Plantaganet, you do realise that all industrial processes we take for granted today at one stage were in their infancy, and were barbaric caricatures of what we've since developed? Just watch any 1980's movie and see the leaps in the technology around telecommunications.

What you are referring to were often test reactors.

But I note you haven't been able to condemn the EBR2, which forms the basis of the S-PRISM reactor nearly ready for commercialisation today. The PRISM is based on the physics of the EBR2, and GE are ready to build a *commercial* test (not physics test) in the first country that will have them. That is a reactor so cheap that it could become equivalent to or cheaper than coal, and that includes the reprocessing!

AlanB,

While I am a fan of liquid salt thorium reactors, there are serious technical issues with the long term safety of the reactor that are presently being resolved, and as the cost of uranium is going to be insignificant compared the capital and running costs of reactors for many decades, I don't see LSRs being viable for a long time. However, in the interim a tremendous amount of work has gone into reprocessing and recycling spent fuel rods to create MOX and REMIX rods that are being used in existing light water reactors to reduce the final waste by >90% and burn up the plutonium that can be used for weapons.

There is a vast amount of money to be made in this recycling that
France is using successfully, the USA is starting, and Japan and the UK are expanding.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/mixed-oxide-fuel-mox.aspx

There is also discussion of using uranium / thorium fuel to greatly extend the life of a fuel rod (thorium is converted to fissionable uranium)

EBR2 and S-PRISM equal HOPE plus $10 Billions of Federal Money which South Australia expects.

This is noting the Turnbull Government has already thrown $10 Billions of ship/submarine building money at South Australia.

Unfortunately South Australia have rusty industries that are the:

- least innovative
- high cost misconceived through renewable energy reliance
- most inefficient, and
- most full of a sense of entitlement

in Australia.

Let the Canberra money to South Australia Cargo Cult* keep on rolling.

* Cargo cults are marked by a number of common characteristics, including a "myth-dream" that is a synthesis of local and external government elements; the expectation of help from charismatic leaders; and lastly, belief in the appearance of an Abundance of Goods and Money.

PLANTAGANET,
"Cargo cult" might be misnaming it given it's not just hope, but documented history. You got the wrong H word there pal. History, not hope.

The EBR2 ran well for 30 years, demonstrated the physics, and shut itself down in a DRAMATIC safety test WORSE than the Fukushima power outage!

"In controlled testing in 1986, with the EBR-II reactor running at full power and the emergency shutdown systems disabled, the reactor's supply of electricity was intentionally turned off, causing the coolant pumps to stop. This is a worse scenario than what happened in the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. (At Fukushima, which began operation in 1971, the emergency shutdown system turned off the reactor as soon as it detected the earthquake. However the tsunami destroyed the electric generators powering the coolant pumps, which needed to continue running after the reactor shutdown. Subsequently, the core overheated and meltdown occurred.) EBR-II, in contrast, handled the event without creating a dangerous situation. EBR-II had a negative thermal coefficient of reactivity that shut down the reactor when the temperature increased due to loss of the coolant pumps; the time required to heat the large pool of sodium surrounding the reactor provided a sufficient time buffer for the passive decay heat removal system to prevent the EBR-II reactor from melting down. The safe shutdown of the EBR-II relied only on the laws of physics and did not require operator or control system intervention."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II

Fast breeder reactor projects usually run over budget, don't meet deadlines, then are closed down. Here is the sorry record of fast breeder reactors - most opened with shiny new technolical claims then shut down after chronic underperformance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Development_and_notable_breeder_reactors

Reactors of any size would take 2+ decades plus of government decision-making, planning, protests, reviews, environmental studies, and more protest stages - only to be vetoed by the standard requirement for Total Aboringinal (before whites) landowner consensus.

Coal fired power stations seem to be the only quickly achieved and substantial baseload solution.

Take, as an example, Japan's Monju sodium-cooled, MOX-fueled, fast reactor. Monju is a cautionary tail for Australian reactor spruikers. Monju cost US$12 (twelve) Billion to build and test but provided no grid power.

Monju has been inoperative for most of the time since it was originally built, and was last operated in 2010. The Japanese government in December 2016 decided to close it.

Construction of Monju started in 1986 and the reactor achieved criticality for the first time in April 1994.
- An accident in December 1995, with a sodium leak caused a major fire, forced a shutdown.
- A subsequent scandal involving a cover-up of the scope of the accident delayed its restart until May 6, 2010,
- In August 2010 another accident, involving dropped machinery, shut down the reactor again.
- the reactor has only generated electricity for short periods since its first testing in the 1990s

Headline 2 months ago:

"Japan scraps ‘Monju’ fast-breeder nuclear reactor after pouring [US]$12B into project over 22 years"
- December 21, 2016 see http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/japan-scraps-monju-fast-breeder-nuclear-reactor-after-pouring-12b-into-project-over-22-years