Rubbia reactor

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The Rubbia reactor is a new type of nuclear reactor proposed by Italian physicist and Nobel prize winner Carlo Rubbia.

Contents 1 Principle of Operation 2 Advantages 3 Disadvantages 4 External links

[edit] Principle of Operation

Thorium fuel is bombarded with a high-energy neutron beam. The ensuing nuclear reactions then produce heat, which can be used to generate electric power.

Since generating a neutron beam is an energy-consuming process, the Rubbia reactor acts as an energy amplifier.

[edit] Advantages

• The nuclear reactions continue only as long as energy is supplied. Thus, the reactor is inherently safe; failures in some part of the reactor would simply lead to a system shutdown, rather than to a runaway chain reaction.
• Thorium has three times the economically extractable reserves of Uranium.
• The reactor could be used to "burn" (i. e. destroy) long-lived radioactive elements, thereby helping to reduce the nuclear waste problem.

[edit] Disadvantages

• General technical difficulties
• Each reactor needs its own facility (synchrotron) to generate the neutron beam, which is very costly.
• No synchrotron of sufficient power has ever been built.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thorium

• New Age Nuclear: article on the Rubbia reactor (Accelerator-Driven Subcritical Nuclear Reactor) | Cosmos Magazine