Comments on: Integral Fast Reactor technology

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:09:46 +0000

Fair enough Boris. But I think Stanford meant what I said, i.e. he was talking about the reactor housing and saying that sodium doesn’t corrode the steel ‘tub’, unlike is the case with the water coolant/moderator in LWR.

By: Boris Legradic

Boris Legradic — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:51:20 +0000

True – and I wasn’t criticising your comment, but rather the statement “Also, sodium is not corrosive like water is.” from the post itself.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:23:06 +0000

I never said sodium wasn’t corrosive, I said it didn’t corrode stainless steel, as was amply demonstrated in the EBR-II experimental reactor at Argonne. Are you claiming otherwise?

Superphenix was an early learning-by-doing Fast Breeder reactor. You neglected to mention that the corrosion problems encountered at this reactor were rectified, and it subsequently reached 90% of the nominal 1.2GW power output.

By: Boris Legradic

Boris Legradic — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:25:38 +0000

Sodium is not corrosive??
One of the main problems with the French fast breeder Superphénix was that the liquid sodium was so goddamn reactive that it kept eating through the cooling system. It got so bad that the availability was down to between 0 and 30%, and the reactor was eventually shut down.

Not corrosive indeed.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:25:23 +0000

Thanks for the link – I have also posted a review of Prescription for the Planet on my site now, which is now available for purchase on Amazon (i.e. no longer ‘upcoming’).

Re: “There is a downside as well: sodium burns in air and reacts with water.”

True, but sodium doesn’t react with stainless steel (the coolant housing), and it is topped with an inert argon layer (the coolant exchange room can also be filled with argon) – this makes it impossible for the sodium to burn. Also, sodium only burns explosively when atomised, which would not be the case here.