Latest Nuclear PR Gimmick – reactors floating on the ocean

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What really fascinates me about this proposal is this bit -“the ocean serves as an “infinite heat sink,” which allows for the core to be cooled passively.”Now one current big argument FOR nuclear power, is that it would fight global warming. . Yet anyone who knows anything about global warming would know that heating up of the ocean is one of the major factors in global warming. This floating nuclear proposal is the clearest example yet, of how the nuclear industry CONTRIBUTES to global warming.

MIT Wants to Mass Produce These Floating Nuclear Reactors JORDAN PEARSON 18 April 14, MIT RESEARCHERS WANT TO GO SURFING WITH NUCLEAR POWER. THEY’VE DESIGNED A FLOATING REACTOR THAT PROMISES INCREASED SAFETY—AND THE COST-EFFECTIVENESS AND MASS REPRODUCIBILITY OF FORD’S MODEL-T.

The reactor is essentially built like a floating oil rig, and its designers, MIT professors Jacopo Buongiorno, Michael Golay, and Neil Todreas, promise that it will be able ride out tsunamis, earthquakes, and that meltdowns will be essentially impossible. According to Buongiorno, the ocean serves as an “infinite heat sink,” which allows for the core to be cooled passively……….

If this scheme catches hold, in the future we could see mass-produced nuclear power plants, ranging in size, powering many of America’s coastal cities. For now, however, the design team has their eyes set on Asia, specifically Japan, as an area which has a growing need for power sources that can withstand tsunamis.

Yet floating reactors have an unmistakably ominous quality to them, not unlike the Titanic. Although meltdowns may be “virtually impossible,” they are certainly not impossible, and the big question is what happens if one of these cores goes, well, nuclear.,….The 1970s plan for nuclear energy at sea got about this far, as well, before it was shot down by a slew of environmental, economic, and social concerns. At the time, there was an outcry over the potential environmental impact of a core meltdown at sea. John O’Leary, a Department of Energy secretary, delivered what a staffer called a “grim—even alarming report.” After the Three Mile Island disaster, the curtains had closed on the plan to build reactors at sea. Until now, that is……http://motherboard.vice.com/read/mit-wants-to-mass-produce-these-floating-nuclear-reactors

April 19, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Reference, technology, USA

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[…] Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) Warren Buffett joins the flight of investors away from these new toys, and goes for investment in solar energy. But now there are yet more new nuclear toys – Small Nuclear Reactors floating on the ocean […]

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