Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

[nikkkom]

You wrote that in response to the following statement of facts:

"On the other hand, a LFTR continuously processes the core salt to remove fission products..."

Really? There is a functioning LFTR anywhere? There ever was a functioning LFTR which in fact did salt processing?

It looks like our definitions of what word "fact" means are quite different.

LFTR in this regard is not better than other reactors, because processing of highly radioactive core salt is neither easy nor cheap - roughly on par with cost and difficulty of spent fuel reprocessing for LWRs.

That sounds more like opinion than fact. Processing of solid fuel rods requires shutting down the reactor, physically removing and transporting them to a reprocessing facility.

LWRs today achieve ~90% capacity factor. Looks good enough to me.

There, the rods have to be disassembled, the solid material has to be converted to liquid or gas phase in order to separate fission products and transuranic isotopes from the fissile material. Then, new fuel rods have to be fabricated at great expense, transported back to the reactor, and installed.

Why "at great expense"? Last time I checked, fuel cost is barely 10% of the costs of nuclear-generated electricity.

Processing of molten core salt obviates all the steps of shutdown, removal, transport, disassembly, conversion to liquid or gas phase, fabrication, transport, installation, and reactor startup.

And of course, it doesn't introduce any new difficulties which are not present in LWRs. There's no hot corrosive fluoride salt. There are no short-lived and therefore *extremely* radioactive isotopes like I-131, Cs-134, etc. It's all figment of my imagination.

The reprocessing plant is a piece of cake, any idiot can build one safely. We all know that. Look how Japanese had no problems building one. Look how Americans easily built one. No delays, no budget overruns.

Do you really expect that we are all ignoramuses here?

I get that you don't like the molten salt reactor concept

I'm quite happy with molten salt reactors, I don't like when people push their agenda instead of being honest and balanced.

 

[mheslep]

LFTR in this regard is not better than other reactors, because processing of highly radioactive core salt is neither easy nor cheap - roughly on par with cost and difficulty of spent fuel reprocessing for LWRs.

Processing molten salts to remove fission products may be neither easy or cheap, as you say, but at least it is feasible - with the reactor online so that high burnup also becomes feasible. Online removal of the majority of fission products with solid fuels is not feasible.

 

[mesa]

I am glad to see this thread opened back up, this is a wonderful topic.

Really? There is a functioning LFTR anywhere? There ever was a functioning LFTR which in fact did salt processing?

It looks like our definitions of what word "fact" means are quite different.

Excellent point, so how are you able to draw the following conclusions?

LFTR in this regard is not better than other reactors, because processing of highly radioactive core salt is neither easy nor cheap - roughly on par with cost and difficulty of spent fuel reprocessing for LWRs.

I think this should be broken down and each point of contention gone through point by point until there is some semblance of consensus. There will never be a test reactor built until the leg work is done and for good reason, what if the promises of LFTR are not what they seem? What if they are?

Throwing out conjecture does no one any good, and I am not pointing fingers; I have been guilty of this myself.