"Fission-Fusion Reactor Company Has Plans for Clean Power" Topic

Interesting development on the nuclear power front. This is also a technological approach I had never read about before:

link

If they work, build 'em and turn 'em on; the sooner, the better. The future needs power.

So they have 'a secret way' to make this work? Wow, where have we heard that before? I'll believe it when it happens. OTOH, I AM all in favor of more nuclear power. It's a proven technology and the risks are highly overblown. Waste disposal is a political problem not a technical one.

From the link:

Apollo's website claims that its reactors will be cheaper to build and operate than standard reactors, and that they will come in a large variety of sizes. It's difficult to see how this would be possible, and Apollo is understandably tight-lipped about the details……

I'm with Scott. Heard that all before. But build it (on Cassidy's dime) and we'll see.

So they have 'a secret way' to make this work? Wow, where have we heard that before? I'll believe it when it happens. OTOH, I AM all in favor of more nuclear power. It's a proven technology and the risks are highly overblown. Waste disposal is a political problem, not a technical one.

It is if you are stupid enough to build reactors on tsunami/earthquake zones.

Fukushima is a total cluster to this day.
I have no problems with modern well-run nuclear power plants in the middle of France or Germany, those are geographically stable and don't get much extreme weather.

But most of the world is not like that, And given the predicted rise in sea levels lots of the currently planed reactors will be under water with in 50-100 years.

Sounds like it needs a Kickstarter to me!
I'm in for a few bucks.

Fukushima is a total cluster Bleeped text to this day.

But to be fair, that was a traditional fission reactor. As was Chernobyl. All reactors need proper over sight.

Sounds like it needs a Kickstarter to me!
I'm in for a few bucks.

Lol.

Even then, Chernobyl was a graphite moderated breeder reactor. Electrical production was secondary to producing weapons grade plutonium, and a proper containment vessel would have spoiled the crop, even if it would have contained the fallout like Three Mile Island.

One more to add to the pile of "It will work, thirty years from any date you care to name."

Point of order: The Fukushima reactor was from an early 1970's GE design which has long since been heavily upgraded because of the very potential for problems as occurred at Fukushima. In fact, NO ONE builds Fukushima type reactors these days (or has in decades), and the company had been repeatedly warned that the design was outdated, dangerous, and needed an upgrade to correct the flaws— an upgrade which if done, would have not suffered the meltdown that occurred. (I believe I am correct that there are no other non-upgraded Fukushima-style reactors remaining anywhere in the Western world, and possibly not anywhere else, but I don't know this for certain.

And of, course, nobody (outside of certain totalitarian nutjobs, probably) builds Chernobyl style reactors either, and certainly not in the West. That disaster was brought to you courtesy of the wonderful standard of quality, safety, and environmental concern that marked the Glorious Worker's Paradise of the Soviet Union. *Cough*.

I'm perfectly capable of believing that an effective engineering solution has been found for the fusion-fission reactor. Just because it's secret (well, it *would* be, wouldn't it), doesn't mean it's not real. Industrial secrets are quite common after all, and understandably so. Heck, try getting Apple to tell you what's going in their next phone!

So I won't go as far as not believing this is real. I'm not a nuclear engineer, though perhaps there is one here. Yah never know!

So I won't go as far as not believing this is real.

I would like to believe that is true also. Cassidy should build a small hybrid reactor and show us.

Fission, fusion. Tomayto, tomahto.

Dan

Martin from Canada Wrote:
"Even then, Chernobyl was a graphite moderated breeder reactor. Electrical production was secondary to producing weapons grade plutonium, and a proper containment vessel would have spoiled the crop, even if it would have contained the fallout like Three Mile Island."

The major problem with Chernobyl was they turned off all of the safeties which allowed the accident to happen. My brother has been involved with the decommissioning of the same design of reactor in the Baltic States joining the EU, and their replacement by modern reactors. He is of the opinion that they are being replaced way too early because of the Chernobyl inspired paranoia, and probably have another 20 years of safe operation in them which would save billions that don't need to be spent just now.

On the other hand, Paddy, *not* producing weapons grade plutonium might be enough of a shut down reason in itself that has nothing to do with direct cost. One black market terrorist nuke can ruin your whole day…

Ref: Fukushima

The back up generators were in the basement of reactor building & so got flooded (bleeping clever that).

There was a reactor further up the coast which did not fail. The designer insisted on 12m high tsunami wall, as had checked historical records & the coast would get peroidically hit by 10m Tsumanis.