This all may turn into nothing but appears promising.
While you hold out for a 'breakthrough' that may turn into nothing, the market is delivering practical solutions with renewables
now.
A thermal wave reactor is a type of reactor that can use U238. Combined with molten salt technology, a safer and much less expensive nuclear power could possibly be attained.
We need more than just 'possibly', and we need it
now, not at some unspecified time in the future when it will probably be too late.
Traveling wave reactor
Traveling-wave reactors were first proposed in the 1950s and have been studied intermittently. The concept of a reactor that could breed its own fuel inside the reactor core was initially proposed and studied in 1958 by Saveli Feinberg, who called it a "breed-and-burn" reactor. Michael Driscoll published further research on the concept in 1979...
No TWR has yet been constructed, but in 2006, Intellectual Ventures launched a spin-off named TerraPower to model and commercialize a working design...
In September, 2015 TerraPower and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop a TWR. TerraPower plans to build a 600 MWe demonstration Plant, the TWR-P, by 2018–2022 followed by larger commercial plants of 1150 MWe in the late 2020s.
Forgive me for not being enthused, but I have been disappointed too many times by promises of 'breakthroughs' that never eventuated. Even if they do manage to get it working by the target date (which is doubtful given the nuclear industry's track record) in the mean time renewables would have had
another 10 years or so of development
and been making a significantly increasing contribution to reducing Global Warming the whole time.
I'm not saying that TerraPower shouldn't be allowed to continue their experiment, but we shouldn't pin our hopes on it - and we certainly shouldn't be pouring large amounts of taxpayers money into technologies that are still only theoretical, when we have other
real solutions that are already making an impact.
And just in case you think I am only against nuclear, remember this?
Solyndra
The solar panels developed by the company were claimed to be unlike any other product ever tried in the industry. The panels were made of racks of cylindrical tubes (also called tubular solar panels), as opposed to traditional flat panels. Solyndra rolled its CIGS thin films into a cylindrical shape and placed 40 of them in each 1-meter-by-2-meter panel. Solyndra designers thought the cylindrical solar panels absorbed energy from any direction (direct, indirect, and reflected light).
It could be argued that to prevent financial meltdown the government had to inject money into the economy
somewhere, so why not invest in renewables? But choosing to support a
radically different and unproven design was a bad idea. Anyone who knows anything about PV could tell you that Solyndra's design was dodgy, both technically and economically. So the end result was no surprise...
Between 2009 and mid-2011 the price of polysilicon, the key ingredient for most competing technologies, dropped by about 89%. This precipitous drop in the cost of raw materials for Solyndra's competitors rendered CIGS technology incapable of competing
Instead of trying to pick winners, it would have been better if the government had simply provided the industry with the freedom to develop on its own. But instead, what did we get?
U.S. Slaps High Tariffs on Chinese Solar Panels
MAY 17, 2012
The United States on Thursday announced the imposition of antidumping tariffs of more than 31 percent on solar panels from China.
The antidumping decision is among the biggest in American history, covering one of the largest and fastest-growing categories of imports from China, the world’s largest exporter...
“Limiting trade in solar products will cause panel prices to increase, defeating America’s goal of driving down costs,” said Shawn Qu, chief executive of Canadian Solar, which makes panels in several Chinese plants and does brisk business in the United States. “Our first priority should be to support the health of the industry as a whole through the financing and installation of solar, which is the key driver to expanding jobs in the U.S. solar market.”
Economically this was a stupid decision. Even if the Chinese really were 'dumping' solar panels, that was
their loss - not ours. So why not take advantage of it? No prizes for guessing the answer...
SolarWorld Industries America, which led the coalition of manufacturers that filed the solar dumping case, welcomed the department’s ruling.
They were still at it in 2018,
US imposes new anti-dumping duties on Chinese, Taiwanese solar panels
The preliminary tariffs were given after SolarWorld, a German solar manufacturer with operations in the USA, claimed Chinese manufacturers were avoiding paying duties by producing solar cells in Taiwan.
China’s Trina Solar faces the lowest duty of 26.33% for its products, while Rensola/Jinko received a duty of 58.87%.
A list of 42 other Chinese exporters, including Canadian Solar International and Hainan Yingli New Energy Resources, were given a rate of 42.33%. The highest rates, of 165.04%, were reserved for the companies that did not co-operate with the investigation.
And all for nothing...
Solar Panels Are Cheap, Despite Trump Tariffs
When President Trump implemented tariffs on imported solar cells and panels early in 2018, it was intended to drive a manufacturing renaissance in the U.S. and potentially hurt the overseas solar manufacturing industry. But solar manufacturing isn't returning to the U.S., and solar panel prices are actually lower now than when tariffs were implemented
No matter what the technology, simply giving the industry room to grow is usually more productive than trying to force it down a particular path. Monocrystalline solar panels were once very expensive, now they are
cheaper than coal. This wasn't caused by any 'breakthroughs', just the result expected from incremental development of a proven technology.
