Caption: Sodium-cooled fast reactor
From the Mailbag:
Q – LL, you have said that you have a particular interest in molten salt nuclear generators. Would you explain your specific interest?
A – I’ll answer that question here on the blog. There are two types of molten salt reactors. My specific interest is fast-spectrum molten salt reactors (MSRs), though I’m interested in both, even though the reactor designs are radically different. Thermal MSRs require a hard graphite moderator to slow neutrons and use FLiBe salts that flow through the graphite blocks to aid thermal flow. Thermal MSRs are historically proven, more complicated, and their design means the graphite blocks will break down and require replacement. They also require a mechanism to handle Xenon gas. As a result, they have shorter operational lifespans because maintenance issues will crop up.
Fast Spectrum MSRs are less understood because they operate with a free-moderator core (using molten chlorine-37, for example). In a fast-spectrum system, you burn transuranic actinides. All transuranic actinides are unstable and undergo radioactive decay. Most are man-made in nuclear reactors or particle accelerators, though minute traces of neptunium and plutonium occur naturally from uranium ore decay. These fast-spectrum MSRs allow fast neutrons to split heavy isotopes that thermal neutrons cannot; they use depleted uranium, breed plutonium-239, and act as “waste burners” to consume long-lived radioactive waste from legacy solid-fuel nuclear plants. Because Fast Spectrum MSRs are new and experimental, I am especially interested in their development as a way to address the nuclear waste issues people seem concerned about. I say, ‘use Yucca Mountain, NV since we spent billions on that boondoggle’.
Then there are the small modular reactors/generators. NuScale Power’s VOYGR design is the only SMR currently certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Each power module generates 50 to 77 megawatts of clean electricity, allowing flexible scaling depending on grid or industrial needs. The self-contained modular system uses natural physical laws to cool itself without operator action or external power during an emergency.
The VOYGR design uses light water (regular water) as both its coolant and its neutron moderator. It is based on standard pressurized water reactor (PWR) technology, which is proven, tested, and has operated in much larger reactors and generators.
The follow-up question was whether I saw molten salt reactors as viable SMR designs in the future. MSRs operate at or near atmospheric pressure, eliminating the high-pressure risks associated with traditional light-water reactors (see NuScale above). They also employ passive safety mechanisms, such as thermal expansion that naturally slows the reaction when overheating occurs, and freeze-plugs designed to drain liquid fuel into safe containment tanks during an emergency. Because they do not need massive, high-pressure containment vessels, MSR-based SMRs can be designed compactly—some concepts are scaled to fit inside standard shipping containers or on trucks. Liquid fuel enables continuous online processing to remove neutron-absorbing fission products and can use alternative fuel cycles, such as thorium or recycled nuclear waste. I see significant potential for both military and civilian shipping propulsion and operating power.
As I mentioned above, managing circulating liquid fuel means radioactive fission products (like noble gases -Xenon in particular) move through the primary system and require active off-gas capture and treatment. (Thermal MSRs)
Does that make sense?
Though I’ve tried to parlay some of this avocation interest into practical applications, I’ve been frustrated, and I’m currently developing UAVs (meaning unmanned, not quadcopters) in conjunction with major players and banking interests as my day job. I’m old, and I don’t have enough ‘time’ left on the planet to pursue what I like for shits and giggles. If there’s no cash flow, it’s a hobby.
Bullet Points:
** Name one thing.
** Gold – Venezuela is nearing a deal to move roughly $𝟒 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐬 out of the Bank of England and into the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, according to a Financial Times report citing four people familiar with the talks. About 31 metric tons of gold — sat frozen in a London vault for years. The Bank of England refused to release it while Nicolas Maduro’s regime held power, citing its own refusal to recognize that government’s legitimacy. That changed in January, when a U.S. military operation removed Maduro and installed Delcy Rodriguez as interim president. Under the reported terms, legal control of the gold would pass to Rodriguez’s government, though Venezuela wouldn’t be free to simply sell it — the reserves would instead serve as 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠, including rebuilding after June’s twin earthquakes.
** Geology – then and now.
** To the deeply religious among you – what is it that draws homosexuals and the sexually dysfunctional to the cloth? I know it’s not everybody, and likely not half, but the number is very significant. At the Church of England, it has to be 90%. Church of Scotland may be 100%. Then there are the Muslims who hump goats (granted that some confine themselves to female goats). And if not sexually disturbed, weird – right.
** RFE/RL – The Russian Starlink – Russia is building its own version of Starlink — Elon Musk’s constellation of satellites in low-earth orbit that can provide fast Internet access anywhere in the world. Until earlier this year, Ukraine and Russia used Starlink for command-and-control on the ground, as well as for piloting explosive-laden drones to their targets hundreds of kilometers away. In February, Starlink cut off access for terminals in Ukraine, except for a whitelist approved by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. Russia’s battlefield performance suffered immediately; the number of assaults launched by Moscow’s forces declined, and a Pentagon report linked Russia’s loss of satellite communications to Ukraine recapturing hundreds of square kilometers of territory earlier this year. Things haven’t gone as smoothly for the first batches of Russian Rassvet-3 satellites, which are no longer test versions. An initial launch of 16 was planned for 2025, but this was delayed until March this year. After a rocket delivered them to about 300 kilometers, the craft were meant to use their own power to climb to 800 kilometers. None have reached this level so far: one started to descend and burned up in the atmosphere, 13 are in orbit at 510 kilometers, and two are at about 360 kilometers. Not ready for prime time.
** Thanks Vlad – COPENHAGEN, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Denmark is speeding up a donation to Ukraine in response to a recent incident in which a Russian warship fired flares towards a Danish military helicopter, narrowly missing the aircraft, the Nordic country’s government said on Friday. Denmark on Monday said a Russian frigate fired flares without warning at the helicopter as it sought to photograph the ship in international waters, while Moscow, in response, accused Denmark of carrying out dangerous maneuvers near its vessel. The new support package for Ukraine is worth an estimated 1.8 billion Danish crowns ($276 million) and will fund air defenses, the government said.
** In Old NFO’s book, JACE, AI runs amok. Roberto de Perez engineered his escape from the soul-killing drudgery of corporate leadership to a remote research lab under an assumed name, where he worked on projects like creating AIs more powerful than any protocol envisioned. Old NFO wrote it before AI – life imitates art. In the TV Series, Colony (available on Prime), aliens from out there invade Earth – spoiler: they’re robots using advanced AI. The show (2016-18) was written before AI. All of these writers may have to answer for their pre-crime!
The Escalating War with Russia
(h/t Claudio) Malcontent News has identified what it assesses as a change in Ukraine’s targeting pattern: at least four Russian 55Zh6ME Nebo-M radar systems attacked in western Russia over the past week. Ukraine has hit Nebo-M before. The difference is concentration. One of the recent strikes, near Millerovo in Rostov Oblast, has already been geolocated. Ukrainian forces used a RAM-2X loitering munition against a radar roughly 175 km from the front. And it sits inside a much larger campaign.
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces say they struck 26 Russian air-defence assets between 10 and 18 September alone: launchers, command vehicles and a remarkable number of radars. Nebo-M is particularly interesting because it sits relatively far forward in the kill chain. It does not shoot the missile. It helps create the air picture that allows the rest of the air-defence network to detect, track and respond to difficult targets, including ballistic and low-observable ones.
Remove the sensor and you have not removed the entire air-defence system. But you have made the system behind it work with less information. There is an obvious hypothesis here. Ukraine is moving closer to fielding its own ballistic missiles. Fire Point says its shorter-range FP-7 has completed two of three test stages and is entering military evaluation. The much longer-ranged FP-9 is still undergoing flight testing.
Ukraine also tested another domestically developed ballistic missile in July, although its identity was never publicly confirmed. So I would be cautious about claiming that these Nebo-M strikes are definitely preparation for a coming ballistic campaign. They are useful targets against Ukraine’s existing drones and cruise missiles as well. But campaign sequencing is worth watching.
Before asking what new weapon Ukraine might fire next, look at what it is systematically trying to remove from the other side. Sometimes the first evidence of a new strike capability is not the missile. It is the radar that disappears before the missile arrives.
Identify the Ship
1
2
3
End
Russians / Soviets:
(1) DD Udaloy class Marshal Shaposhnikov.
(2) FF Neustrashimy (class ship).
(3) FF Gorshkov class Admiral Kasatonov.
– Kle.
Outstanding.
Sara Mullaly in that phot reminds me of Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters. I don’t know why.
I believe the homosexuals want validation and seek it where they can get it, and what better place than a prestigious religious organization?
She’s a parody. I think that people tend to trust religious leaders disproportionately, and the sanctions on their illegal sexual (and other) activity have historically been light.
Or the Mad Magazine kid.
– Kle.
a few years past we (the OL and I) were ski teachers. Our (very close) friends were members of the local Episcopal parish (High Church) and we went to Christmas services/mass with them every year, particularly since my youngest had the role of Mary in the Nativity pageant for several years.
One year the rector asked my assistance with the hangings (he didn’t like heights); in the midst of which he asked if I were a member of the parish, to which I replied, “No. We’re just friends of the —s. Besides which I’m Jewish.”
His answer was: “Oh. That’s OK. We accept anyone.”
With the “advent” of Sara Mullaly, I understand that now.
I see what you did there…
The small reactors discussed in the blog … any specialized educated humans needed, exotic complicated lengthy training so forth? Asking as the wash out rate and selection criteria is really high in the Navy and the big utility nuclear plants. Concern is if yes, where to get the needed people? Second question, any special security needed as a truck sized system can be forcibly borrowed and taken apart. IE.. the nuclear materials.
*
Saw the Ukrainians were using small air dropped, ground traveling tracked small explosive drones, that then wait for an opportunity to attack ground targets.
An understanding of nuclear chemistry and physics is helpful, and reactors and reactions are not all that complicated if you take a little time to figure out what’s going on. I spent two weeks with one of my grandsons, who is eleven, this summer. It took a little time, but in those two weeks he came away with a fairly decent understanding of how nuclear reactions take place, the natural release of neutrons as part of decay, and why things like control rods and moderators are needed and how they’re used. As Boron commented, they’re just boiling water.
.
All fissile materials can be weaponized if you have the know-how, the money, and the equipment – and sufficient time. Having said that, weaponizing things like the CANDU reactor in Canada that uses unenriched uranium with a deuterium moderator would be quite a chore. But it’s a good generator – solid science, all that. If you think of some bearded guys with bad hygiene hijacking a truck and using it as a bomb – no. You could expose the core, and it would be radioactive, but you can also blow up a fuel truck (OK City Bombing) with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, and it goes pretty high order. It wouldn’t be a “bomb”; it would be a radioactive incident with a clean-up involved. There are a LOT of toxic chemicals moved by rail and road in the world that will kill you just as dead as an exposed core from an SMR. I think that KAOS (or whoever) hijacked a British Vulcan Bomber in the film Thunderball and stole a nuclear bomb. A nuclear generator is not a bomb.
Something keeps niggling in the back of my head (sorta like a louse burrowing into the hair I don’t have) telling me that there must be another (a better?) way to capture the (tremendous amount of) energy produced at a rather steady level over a long period of time by the radioactive decay processes; there must be a better way other than the heating and subsequent condensation/cooling of some fluid; there must be some way of capturing this energy (or the particles) to produce electricity or “work”. We’re just not looking at it in the right way; we’re just trying to build a new, improved donkey engine.
IMHO we should pull our heads out and begin looking at the problem with an “alien’s” eyes.
We Musk put a new team on it.
MSRs: Took me back to college physics class…a bit thick for my morning brain but cool nonetheless. H/t for the overview.
***
Gold: Maybe this transfer will be a subject of a side UN conversation today as PDJT is operating at warp speed to the point the naysayers are talking about his moves from two weeks ago. What WTP voted for, and pray he relentlessly continues in this direction.
***
Denmark entering the Uke fray: Good for them, getting away from the kids table…maybe the Greenland Deal gave them some incentive.
***
Sidebar (filed under 🤬🤬): “Lindsay Clancy’s defense team (basically Reddington) has asked a judge to investigate the lone holdout juror (as the MSM has defined him), Michael Desronvil, over alleged cellphone use during deliberations and questions about his truthfulness on jury-selection paperwork.” (All lies by the way)
This is a nasty uconstitutional precedent that gives insane mob rule over legal procedure causing fear in any juror from here on out. Effectively it’s, ‘You didn’t give us the outcome we wanted so we’re coming after you’, a capricious and asinine tactic now available when they ‘lose’ their case.
If I ever got called for Jury Duty, during voir dere I’d use this latest contrived tactic to get tossed…”Sorry judge, considering the Clancy case I simply can’t be a part of this case in good conscience, purely out of self preservation as a private citizen called to do my civic duty. In that , what guarantees do I have if I am the ‘holdout’ the defense lawyers and court won’t come after me? I refuse to enter that fray.”
Reddington just made Shakespeare’s entire point…let’s start with him.
It’s always good to read Shakespeare. And The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. Timeless classics. Machiavelli would tell you that “A good man must necessarily come to grief” when confronted by overwhelming evil. Jesus Christ was executed by the Roman state. But at some point, IMHO, you find that you are on a mountain that you have to die on. Horatius at the Gate: “How could a man die better?”
.
The Captain of the gate:’To every man upon this earth, Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods?”
“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’” — Isaiah 6:8
👍
Sadly, our time requires heroes to make a stand, and pay the price.
All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
I may die before I can be a proper bullet sponge martyr, but yes. We need to do the right thing and stand on moral high ground. No COVID Vax – my body my choice… Guilty as charged, etc.
X2👍
That’s exactly what former 22 SAS Christian “Obi-Wan Nairobi” Craighead has said in his book and several interviews.
Doesn’t say where we will have to go, what we will have to do, and there is no expiration date on the call. Been my verse since 1965.
Front Toward Enemy.
100%. I would add to your excellent quotes, ‘They aren’t principles until you have to defend them…and do defend them.’
Since Michael Desronvil has been “outed” (presumably against his will) and Roni/Ronni Carlson (jury foreperson), Paula Devlin, Kellie Farina, and Nick Dargie have publicly identified themselves, I don’t see why the remainder of the names on the Lindsay Clancy jury shouldn’t be published.
I know I’m not a Christian and therefore my forgiveness quotient is lacking, but IMHO this is murder; the killing of three innocents under the age of five must, in a civilized society be considered murder.
No matter the condition of her synapses, no matter the level of her hormones, no matter the level of mind-altering substances, no matter … at some point in her upbringing there was (should have been?) instilled in her very being: Thou shalt not murder: innocents (who can do you no harm and are unable to defend themselves) at the very least.
Given the above: should there be punishment – and if so, what?
Yes: this is unique and it (almost) exceeds the realm of possibility that she would ever have the occasion to repeat the act, but the possibility does exist and she should, therefore, be prevented (by some means) from ever being in the position to repeat it; either by locking her away or executing her.
I have no wish to pay her room and board and medical care for the next forty years (I should live so long).
It’s not about rehabilitation for fratricide. It’s about punishment, and there is no way we can kill her three times – but it would be appropriate.
filicide(?)
Leave that part to God because clearly the state has zero backbone in providing proper punishment for murder x3, altho she did try to off herself and failed…which is…sort of…ironic.
Incidentally, this mentality of ‘supporting a child murderer x3’ is akin to the polling questions how the Left, mainly Democrats, would cheer if PDJT was removed from office by military force, impeached then jailed, assassinated, or simply didn’t wake up one morning…same demented mentality, different subject…and a very sad state of the insanity of those among us, how many is up for debate but I’m guessing at least 35% of America that typically reside in blue cities.
Yes, we can almost-kill her, resuscitate her, almost-kill her again, re-resuscitate her, and then all-the-way kill her.
So…waterboard her?
I like the way you think
Spot on. Very simple to those who aren’t lawyers or have their heads twisted around by Satan/Emptiness in their lives.
If you mention Jury Nullification the judge and lawyers will break out in hives and vote unanimously to send you packing.
Good tip…more concise.
Pre-Crime; “Mercy” 2026 story simulates the Monority Report in that A.I. is the judge, jury, and prosecutor of it’s own operational LEO. Not pre but post crime. In 24 yrs art has come a long way. How far will A.I. take us? How close are we to the boiling point already?
–
H/T L.L. for reviews on books and movies / T.V. shows. Whilst the readership here were following the lioness…I finished season 4 of Reacher, and the bonus ( female lead) of Neagly.
I can’t watch Alan Ritchson. For me, it’s like watching Hanoi Jane Fonda. I don’t care whether others do or don’t. I have no interest. I enjoyed Season 1 of Reacher and watched it with interest before Ritchson opened his left-wing commie mouth outside of his films.
Reacher S1 was good and adhered enough to the book, albeit a little unnecessary graphic stuff than needed, but that the land we live, S2 and now S3 were not even close to the books that offered more ‘Reacher intellect’ than endless fight scenes for affect. Disappointed. Unless they reset for S4 we won’t be watching either (didn’t realize Ritchson was a lefty, thought he was a Christian).
Reacher IS in season 4 now. It’s so bad I quit halfway through.
Oops…yes, meant S5, assuming there is one…S4 is not what Lee Childs wrote.
P.S. clarification; “Story” = movie on Prime.
** In Old NFO’s book, JACE, AI runs amok.
Does anyone else see echoes of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals as the assault against AI data centers plays out?
We shouldn’t build them, or coal fired plants, while China and india, among others, go all out to build them. The New World Order can’t succeed until we can be brought to heel.
We can glimps the future by taking a long look at what is happening in Canada.
X2
Sigh… I wrote FICTION at the time… Granted I ‘knew’ a bit about the development of standalone algorithm processors, and a ‘few’ other things that were going on, but dammit, I hate trying to keep ahead of technology… sigh…
You were prescient.
Karl Denninger makes what strikes me as an excellent case for liquid fluoride sodium reactors here.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=183373
I think that Thorium has a lot of potential, particularly because it’s 4x as plentiful as uranium in nature, and uranium is somewhat common at that. The Red Chinese claim to have built a Thorium generator, but I doubt they got it to work as advertised.
Meanwhile, I just competed another drive out to Missouri. We had a moving company take a bunch of the heavy stuff, to save my aching back and joints, and we needed to get here ahead of them…after sending them off from the old place.
You’re a machine, Frank.
“Pumping liquid sodium is highly specialized and challenging, but it is a mature technology primarily used in fast breeder nuclear reactors and concentrated solar power plants.
Why It Is Challenging
* Extreme Chemical Reactivity: Sodium reacts violently and explosively with moisture or air. The pumping system must be completely hermetic and isolated under an inert gas blanket (like argon).
* High Temperature Corrosion: Liquid sodium typically operates between 200°C and 550°C. At these temperatures, it can degrade standard gaskets, seals, and structural alloys if not carefully managed.
* Solidification Risks: Because sodium freezes at 97.79°C, any cold spot in the pump or piping will cause the metal to solidify, instantly seizing moving parts and blocking the line. The entire system requires continuous heat tracing.”
Yikes. Having worked with 12 pound blocks of sodium I’m amazed that this can be done. The maintenance department will have their hands full.