Carlo Rubbia went on to other things:

Carlo Rubbia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rubbia's research activities are presently concentrated on the problem of energy supply for the future, with particular focus on the development of new technologies for renewable energy sources. During his term as President of ENEA (1999-2005) he has developed a novel method for concentrating solar power at high temperatures for energy production, known as the Archimede Project, which is presently being developed by industry for commercial use.

Carlo Rubbia is currently principal Scientific Adviser of CIEMAT (Spain), a member of the high-level Advisory Group on Climate Change set up by EU's President Barroso in 2007, and of the Board of Trustees at the IMDEA Energy Institute. Since March 2009 he is Special Adviser for Energy to the Secretary General of ECLAC, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, based in Santiago (Chile). In June 2010 Carlo Rubbia has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam (Germany).

Asteroid 8398 Rubbia is named in his honor.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

For the nuclear industry, Gen IV reactors, like breeders before them, are the same kind of greenwashing technology as CCS is for coal power: it's okay to construct polluters today if the public (or at least its elected officials) can be made to believe that it all can be cleaned up tomorrow. Thus the maturing of the technology is not necessary.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

4th Gen is not a technology so much as an effort to select candidate technologies and push their development forward.

The most general problem with the various Thorium fuel cycles in particular is that they are pretty much useless for making nuclear weapons, and because they were only useful for energy production, they did not attract attention from those aiming to use nuclear power production as a rationalization for spending on nuclear weapons technologies.

Now, from some perspectives, that disadvantage is an advantage.

The proliferation question raised in the post seems a bit off:

The energy amplifier would produce very little plutonium, so the design is believed to be more proliferation-resistant than conventional nuclear power (although the question of uranium-233 as nuclear weapon material must be assessed carefully).

In the Thorium fuel cycles, a certain portion of Uranium 232 is produced, which cannot be chemically separated from Uranium 233, but which is highly radioactive and so easier to detect in transit than U233.

As far as this:

Each reactor needs its own facility (particle accelerator) to generate the high energy proton beam, which is very costly.

... I am not sure that this applies to a molten salt thermal thorium reactor. This appears to be a different technology.

The big problem is that the proposed molten thorium trials all seem to involve 20 year time horizons, so they are more promising as paths to process long lived transuranium nuclear wastes than as options as a medium term stopgap to fill any supposed "energy gaps" in the shift to an all-renewable energy system.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

I have no idea how representative this site is of the technology itself, but this site claims to be authoritative on the technology, perhaps deserving of review and comment. But i haven't researched the site.

The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project

In order to re-start nuclear power, it is best if we have a solution that overcomes as many public objections as possible: safety, waste, cost, and proliferation. The IFR is a vast improvement in all of these areas. Key features of the IFR include:

Inherently safe: it is safer than LWR reactors because it passively shuts itself down if something goes wrong: no computers or valves are involved. This was proven in tests where the coolant flow was shut off and the reactor shut itself down without operator intervention or the intervention of any active or passive safety devices. The basic design and safety performance was reviewed by the NRC. In January 1994, the NRC issued a pre-application safety evaluation report which concluded that no objections or impediments to licensing the IFR design have been identified.

Produces no long-lived waste: It produces virtually zero long-lived nuclear waste. All of the long-lived waste is recycled in the reactor and used for fuel. Only the short-lived radioactive waste remains and that is only dangerous for a few hundred years and we know how to solve that problem.

Uses existing nuclear waste for fuel: It uses existing waste (from bombs and nuclear reactors) as fuel so it solves the "what do we do with all that nuclear waste" problem. All of that waste is burned to produce energy. No long-lived waste remains.

Fast nuclear is an inexhaustible energy resource: Unlike with LWRs, with fast reactors you will never run out of cheap fuel. Fast reactors are over 100 times more fuel efficient than today's light water reactors. Enough to power our planet for billions of years.

Proliferation resistant: The IFR recycling process cannot separate out pure Plutonium so it does not create an easier path for a terrorist to make a bomb. It creates a path where it is almost impossible to make a bomb. If we choose not to promote this technology, the world will standardize on a much more dangerous recycling process where is it is much easier to make a bomb. By switching to fast reactors, we eliminate the need for enrichment which is the big proliferation risk today.

Low cost: It is potentially less expensive than today's nuclear reactors (assuming you can get down the manufacturing cost curve) because most of the key pieces are built in factories and shipped to the site rather than built on-site.

High reliability: Our own EBR-II ran for 30 years with incident before being shut down for political reasons in 1994. The Russian fast reactor (BN-600) which has been producing electricity commercially for more than 30 years has been among their most reliable reactors in their fleet. The Chinese recently ordered two fast reactors from the Russians.

The NRC has pre-approved the design: In January 1994, the NRC issued a pre-application safety evaluation report which concluded that no objections or impediments to licensing the IFR design have been identified.

Objective analysis confirms it is the world's best Gen IV reactor design: Although there are other reactor designs such as the LFTR that might appear to be promising, the IFR was rated #1 in a multi-year comparative study done by the Gen IV International Forum. It has the support of Hans Bethe, over 1,500 scientists from ANL, support from the scientists who have the most hands-on experience with fast reactors, support from former top nuclear management at DOE, and so on. GE has a commercial design that has been pre-certified; they are ready to submit to NRC certification and build. We have three decades of operational experience with it and most of the hard problems have been solved. If you only have money to build one fast reactor, this is clearly your best choice. Nothing else is even close.

Support from the National Academy of Sciences: The National Resource Council committee sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that liquid metal fast reactors (such as the IFR) should have highest priority for long-term nuclear technology development..

We've already committed to work with France and Japan on the development of prototype/demonstration Sodium Cooled Fast Reactors (which includes the IFR). We just signed a Joint Statement of Trilateral Cooperation on the IFR technology on October 4, 2010. The other countries will build it; the US will continue research for 30 years and build nothing, giving those other countries a 30 year head-start on technology we invented.

Better than a Thorium reactor, but no comment regarding the under-funded Wotanium reactor project. Hammer.

Then comes this:

To control climate change, we must get rid of virtually all carbon emissions from coal. To do that, we need a way to generate power for a cost less than coal, that can generate power reliably 24x7, and that can be constructed virtually anywhere. Solar and wind don't meet the need; that is why even environmentally progressive countries such as Germany are still building coal plants.

Ignoring the point that Germany might be building a coal plant in subservience to ancient powers in spite of its focus on wind and solar, i'm all for cheaper than coal 24/7 cutting edge technology, except that this civilization shows no signs of being capable of dealing with what it unleashes.

In any case, i'm wondering just what technical hurdles are needed to be overcome, especially in comparison to rotor blades not being strong enough to handle wind gusts, or gear teeth not meshing correctly.

I am looking to be enlightened on the values of this technology, and am prepared to embrace it when come concerns are addressed.

Oh Wait! Now they're debating my old friend Amory Lovins HERE.  Perhaps i should find out what the renewable physicist himself says, but not tonight.

Being an Occam's Razor Voluntary Simplicity Type i find this fascinating:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

It seems to me you are conflating in the same article several different technologies in different stages of development. Thorium is already used in what I believe are different fission cycles in India and the US.

The particular design you mention, the Rubia Reactor or Spallator, has a lot of objections to it but all theoretical. Personally the greatest question mark I see is what may happen to the molten lead coolant if you are forced to a shutdown; this probably destroys the reactor. In any event something I say would be worth researching, but the money was never there.

What I see as one of the most elegant designs is the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) which is also sub-critical and theoretically can consume all sorts of waste generated by existing pressure reactors. This design came about in the US in 1960s and the decision not to pursue it was purely political. Luckily in recent years the Chinese have become very interested and seem ready to build a fleet on this design.

If you have 2 hours for some optimism:

luis_de_sousa@mastodon.social

As I see it, the most interesting part is the ability to consume plutonium in a safe way. And of substituting other longer life residues by short life ones. If it can produce some energy, it should be seen as a subproduct, not the purpose. For energy we should concentrate on renewables.

res humà m'és aliè

India plans 'safer' nuclear plant powered by thorium | Environment | The Guardian

In a rare interview, Ratan Kumar Sinha, the director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, told the Guardian that his team is finalising the site for construction of the new large-scale experimental reactor, while at the same time conducting "confirmatory tests" on the design.

"The basic physics and engineering of the thorium-fuelled Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) are in place, and the design is ready," said Sinha.

Once the six-month search for a site is completed - probably next to an existing nuclear power plant - it will take another 18 months to obtain regulatory and environmental impact clearances before building work on the site can begin.

"Construction of the AHWR will begin after that, and it would take another six years for the reactor to become operational," Sinha added, meaning that if all goes to plan, the reactor could be operational by the end of the decade. The reactor is designed to generate 300MW of electricity - about a quarter of the output of a typical new nuclear plant in the west.

A 300 MW prototype plant in 2020 which is not even liquid salt? I won't hold my breath.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

are not as far away as fusion, but they are in no way to be considered mature. They are, at best, at the prototype stage, where they have been for the last 60 years. Reason being that the technology (especially materials wise) is really hard. The concepts being looked upon today are more or less the same ones worked on in the 50's. The other reasons is that the real impetus for generation IV reactors never came from dealing with waste (which can be dealt with in other ways, i.e. deep repository) or cost (ordinary light water reactors fill this niche very well), but from a fear of uranium scarcity, When it was understood that uranium reserves (and especially resources) were vast and the anticipated mass expansion of nuclear didn't materialize, the entire impetus for breeders (gen IV) disappeared.

The Bush II administation breathed life back into nuclear research which had recieved savage cuts under Clinton (dash for gas), probably because doing that involved much less costs and efforts than actually builing new conventional reactors.

The bottom line is that nuclear today and within any kind of foreseeable future means generation III+ reactors, which are improved LWR's. The same kind of reactors that we already have, except better. Examples of these are Areva's EPR, Mitsubishi's APWR, GE-Hitachi's ESBWR and Toshiba-Westinghouse's AP1000.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

Thing is, a lot of these designs are much closer to deployment than they look - for example, the materials science of a low temperature molten salt reactor is entirely a solved problem - if you aim to run it at 4-500 degrees known and proven nuclear steels are just fine, and there is essentially no research left to do other than "Build a FOAK prototype towards commercial deployment". Which is a 4-5 billion euros project, and nobody in nuclear energy research has that kind of budget other than ITER. So instead you get 20 year research timelines where material engineers try to put together alloys that can hold up against neutron bombardment and operating temperatures of 900-1000 degrees. And stick those alloys into conventional research reactors and other esoterica aiming at building a technically sweet reactor.. in 30 years.  Because alloy research and computer simulations of theoretical high-temperature reactor designs can be done on a much smaller budget, you can demonstrate progress, publish and so on.
This doesnt mean that a fourth generation design couldnt be tested and deployed in < a decade. Because that could be done - it just means it would take a serious budget and political will enough to dictate that features that would be nice but are not essential for electricity production can take a hike, and that concrete is going to get poured and steel bent.
Which would probably meet quite considerable resistance from both black and green interest groups.

- as passively safe low waste reactor design which was honestly cheaper than coal would kill the entire economic rationale of coal, gas and green energy technologies stone dead.

The very high temperatures are intended for thermolysis of hydrogen. Not really a priority, because the hydrogen economy is certainly going to loose out to improved battery tech, and not really the brightest idea ever to begin with anyway. - you really want reactors who dedicate their entire primary energyout put to thermolysis of hydrogen on site? Because that can go boom.