Temperature Reactor (AHTR) by Per Peterson Mar 2009 [53 page pdf]
Ending Yucca discussions with 300 times more efficient reactors
The ONLY future that can sustain world nuclear fuel supplies for the 'next generation' are with LFTR and 4th gen (IBR) reactors. NO others should be considered as they would burn up their fuel reserves before the end of their service life.
– The EBR-II fast reactor worked flawlessly for many years (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf98.html 31 years from 1963-1994)
These plants can also get rid of the waste from existing nuclear power plants! And unlike nuclear plants where there is only a finite amount of nuclear material available (I think about 100 years), these plants make their own fuel so they will last 100,000 years. Remember Einstein's famous E=mc2? The point is that if you do it right, a little bit of matter can make a lot of energy.
And would you believe the research was done more than 20 years ago in 1984 by a large group of US scientists at Argonne National Laboratory?
The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is a fourth generation nuclear design that provides a clean, inexhaustible source of power, cheap, with virtually no waste, inherently safe (if you remove the cooling, it shuts down rather than melts down), and the added benefit that it consumes the nuclear waste from other nuclear plants that we can't figure out how to get rid of.
The good news is that DOE is trying to restart IFR with the GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership) initiative. The GNEP, if it is allowed to proceed, will involve a commercial demonstration that will establish the degree of economic competitiveness of the recycling process. General Electric thinks they can build an economically viable system and they already have a complete commercial design completed (S-PRISM). The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project: Q&A.
Also see TOD - On the hazards of ignorance of thermodynamics
