Talk:Fast neutron reactor
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[edit] Uranium and natural uranium
natural uranium is a curious (proto)link. I guess it should be uranium. Laurel Bush 14:41, 19 September 2005 (UTC).
[edit] Removed text
(Monju is) the only FBR power station still operating in 2004
Not true... Phénix still produces power, and Monju is currently offline (but expected to return). And it's of doubtful interest anyway... China and India are both committed to comissioning FBRs, so there will be three nations running full-scale FBR power stations... all in Asia. Korea is also spending considerable amounts of money on design, they may not build one as their PWRs and CANDUs are seen as better export prospects for the moment, but they will be in there bidding for anyone else who wants to build a full scale prototype (the USA is my guess...). Andrewa 17:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Other articles
I'm not quite sure what to do about the overlap between this article and the separate articles at LMFBR and FBR.
Probably LMFBR should simply redirect to FBR. The only FBRs so far built or proposed are LMFBRs, and there's reason to think that this will always be the case.
- Wrong! My goof. There's a generation IV reactor proposal that's fast and gas-cooled. Andrewa 16:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, there are reactors such as EBR-II that aren't normally called FBRs although they do meet some definitions. So FBR or LMFBR could be seen as the power reactor class, while Fast (neutron) reactor is more general. Lead-cooled submarine powerplants aren't (LM)FBRs either in this sense, any more than Chernobyl #4 was a BWR just because it was cooled by boiling water.
In any case there's lots of cleaning up to do! Andrewa 18:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I have redirected LMFBR to fast breeder, as a start. On reflection there was nothing to merge.
We now have two articles, fast breeder and fast neutron reactor, which is probably right, but both need work, and fast breeder should probably be moved to fast breeder reactor, not the other way around as now. Andrewa 19:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] moving its USP to the top of the article
Logically, I don't see that "Because absorption in the moderator is a major loss of neutrons in a thermal reactor, a fast reactor has an inherently superior neutron economy; that is, there are excess neutrons not required to sustain the chain reaction. These neutrons can be used to produce extra fuel, as in the fast breeder reactor, or to transmute long-halflife waste to less troublesome isotopes (see Phénix) or some can be used for each purpose." actually belonged under "nuclear fuel", and coming to this article whcih is the only one of the group witht ehexplanation of the rasion d'etre or USP of the machine, I think that needs to go near the top, in the first glance. It doesn't seem to make it overlong, and the picture balances the composition nicely on this screen at least. Midgley 22:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] comma missing?
"After the initial fuel charge such a reactor can be refueled by reprocessing adding natural or even depleted uranium with no further enrichment required. This is the concept of the fast breeder reactor or FBR." I can't correct this sentence because I'm not sure what it is saying.--Gbleem 01:59, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
- It does seem a little obscure. On consideration it is accurate - you can refuel a fast breeder by taking the used fuel rod and reprocessing the contents - removing fission poisons leaving Uranium, and Plutonium, and put that back in a new fuel rod. All you need to add to the cycle is U238 - hence natural or even depleted U. The fact that you also take out the rods in the breeder blanket, and they hve Pu in them is separate - one assumes that gets burned in other, perhaps thermal, power plants. I'm not sure that the reference to reprocessing hasn't crept in where it might be better applied to all forms of reactor though, and that it doesn't really depend upon or improve the concepts of the fast reactor. I'm not an engineer or nuclear phsyicist though. Midgley 20:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
That paragraph is bad at the moment, needs rewriting. Midgley (talk) 10:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC) "Nuclear fuel
In practice sustaining a fission chain reaction with fast neutrons means using relatively highly enriched uranium or plutonium. The reason for this is that fissile reactions are favored at thermal energies, since the ratio between the Pu239 fission cross-section U238 absorbtion cross-section is ~100 in a thermal spectrum and 8 in a fast spectrum. Therefore it is impossible to build a fast reactor using only natural uranium fuel. However, it is possible to build a fast reactor that will breed fuel by producing more fissile material than it consumes. After the initial fuel charge such a reactor can be refueled by reprocessing. Fission products can be replaced by adding natural or even depleted uranium with no further enrichment required. This is the concept of the fast breeder reactor or FBR."
[edit] External link to non-free article
The external link to the Scientific American "article" does not actually take one to the full article, but only a teaser for the full article, which must be purchased. As such, does not such and external link constitute a form of marketing? I am not going to say whether this is right or wrong, but would simply like to call the matter into question.-- * daniel * 03:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
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- Half of the articles that I write refer to JSTOR articles -- which are not free either (unless you or your institution already subscribe to the service). The same would probably go about older New York Times articles or many other publications; or for that matter most printed books (where not only do you have to pay the money, but also to shlep to a bookstore to get it... So while it may be desirable to mark the resources that require payment as such, it would seem excessive to ban them altogether Vmenkov 06:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
