Next Big Future: Hyperion uranium hydride nuclear reactor gets eastern european customer
CaptDMO
· 1 year ago
Soooo.... Low-enriched? How much bang for the buck is involved in such a "sealed-transportable" system? What's the "byproducts-needing-further-attention" profile from cradle to grave? Much like American electric/fuel/communications commodities deemed "must-have", what are the projected add-on expenses to be "determined by others".
Sure, petroleum was a great segue from whale oil, it was less expensive-at first. How much to "lease" one of these bad boys? How much for a "service call"? Who's training the "repairmen"? I don't know that many "qualified engineers" that can wield a four foot wrench for very long. And , of course.....Spare parts? I can just pick up one of those high alloy ISO 9X10(exp)5 wing nuts at Mall Wart, right?
Promises promises.
CaptDMO
· 1 year ago
Sorry, let me introduce myself.... Just another opinionated "yeah,but...." surfer. Wait a second.... -opinionated "however..." surfer. Any blame for my suddenly appearance should be bestowed upon Glenn Reynolds.
They use 4.9% enriched uranium. Fissile fuel burnup of at least 50% should be achievable with adequate design. This about 450 gigawatt days per ton of uranium or thorium. This is about ten times more efficient than current nuclear reactors. There would half as much left over uranium (unburned fuel)
The present invention is based on and takes advantage of the physical properties of a fissile metal hydride, such as uranium hydride, which serves as a combination fuel and moderator. The invention is self-stabilizing and requires no moving mechanical components to control nuclear criticality. In contrast with customary designs, the control of the nuclear activity is achieved through the temperature driven mobility of the hydrogen isotope contained in the hydride. If the core temperature increases above a set point, the hydrogen isotope dissociates from the hydride and escapes out of the core, the moderation drops and the power production decreases. If the temperature drops, the hydrogen isotope is again associated by the fissile metal hydride and the process is reversed.
It's fuel lasts for about 5 years. Other reactors also have re-fueling. In this case, refueling is done by digging up the reactor if needed and then having the manufacturer perform the refueling. In between there are no people operating the reactor because it is self-regulating.
Its parts are basically a hot tub full of uranium hydride with some hydrogen and some heat exchange rods.
The right tub of materials regulates itself while generating electricity
Bill_Woods
· 1 year ago
"They use 4.9% enriched uranium. Fissile fuel burnup of at least 50% should be achievable with adequate design. This about 450 gigawatt days per ton of uranium or thorium. This is about ten times more efficient than current nuclear reactors. There would half as much left over uranium (unburned fuel)"
I'm pretty sure the "50%" is of the fissile U-235 "4.9%", not of all the uranium. That'd yield ~25 GW-d/t of enriched U.
DennisH
· 6 months ago
Are there any sites with in the Continetal United States anticipated by 2013?
Is Hyperion Energy looking for/do they have partners to produce these steam power generators within the Continental United States ? If so , who and where?
Regards,
Dennis Hellige
UncleB
· 6 months ago
Fission-fire brigades, in lead pants, and tunics to the rescue! Who the fuck is going to volunteer for this job! Want the truth? Once lighted, fission-fires cannot be put out! Waste from them kills, lakes rivers water-tables-seashore4s, fields, forests - kills all living things! SEE: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-538400... Then decide if having hundreds of these things buried all over the place is wise! When the farmers of Chernobyl return to farm their fields it will be soon enough to adopt fission power on North America and that isn't happening right away is it? We have to find better ways to produce power from Uranium than we have at the moment, safer, more controllable, and producing less waste products, or less dangerous waste s. In the mean time, the "American Dream" lifestyle we all want so badly must be recognized as an unsustainable advertisement driven propaganda piece, designed to support American manufacturing - which, has, for the most part, moved to Asia anyway!
lvleph
· 5 months ago
@UncleB First of all Chernobyl was a sodium reactor and required human control to maintain reactor criticality. What occurred at Chernobyl was human error. This is the safer way to control nuclear power.
I was a nuclear operator, but I don't support nuclear power, because of the waste. I also don't agree with this being a better more efficient solution. Sure 4.9% enrichment is nice, because you don't have to do a lot of refinement, but 50% yield is not very good. And the refueling cycle of 5yrs sucks. Refueling cycles for naval nuclear reactors, which use water as a moderator and have highly enriched uranium have a refueling cycle of about 30yrs. So at a naval reactor of 80 MW will have 876 GW-days. This is almost twice as much energy density. However, the 4.9% enrichment resulting in half the energy density of almost 18 times the enrichment is impressive. However, from the technical specifications I have read elsewhere the energy density is more like 255 GW-days, which I suppose is still not bad for this level of enrichment. One problem with naval reactors is that they require 4 people to operate them. In fact, it is a bit more, because they need to be monitored also.
It appears that if a crack in the shell were to happen the reactor would shut down due to the escape of the hydrogen neutron reflector, effectively SCRAMming the reactor. It does have a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity, which is very good. This means it is inherently stable; unlike Chernobyl. The only concern about the design I have is the same for any reactor; a primary coolant system can leak, thereby releasing contaminates into the environment. There will still have to be plenty of monitoring and inspections. It definitely can't be just placed somewhere and left like this article makes one think.
Still I don't support nuclear energy production due to waste.
All Comments
Low-enriched?
How much bang for the buck is involved in such a "sealed-transportable" system?
What's the "byproducts-needing-further-attention" profile from cradle to grave?
Much like American electric/fuel/communications commodities deemed "must-have",
what are the projected add-on expenses to be "determined by others".
Sure, petroleum was a great segue from whale oil, it was less expensive-at first.
How much to "lease" one of these bad boys? How much for a "service call"?
Who's training the "repairmen"? I don't know that many "qualified engineers" that can wield
a four foot wrench for very long.
And , of course.....Spare parts?
I can just pick up one of those high alloy ISO 9X10(exp)5 wing nuts at Mall Wart, right?
Promises promises.
Just another opinionated "yeah,but...." surfer.
Wait a second.... -opinionated "however..." surfer.
Any blame for my suddenly appearance should
be bestowed upon Glenn Reynolds.
They use 4.9% enriched uranium.
Fissile fuel burnup of at least 50% should be achievable with adequate design. This about 450 gigawatt days per ton of uranium or thorium.
This is about ten times more efficient than current nuclear reactors. There would half as much left over uranium (unburned fuel)
The present invention is based on and takes advantage of the physical properties of a fissile metal hydride, such as uranium hydride, which serves as a combination fuel and moderator. The invention is self-stabilizing and requires no moving mechanical components to control nuclear criticality. In contrast with customary designs, the control of the nuclear activity is achieved through the temperature driven mobility of the hydrogen isotope contained in the hydride. If the core temperature increases above a set point, the hydrogen isotope dissociates from the hydride and escapes out of the core, the moderation drops and the power production decreases. If the temperature drops, the hydrogen isotope is again associated by the fissile metal hydride and the process is reversed.
It's fuel lasts for about 5 years. Other reactors also have re-fueling. In this case, refueling is done by digging up the reactor if needed and then having the manufacturer perform the refueling. In between there are no people operating the reactor because it is self-regulating.
Its parts are basically a hot tub full of uranium hydride with some hydrogen and some heat exchange rods.
The right tub of materials regulates itself while generating electricity
I'm pretty sure the "50%" is of the fissile U-235 "4.9%", not of all the uranium. That'd yield ~25 GW-d/t of enriched U.
Is Hyperion Energy looking for/do they have partners to produce these steam power generators within the Continental United States ? If so , who and where?
Regards,
Dennis Hellige
First of all Chernobyl was a sodium reactor and required human control to maintain reactor criticality. What occurred at Chernobyl was human error. This is the safer way to control nuclear power.
I was a nuclear operator, but I don't support nuclear power, because of the waste. I also don't agree with this being a better more efficient solution. Sure 4.9% enrichment is nice, because you don't have to do a lot of refinement, but 50% yield is not very good. And the refueling cycle of 5yrs sucks. Refueling cycles for naval nuclear reactors, which use water as a moderator and have highly enriched uranium have a refueling cycle of about 30yrs. So at a naval reactor of 80 MW will have 876 GW-days. This is almost twice as much energy density. However, the 4.9% enrichment resulting in half the energy density of almost 18 times the enrichment is impressive. However, from the technical specifications I have read elsewhere the energy density is more like 255 GW-days, which I suppose is still not bad for this level of enrichment. One problem with naval reactors is that they require 4 people to operate them. In fact, it is a bit more, because they need to be monitored also.
It appears that if a crack in the shell were to happen the reactor would shut down due to the escape of the hydrogen neutron reflector, effectively SCRAMming the reactor. It does have a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity, which is very good. This means it is inherently stable; unlike Chernobyl. The only concern about the design I have is the same for any reactor; a primary coolant system can leak, thereby releasing contaminates into the environment. There will still have to be plenty of monitoring and inspections. It definitely can't be just placed somewhere and left like this article makes one think.
Still I don't support nuclear energy production due to waste.