On 3/30/2011 3:41 PM, Dave Balderstone wrote:
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This is an interesting idea, if it can be made to work.
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http://intellectualventureslab.com/?page_id=532

Yeah, I've looked at before.

I don't see how they're going to get around the issues of LOCA, etc.,
entirely any more than any other fission reactor--basic thermodynamics
will require a given amount of heat energy from a reactor to produce a
comparable amount of steam to drive the turbines and there's no less
decay heat from a given number of fissions/second spread over some
amorphous blob than there is in a cylindrical fuel rod of the same
number of fissioned nuclei in a conventional reactor design.

I don't see where it really solves the fundamental problems of accidents
or natural disasters however novel the physics.

I don't say there's no chance I'm missing something major here, but I
don't see it. If they're going to generate 1000 MWe, say, they've got
to have something like 3000 MWt from the reactor. What cools it any
differently?

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