Nuclear power is how you separate the sheep from the goats. Which is to mean if someone or some group claims to be "green" and wants to eliminate carbon emissions and they oppose nuclear power especially generation 3/4 inherently safe plants. Then you know they have a different agenda hiding behind the green movement to conceal their true goals. Be those the elimination of capitalism, the implementation of global socialism or some form of hybrid private sector govt fascist system. True environmentalists support nuclear power as the only large scale way to have 24/7/365 power at a scale that can drive modern standards of living and economic growth period full stop. ANYONE pushing a green agenda that doesn't support nuclear power in a massive scale is hiding agenda for something else.

Hi James,

Since I was born in 1950, I have been around during a considerable amount of the debate on nuclear!

Unfortunately nuclear for peaceful energy and nuclear for weapons were hopelessly confounded from the beginning, and not just by opponents.

The design chosen was largely due to its ease in facilitating nuclear weapons production.

But there is no doubt that had the rest of the world instituted a drive to nuclear on the lines of the French in the 70s, then not only would millions of lives have been saved in avoided deaths from coal mining and its pollutants, but the GW crisis would have been much mitigated.

@Davemart
I really like that salt sequestration concept, and combining it with Lithium mining from salt deposits seems like a potential win-win.

I hope the Seaborg nuclear technology is cost competitive, and suspect past nuclear cost overruns were partly due to political interference paid for by big oil or coal interests.

Hi peskanov.

Have another look at the tech for molten salt, as I would be interested in whether your reservations still hold then.

They are hardly 'huge' as you have characterised them initially, but are small compared to current reactors, to enable their rapid series build.

Putting them on ships means that they can be not only built but deployed rapidly all over the world.

I am not sure where: ' Molten salts explode in contact with water. '
comes from, as to the contrary:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1687850713000101

' 2. Basic characteristics of MSR safety'

****

' 2)The fuel and coolant salts are chemically inert, and no firing or explosive with air or water (as occurred in the Fukushima accident).'

Should an accident occur and the ship sink, they would be stationed in relatively shallow water close to the coast, and the fuel would be a solid mass, with the radioactive elements enclosed in it, nothing remotely approaching the near impossible task of locating and raising nuclear subs, for instance.

As far as I can see, they would be many times as safe as oil and gas terminals, which most certainly in the latter case are explosive!

But I am of course several advanced degrees short of being a nuclear physicist, so your own assessment after you have reviewed the data would be most interesting.

@Davemart,
I have heard about the molten salt "movement" for a few years. I think it's benefits are overblown, compared to more conservative breeder reactors like CANDU, but I don't have major problems with the technology anyway. But not over water, please.

I have checked you link, but I don't think it's very convincing. Molten salt accidents have been common, as these liquids are a bit difficult to tame (corrosive). I reckon these are not as dangerous as NaK, which will catch fire under contact with air.
However I have seen a video of what happens when you throw molten salt to water, and it's very similar to throwing hot slag. A very destructive steam explosion ensues. And if you check out molten slag accidents on water, you will see these are not a joke.

Also, we are talking a liquid which carries the nuclear fuel embedded (unlike common reactors; fuel is solid and contained). An explosion of the full coolant circuit would mean all the active nuclear fuel would become airborne.

The size of the reactor is quite big; they are talking a minimum of 200 MWe, which probably means >500 MWt. Much bigger than nuclear submarine or icebreakers reactors.
The size (200 MWe-800 MWe) is close to land based commercial reactors.

Imho, this is a braindead aproach and the best way to produce and accident that would kill nuclear energy for another decade.
Nuclear reactors belong to land.

Davemart,
no, I don't have any info about fluoride molten salts vs water reaction, sorry.

However, my understanding (which matches the article you linked) is that the usual molten salt/water reaction is not chemical in nature, but just of transference of heat. You get similar effects throwing molten metals into water.

The whatisnuclear web says "no chemical reactivity with air or water"; I can believe that, but I still don't know which kind of reaction we will get from the hundreds to thousands tons of fluoride molten salt with seawater. This is not chemical in nature, ok, but please somebody explain me how will this not produce an immense steam explosion.

I would like to see an study of what would be the possible consequences of a floating nuclear plant colliding with another big ship, or being thrown against the rocks by a big storm, of hit by a missile. Because these things happens. And it does not seem the latest generation of nuclear engineers care too much about these scenarios.