Thorium energy alliance conference & Polywell
Thorium energy alliance conference & Polywell
I'm attending the TEAC and today one of the first papers was related to using Polywells (and IECs) as a neutron source for sub-critical reactors. When I obtain the presentation I will provide a link to the paper.
Here's the talk from Gordon McDowell's YouTube page:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TCm0jW5Bjdg
I'd be interested in hearing how this was received by the thorium community. The accelator driven system talk posted had a few questions to the speaker at the end. Most seemed skeptical of the additional complication of an external neutron source interfacing with a fission reactor. The speakers answer seemed to come down to: accelerators are more politically viable, so piggybacking a thorium reactor on an accelerator project might be a way to funnel money to development of a thorium reactor. I can see the logic in that, I guess, but I wonder in being a small fish in a big pond would mean that the development would get postponed due to the timescales for building the accelerator. That said, perhaps a Polywell/Thorium collaboration would be a better match.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TCm0jW5Bjdg
I'd be interested in hearing how this was received by the thorium community. The accelator driven system talk posted had a few questions to the speaker at the end. Most seemed skeptical of the additional complication of an external neutron source interfacing with a fission reactor. The speakers answer seemed to come down to: accelerators are more politically viable, so piggybacking a thorium reactor on an accelerator project might be a way to funnel money to development of a thorium reactor. I can see the logic in that, I guess, but I wonder in being a small fish in a big pond would mean that the development would get postponed due to the timescales for building the accelerator. That said, perhaps a Polywell/Thorium collaboration would be a better match.