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Turbo inductor cogeneration with MSR nuclear can economically replace oil

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Bucknell has led advanced engineering teams at Chrysler and General Motors for three production high performance engine families. Was Senior Propulsion Engineer for the Raptor full-flow staged combustion methalox rocket at Space Exploration Technologies then Senior Propulsion Scientist for Divergent3D developing vehicle technologies.

In 2017, he described how high temperature (820-1000 degree celsius) nuclear power plants can solve produce synthetic fuel to replace oil.

Molten Salt reactors are being developed in China, Canada and the USA. However, those plants will run at about 700 degree celsius.

Fortunately Bucknell is a rocket engineer and proposes an efficient turbo inductor to boost the temperature so the CO2 process can be 50% efficient at 900 degrees instead of 10% at 700 degrees.

Enhanced High Temperature Nuclear Plant Economics through Maximal Capacity Utilization. Cogeneration of Electrical Power and Synthetic Fuel with Fully Flexible Product Selection.

Bucknell resented at TEAC8 ( Thorium Energy Alliance Conference #8 ) on 2017-08-21 ( August 21st, 2017 ).

63 thoughts on “Turbo inductor cogeneration with MSR nuclear can economically replace oil”

  1. everything has to start somewhere … right? I don’t know if it’s better than anything else that’s out there … in order to find out though – you have to push it and try it. We didn’t really understand aerodynamics until AFTER the airplane was built. Engineering and entrepreneurship is the cutting edge, while understanding, theorizing — the ‘science’ — is for the armchair ‘intellectual’.

  2. everything has to start somewhere … right? I don’t know if it’s better than anything else that’s out there … in order to find out though – you have to push it and try it. We didn’t really understand aerodynamics until AFTER the airplane was built. Engineering and entrepreneurship is the cutting edge while understanding theorizing — the ‘science’ — is for the armchair ‘intellectual’.

  3. ahh well … might as well throw our arms up, crawl back in the cave and enjoy our last few moments starving in the cold and dark. Your attitude is a joke man. Why do you even come to this website.

  4. ahh well … might as well throw our arms up crawl back in the cave and enjoy our last few moments starving in the cold and dark. Your attitude is a joke man. Why do you even come to this website.

  5. I don’t understand your mindset … you don’t solve problems by saying they are too hard insulting those who are willing to give things a go and then walking away. You go out and try … fail … and try again until you learn something pivotal that changes the game. Certainly with your attitude, you’ll never do anything worthwhile with your life. So I guess why bother right? Perhaps you are too afraid of failing and the enduring the real pressure that comes with real challenges – certainly there are a lot of folks like that.

  6. I don’t understand your mindset … you don’t solve problems by saying they are too hard insulting those who are willing to give things a go and then walking away. You go out and try … fail … and try again until you learn something pivotal that changes the game. Certainly with your attitude you’ll never do anything worthwhile with your life. So I guess why bother right? Perhaps you are too afraid of failing and the enduring the real pressure that comes with real challenges – certainly there are a lot of folks like that.

  7. He is a genius like Leonardo da Vinci in that he draws pictures of machines that generally don’t get built but are marginally on track to being solutions to engineering problems that don’t really exist? Leonardo: clap-trappy wing flapping machine with pullies Bucknell: nuclear rocket engine made of unobtanium or Turbo Encabulator MSR

  8. He is a genius like Leonardo da Vinci in that he draws pictures of machines that generally don’t get built but are marginally on track to being solutions to engineering problems that don’t really exist?Leonardo: clap-trappy wing flapping machine with pulliesBucknell: nuclear rocket engine made of unobtanium or Turbo Encabulator MSR

  9. Bubbling the working fluid through the primary and then driving turbo-machinery and heat exchangers with it is a good way to make the turbo-machinery and heat exchangers into untouchable, un-serviceable, bulk, high-level radwaste. Everything in the pot would get into the machine; you wouldn’t be able to 100% eliminate carry-over.

  10. Bubbling the working fluid through the primary and then driving turbo-machinery and heat exchangers with it is a good way to make the turbo-machinery and heat exchangers into untouchable un-serviceable bulk high-level radwaste. Everything in the pot would get into the machine; you wouldn’t be able to 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} eliminate carry-over.

  11. The following facts are just a few that support my position: 1) nobody has built an MSR since MSRE threw in the towel decades ago. 2) MSRE fuel decomposed to some extent in storage creating a f2 atmosphere inside the can, which is inconsistent with the assertion that fluoride salts are chemically stable under irradiation. 3) The “cleanup” of the MSRE fuel canisters cost well over $100M, and that represents our only real, and recent experience with handling irradiated fuel salt. MSRs are not the future; they are a hazard to workers and the public. Any reactor system that does not contain the fission products and actinides in robust cladding is a non-starter for reasons that become obvious if you have any experience making electricity with nuclear energy and human beings. It is my job to be the one guy that isn’t a MSR fanboi on the internet. Do you really just want to hear your own voice?

  12. The following facts are just a few that support my position:1) nobody has built an MSR since MSRE threw in the towel decades ago.2) MSRE fuel decomposed to some extent in storage creating a f2 atmosphere inside the can which is inconsistent with the assertion that fluoride salts are chemically stable under irradiation.3) The cleanup”” of the MSRE fuel canisters cost well over $100M”” and that represents our only real”” and recent experience with handling irradiated fuel salt.MSRs are not the future; they are a hazard to workers and the public. Any reactor system that does not contain the fission products and actinides in robust cladding is a non-starter for reasons that become obvious if you have any experience making electricity with nuclear energy and human beings. It is my job to be the one guy that isn’t a MSR fanboi on the internet. Do you really just want to hear your own voice?”””

  13. Turboinductor is an interesting workaround to increase process working fluid temps, but being helium based makes one wonder how the heat from the MSR is going to be moved to it. Is the plan to bubble a secondary loop of helium through the primary molten salt coolant circuit as a kind of direct contact heat exchanger, then use that secondary loop helium through a combo of recuperator/turboinductor to heat the helium tertiary coolant loop (process working fluid)?

  14. Turboinductor is an interesting workaround to increase process working fluid temps but being helium based makes one wonder how the heat from the MSR is going to be moved to it. Is the plan to bubble a secondary loop of helium through the primary molten salt coolant circuit as a kind of direct contact heat exchanger then use that secondary loop helium through a combo of recuperator/turboinductor to heat the helium tertiary coolant loop (process working fluid)?

  15. Picking up gases from the primary coolant salt is probably unavoidable if bubbling, which is why I mentioned a tertiary loop, though you already need some gas separation for gaseous fissile products for an MSR salt (typically use a helium cover gas on the salt pool with xenon capture filters). So the volatiles should be manageable with an appropriate circuit sump design. You have a gas tight barrier between loop 2 and 3, the heat exchange points being the turboinductor and the recuperator. Turboinductor itself is supposed to have a gas tight shell independent of the inductively heated tungsten fin block, and the recuperator can be any conventional gas tight heat exchanger such as a PCHE. Loop 3 helium is the balance of plant working fluid, not loop 2 helium. You’re not likely to have anything besides helium jump that barrier barring loop containment failure, and with decent primary sump design, most fissile product volatiles should not have reached the loop 2/3 heat exchange area. Though for reference, you face similar issues for any gas cooled reactor like the older helium cooled pebblebed designs with their turbine shaft seal (assuming external generator) and the post-turbine heat exchanger. Note I am not suggesting bubbling helium through fuel salt, only cooling salt (though that assumes a dual fluid MSR), and that the cooling salt is not being used for fissile breeding. Though, it’s hard to read from the video, but it looks like the MSR in the video has a salt primary, unknown secondary (salt or helium?), then a helium tertiary which inputs into either power generator helium turbines or the turboinductor (which itself seems to split stream the input helium so some is expended to drive the turboinductor turbine and return to the secondary loop heat exchanger, while the superheated helium gets sent on to the process heat balance of plant).

  16. Picking up gases from the primary coolant salt is probably unavoidable if bubbling which is why I mentioned a tertiary loop though you already need some gas separation for gaseous fissile products for an MSR salt (typically use a helium cover gas on the salt pool with xenon capture filters). So the volatiles should be manageable with an appropriate circuit sump design.You have a gas tight barrier between loop 2 and 3 the heat exchange points being the turboinductor and the recuperator. Turboinductor itself is supposed to have a gas tight shell independent of the inductively heated tungsten fin block and the recuperator can be any conventional gas tight heat exchanger such as a PCHE. Loop 3 helium is the balance of plant working fluid not loop 2 helium. You’re not likely to have anything besides helium jump that barrier barring loop containment failure and with decent primary sump design most fissile product volatiles should not have reached the loop 2/3 heat exchange area.Though for reference you face similar issues for any gas cooled reactor like the older helium cooled pebblebed designs with their turbine shaft seal (assuming external generator) and the post-turbine heat exchanger. Note I am not suggesting bubbling helium through fuel salt only cooling salt (though that assumes a dual fluid MSR) and that the cooling salt is not being used for fissile breeding.Though it’s hard to read from the video but it looks like the MSR in the video has a salt primary unknown secondary (salt or helium?) then a helium tertiary which inputs into either power generator helium turbines or the turboinductor (which itself seems to split stream the input helium so some is expended to drive the turboinductor turbine and return to the secondary loop heat exchanger while the superheated helium gets sent on to the process heat balance of plant).

  19. oh it doesn’t like URLs site is slidehare.net and the rest of the URL is slideshow/embed_code/key/HjjtjcT2iavp5X

  24. oh it doesn’t like URLssite is slidehare.net and the rest of the URL isslideshow/embed_code/key/HjjtjcT2iavp5X

  26. Ah here’s the slideshare.net slides see page 13https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/HjjtjcT2iavp5XSeems he shows a single fluid fuel salt MSR external fuel salt to LiF coolant salt heat exchanger then a coolant salt to helium heat exchanger. No mention of the specific heat exchanger technology but he’s doing high level conceptual design so not really expected.

  27. The idea was also presented with the THTR-300 and 600 (Hamm in Germany). THTR’s can produce He until 900-1000+ degrees (not tested,the reactor worked standard at 750 degrees). The program of building U-Th globe pepplebed reactors was stopped for political , security and economical reasons.

  29. Yes, HTGCR can carry some fission products and pellet dust through the turbine, but the MSR is in a different league for contamination of equipment. Remember the HTGCR reactors place a high priority on retaining the FP in the fuel product – within shells of silicon carbide which are created by physical vapor deposition (expensive). HTGCR with a helium turbine is kinda fantasy anyway; it has nontrivial technical challenges such as bearing design, and, well just designing a turbine to use He, which was done like once – in Germany (Oberhausen II). Who would push and spend billions to bring this technology, with its limited applications, to maturity? Open cycle gas turbines are used literally EVERYWHERE and were developed over a century of war, for war, at great expense. I don’t agree that “the volatiles should be manageable with an appropriate circuit sump design.” I believe that a reliable offgas system for MSRs would take 15 years and lots of trial, error, and learning at the expense of contaminating lots of stuff – all this without a clear need, goal, driver for the progress.

  30. The idea was also presented with the THTR-300 and 600 (Hamm in Germany). THTR’s can produce He until 900-1000+ degrees (not testedthe reactor worked standard at 750 degrees). The program of building U-Th globe pepplebed reactors was stopped for political security and economical reasons.

  32. Yes HTGCR can carry some fission products and pellet dust through the turbine but the MSR is in a different league for contamination of equipment. Remember the HTGCR reactors place a high priority on retaining the FP in the fuel product – within shells of silicon carbide which are created by physical vapor deposition (expensive). HTGCR with a helium turbine is kinda fantasy anyway; it has nontrivial technical challenges such as bearing design and well just designing a turbine to use He which was done like once – in Germany (Oberhausen II). Who would push and spend billions to bring this technology with its limited applications to maturity? Open cycle gas turbines are used literally EVERYWHERE and were developed over a century of war for war at great expense. I don’t agree that the volatiles should be manageable with an appropriate circuit sump design.”” I believe that a reliable offgas system for MSRs would take 15 years and lots of trial”” error and learning at the expense of contaminating lots of stuff – all this without a clear need goal”” driver for the progress.”””

  33. Michael, Help me out here if you would, with a link to info about this “unmanageable fluoride waste stream”. From wikipedia: “isotopes of fluorine” Although fluorine (9F) has 18 known isotopes from 14F to 31F and two isomers (18mF and 26mF), only one of these isotopes is stable, that is, fluorine-19; as such, it is a monoisotopic element. The longest-lived radioisotope is 18F with a half-life of 109.771 minutes. All other isotopes have half-lives under a minute, the majority under a second, making fluorine a mononuclidic element as well. The least stable known isotope is 14F, whose half-life is 500(60) × 10−24 seconds,…” Isotope 18F might be an abundant by-product of neutron capture in an MSR using a fluoride salt, but even then its half-life is 110 minutes, and its decay mode is by harmless positron emission. Perhaps you are referring to the hazardous fission by-products iodine-131, cesium-137, and strontium-90, which remain dissolved in the fluoride salt. However, the fluoride salt can be processed to separate these out, reducing the bulk waste stream by a factor of six.

  34. Michael Help me out here if you would with a link to info about this unmanageable fluoride waste stream””. From wikipedia: “”””isotopes of fluorine””””Although fluorine (9F) has 18 known isotopes from 14F to 31F and two isomers (18mF and 26mF)”” only one of these isotopes is stable that is fluorine-19; as such it is a monoisotopic element. The longest-lived radioisotope is 18F with a half-life of 109.771 minutes. All other isotopes have half-lives under a minute the majority under a second making fluorine a mononuclidic element as well. The least stable known isotope is 14F whose half-life is 500(60) × 10−24 seconds””…””””Isotope 18F might be an abundant by-product of neutron capture in an MSR using a fluoride salt”” but even then its half-life is 110 minutes and its decay mode is by harmless positron emission.Perhaps you are referring to the hazardous fission by-products iodine-131 cesium-137 and strontium-90 which remain dissolved in the fluoride salt. However the fluoride salt can be processed to separate these out”” reducing the bulk waste stream by a factor of six.”””””””

  35. Bucknell is a genius! Not specific to this plan – but all the ideas he comes up with and the level of detail he puts into working through the costs involved shows the incredible passion creativity and focus he brings to the discussion. I don’t know if he has business people working with him and/or a team of engineers, but if not, I hope he get’s them so he can start changing the world! Mr. Bucknell, my skills are available for you my friend! Get in touch! 😉

  36. Bucknell is a genius! Not specific to this plan – but all the ideas he comes up with and the level of detail he puts into working through the costs involved shows the incredible passion creativity and focus he brings to the discussion. I don’t know if he has business people working with him and/or a team of engineers but if not I hope he get’s them so he can start changing the world! Mr. Bucknell my skills are available for you my friend! Get in touch! 😉

  37. Nobody cares about getting efficiency above 32% for nuclear power generation – the issue is protecting the workers and the public from large releases. MSRs don’t do that – they are pots of fission product stew – unmanageable fluoride waste stream.

  38. Nobody cares about getting efficiency above 32{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} for nuclear power generation – the issue is protecting the workers and the public from large releases. MSRs don’t do that – they are pots of fission product stew – unmanageable fluoride waste stream.

  43. The idea was also presented with the THTR-300 and 600 (Hamm in Germany). THTR’s can produce He until 900-1000+ degrees (not tested,the reactor worked standard at 750 degrees). The program of building U-Th globe pepplebed reactors was stopped for political , security and economical reasons.

  45. Yes, HTGCR can carry some fission products and pellet dust through the turbine, but the MSR is in a different league for contamination of equipment. Remember the HTGCR reactors place a high priority on retaining the FP in the fuel product – within shells of silicon carbide which are created by physical vapor deposition (expensive). HTGCR with a helium turbine is kinda fantasy anyway; it has nontrivial technical challenges such as bearing design, and, well just designing a turbine to use He, which was done like once – in Germany (Oberhausen II). Who would push and spend billions to bring this technology, with its limited applications, to maturity? Open cycle gas turbines are used literally EVERYWHERE and were developed over a century of war, for war, at great expense.

    I don’t agree that “the volatiles should be manageable with an appropriate circuit sump design.” I believe that a reliable offgas system for MSRs would take 15 years and lots of trial, error, and learning at the expense of contaminating lots of stuff – all this without a clear need, goal, driver for the progress.

  51. Picking up gases from the primary coolant salt is probably unavoidable if bubbling, which is why I mentioned a tertiary loop, though you already need some gas separation for gaseous fissile products for an MSR salt (typically use a helium cover gas on the salt pool with xenon capture filters). So the volatiles should be manageable with an appropriate circuit sump design.

    You have a gas tight barrier between loop 2 and 3, the heat exchange points being the turboinductor and the recuperator. Turboinductor itself is supposed to have a gas tight shell independent of the inductively heated tungsten fin block, and the recuperator can be any conventional gas tight heat exchanger such as a PCHE. Loop 3 helium is the balance of plant working fluid, not loop 2 helium. You’re not likely to have anything besides helium jump that barrier barring loop containment failure, and with decent primary sump design, most fissile product volatiles should not have reached the loop 2/3 heat exchange area.

    Though for reference, you face similar issues for any gas cooled reactor like the older helium cooled pebblebed designs with their turbine shaft seal (assuming external generator) and the post-turbine heat exchanger. Note I am not suggesting bubbling helium through fuel salt, only cooling salt (though that assumes a dual fluid MSR), and that the cooling salt is not being used for fissile breeding.
    Though, it’s hard to read from the video, but it looks like the MSR in the video has a salt primary, unknown secondary (salt or helium?), then a helium tertiary which inputs into either power generator helium turbines or the turboinductor (which itself seems to split stream the input helium so some is expended to drive the turboinductor turbine and return to the secondary loop heat exchanger, while the superheated helium gets sent on to the process heat balance of plant).

  52. everything has to start somewhere … right? I don’t know if it’s better than anything else that’s out there … in order to find out though – you have to push it and try it. We didn’t really understand aerodynamics until AFTER the airplane was built. Engineering and entrepreneurship is the cutting edge, while understanding, theorizing — the ‘science’ — is for the armchair ‘intellectual’.

  53. ahh well … might as well throw our arms up, crawl back in the cave and enjoy our last few moments starving in the cold and dark. Your attitude is a joke man. Why do you even come to this website.

  54. I don’t understand your mindset … you don’t solve problems by saying they are too hard insulting those who are willing to give things a go and then walking away. You go out and try … fail … and try again until you learn something pivotal that changes the game. Certainly with your attitude, you’ll never do anything worthwhile with your life. So I guess why bother right? Perhaps you are too afraid of failing and the enduring the real pressure that comes with real challenges – certainly there are a lot of folks like that.

  55. He is a genius like Leonardo da Vinci in that he draws pictures of machines that generally don’t get built but are marginally on track to being solutions to engineering problems that don’t really exist?

    Leonardo: clap-trappy wing flapping machine with pullies
    Bucknell: nuclear rocket engine made of unobtanium or Turbo Encabulator MSR

  56. Bubbling the working fluid through the primary and then driving turbo-machinery and heat exchangers with it is a good way to make the turbo-machinery and heat exchangers into untouchable, un-serviceable, bulk, high-level radwaste. Everything in the pot would get into the machine; you wouldn’t be able to 100% eliminate carry-over.

  57. The following facts are just a few that support my position:

    1) nobody has built an MSR since MSRE threw in the towel decades ago.

    2) MSRE fuel decomposed to some extent in storage creating a f2 atmosphere inside the can, which is inconsistent with the assertion that fluoride salts are chemically stable under irradiation.

    3) The “cleanup” of the MSRE fuel canisters cost well over $100M, and that represents our only real, and recent experience with handling irradiated fuel salt.

    MSRs are not the future; they are a hazard to workers and the public. Any reactor system that does not contain the fission products and actinides in robust cladding is a non-starter for reasons that become obvious if you have any experience making electricity with nuclear energy and human beings.

    It is my job to be the one guy that isn’t a MSR fanboi on the internet. Do you really just want to hear your own voice?

  58. Turboinductor is an interesting workaround to increase process working fluid temps, but being helium based makes one wonder how the heat from the MSR is going to be moved to it. Is the plan to bubble a secondary loop of helium through the primary molten salt coolant circuit as a kind of direct contact heat exchanger, then use that secondary loop helium through a combo of recuperator/turboinductor to heat the helium tertiary coolant loop (process working fluid)?

  59. Michael, Help me out here if you would, with a link to info about this “unmanageable fluoride waste stream”.

    From wikipedia: “isotopes of fluorine”

    Although fluorine (9F) has 18 known isotopes from 14F to 31F and two isomers (18mF and 26mF), only one of these isotopes is stable, that is, fluorine-19; as such, it is a monoisotopic element. The longest-lived radioisotope is 18F with a half-life of 109.771 minutes. All other isotopes have half-lives under a minute, the majority under a second, making fluorine a mononuclidic element as well. The least stable known isotope is 14F, whose half-life is 500(60) × 10−24 seconds,…”

    Isotope 18F might be an abundant by-product of neutron capture in an MSR using a fluoride salt, but even then its half-life is 110 minutes, and its decay mode is by harmless positron emission.

    Perhaps you are referring to the hazardous fission by-products iodine-131, cesium-137, and strontium-90, which remain dissolved in the fluoride salt. However, the fluoride salt can be processed to separate these out, reducing the bulk waste stream by a factor of six.

  60. Bucknell is a genius! Not specific to this plan – but all the ideas he comes up with and the level of detail he puts into working through the costs involved shows the incredible passion creativity and focus he brings to the discussion. I don’t know if he has business people working with him and/or a team of engineers, but if not, I hope he get’s them so he can start changing the world! Mr. Bucknell, my skills are available for you my friend! Get in touch! 😉

  61. Nobody cares about getting efficiency above 32% for nuclear power generation – the issue is protecting the workers and the public from large releases. MSRs don’t do that – they are pots of fission product stew – unmanageable fluoride waste stream.

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