Criticality based on fast neutrons in regular fission reactors is a bad accident, and it has happened many times—killing workers in some cases.
I would guess that any fission reaction could release fast neutrons. However, I may be wrong and would like to review the data on fission cross sections for the actinides we are talking about. A reference would be desirable. Bob Cook Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2017 1:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Vo]:Could the future that started out as cold fusion be ...tada... thorium fission ? In reply to <[email protected]>'s message of Thu, 26 Jan 2017 08:24:35 -0800: Hi Bob, [snip] >Robin > >You note: "Runaway" not possible, because the fuel isn't fissile anyway. You >also say: 14 MeV neutrons are more than fast enough to fission Th (or any >Actinide for that matter, including U238) directly without >conversion to a fissile isotope. > >These two comments seem to contradict each other. > >Why cant the 14 Mev neutrons cause a Runaway? > >Bob Cook A runaway reaction is the result of a chain reaction, and fission reactions create very few 14 MeV neutrons, not enough to cause a runaway reaction, which incidentally is also the reason that U238 can't be used as reactor fuel in normal reactors. In the process I outlined, the 14 MeV neutrons would come from the fusion process, and that in turn would depend on the muons to keep going, since the operating temperature and pressure is too low by many orders of magnitude to support a continuous fusion reaction. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
