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To quote Jancovici:

Anyhow we can shift to surgenerators and use Uranium 238 or Thorium 232 (which are available in quantities that could last us thousands of years).

(cf. Superphénix, which was abandoned due to countless minor technical flaws, led mass opinion to accept that surgeneration was impossible ... people have forgetten that Superpéhix was only a prototype, which actually produced electricity for years before being shut down, not the least because the Greens came to power with the Socialists and said "schtoppen zi").

by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 10:01:13 AM EST
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(as this thread is about the peak of Uranium 235)
by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 10:02:11 AM EST
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No, there were some rather major technical flaws, yes it was a prototype but intended for production and so unreliable that in the end it was "saved" as research plant, but the actual grant of operation permit was illicit and quashed in court, and that before the new government came into power. The new government can be lauded to not try to upturn that decision again and sink more billions into the ground.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 10:05:59 AM EST
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Superphénix's cost ended up becoming higher than expected because of the months and months of being in a stopped state (stopped so that every precaution could be checked over and over again after some flaw was found, of course, but also often stopped because of administrative & politic turmoil. it was turned off during 3/4 of its lifetime).

It was more of a slander victim if you ask me than a failure.

by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 10:30:35 AM EST
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How does the second paragraph follow from the first?

And how come another breakdown followed those according to you over-careful checks? IIRC there have been four major and three moderate breakdowns, the first major already during the initial runup. If anything, this points not to a slander victim but a failure maintained against all reason for too long.

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

by DoDo on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 12:33:39 PM EST
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The 2nd paragraph is a general conclusion on Superphénix, which you will have to agree with as soon as I turn on my hypnotic voice.
by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 01:14:31 PM EST
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I believe in breeders, yet I cannot defend superphenix as anything else than a good lesson as to "bad design choices for breeders". I would gladly have a nuclear plant in my back yard, but certainly not one with hundreds of tons of liquid sodium !! All breeders based on sodium cooling (including IFR, whatever the promises of waste elimination it holds) are nuts, that's my deepest feeling.

We need to do research into thorium breeding, which doesn't require sodium cooling, or otherwise separate the breeding from the electricity production: if breeding plutonium, don't try recover the heat with such a calamitous fluid.

Pierre
by Pierre on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 10:39:10 AM EST
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