15
| years. They have a variety of different experimental fission
| plants such as molten salt and high temperature gas (helium) in
| addition to reliable "traditional" third gen reactors. It's a
| question of political will more than engineering at this point.
| pyrale wrote:
| China already has nuclear arms, proliferation isn't really a
| concern about their use of commercial nuke plants.
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