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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (4566)	1/28/2009 8:49:00 PM
From: enginer	1 Recommendation Respond to of 86356

The South African pebble beds are essentially on hold. The USA effort at MIT...well, look at the dates: web.mit.edu Note that High Temperature Gas-cooled reactors were invented in the US (Wikipedia: "In 1947 Daniels conceived the pebble bed reactor, in which helium rises through fissioning uranium oxide or carbide pebbles and cools them by carrying away heat for power production. The "Daniels' pile" was an early version of the later high-temperature gas-cooled reactor developed further at ORNL, and now being put into production around the world.") The Farrington Daniels pile was essentially sqashed by the Russian-American Admiral Hyman Rickover who didn't have to worry about the big-clunky water cooled reactors used in ships. Most fossil fuels are increasingly high in Carbon:Hydrogen ratio (read : lower-grade) and the potential cheap hydrogen made via pebble bed reactors could save the Canadian natural gas industry. Too much natural gas is used for SWAG and hydrogenation (Upgraders)and a true high temperature reactor would promote the development of water pyrolysis, a less expensive source of H2. China could well fill the niche. Five years ago China proved they could design, build, deliver on time (3 years from approval to srtart-up) and on budget clunky nuclear energy plants for Pakistan. They are now, true to form, buying the best French and Westinghouse-Toshiba reactors to adsorb some up-to-date technology. As an engineer who has worked in China, I can safely say that the best Chinese design and engineering is competitive with our average (Western) any day.