Dismantling a Nuclear Reactor

AmiMoJo sends in a BBC story about the hardware used to decommission a nuclear reactor: "The device cost £20m to design and build and will operate in highly radioactive conditions inside Dounreay's landmark Dome. Its detachable tool bits cost £100,000 each and weigh between 37-93kg. They will cut and grab 977 metal rods once used to 'breed' plutonium from uranium. ... Once in place, the device will operate in highly radioactive conditions and in a nitrogen atmosphere. Nitrogen prevents any residue of the liquid metal from reacting. Exposure to water or oxygen would cause the metal to catch fire. ... Up to three tool bits will be in use at any one time and can be replaced by another three carried in a special tool box without the need to remove the tool itself from the reactor. The rest of the tool bits will be stored above the reactor and would be fitted into place during service and maintenance breaks."

Re:Metal? What Metal?

[lennier]

Long story short: bad nuclear reactor design, should never be done again.

Hi! You must be new here. Let me introduce you to the Slashdot resident "sodium cooled fast breeder reactors are way cool, we should build loads more of them and solve all the world's ecological problems!" contingent.

Re:Metal? What Metal?

[Baloroth]

Oh, don't get me wrong: I do still think FBRs are really cool. While I was reading about this reactor, my inner nerd was going "Holy shit, using NaK as a coolant is awesome and kinda badass!" even while it was also going "Holy shit, using a material that can spontaneously explode in air as coolant for nuclear material is a really bad idea!". Many bad ideas are also really cool. Doesn't mean they aren't still bad ideas. Can't even imagine what would happen if the public found out about it. Or if, God forbid, one of these things actually exploded.

Now, something like a Molten Salt Reactor [wikipedia.org], on the other hand, is both cool and (probably) not a bad idea. And could possibly solve most of the world's ecological problems.

Re:At last!

[Fordiman]

Ehh...
Reprocessing hasn't exactly stood still since the 1970's. And, I mean, it's not easy or anything, but AREVA does it every day.

Now, while I agree that waste reuse (and, of course, avoiding the isotopic mess that comes with natural uranium) and thorium breeding are a good idea to develop, I think you may be a little out of your depth on the subject of "accelerated thorium"; the fission-fusion reaction hasn't even demonstrated the ability to reach 10% break-even from the energy used to accelerate the Th beam, and was largely designed to produce high-neutron isotopes of transition elements. It's not geared for power production.

That's a bit ironic, yeah? I mean you basically said, "Don't pretend [older, difficult magic process] will fix everything, but hey, [new, poorly understood magic process]!"

Re:Learn from the Japanese

[Fordiman]

"The senior engineer on the effort committed suicide after this."

That is truly a shame, and one of the few things I really dislike about Japanese culture.

You don't learn without making mistakes. Epic mistakes deliver epic lessons. Suicide deprives /everyone/ of your experience, and has literally /nothing/ to do with some antique sense of "honor". It's cowardice; you can't stand the embarrassment, so you run away. If the Japanese had any sense in the matter, they'd shame the families of those that have committed suicide, so as to disincentivize that as a solution to shame.

Live through it. You'll be better for it.