[cdn-nucl-l] Best and Brightest

[Andrew Daley <daley.andrew@gmail.com>]

Every year (for a couple years now) the magazine Esquire uses their December 2009 issue to showcase, what it believes are, the "Best and Brightest" people in various categories.

This year, for the first time, they have named someone to their list for the Second time.

He happens to be a Nuclear Engineer... and his name is Eric Loewan.

The article itself is interesting and comes off as "Pro-Nuclear, but...".

The but being, of course, nuclear waste.  Being a mainstream article there is a lot of "lasts for millions of years" type statements.

That being said, the attraction to Loewan is the type of reactor he is pursuing... the "Sodium Fast Reactor" in particular and, on a grander scale... closing the fuel cycle.  Specifically, Loewan works for GE and is attached to their PRISM project.

The article makes it sound like a no brainer.  I, unfortunately, have little to no knowledge on Sodium reactor technology.

I encourage you to read the article, it is quite interesting and won't take long to read (no need to buy the magazine haha).

And, anyone care to enlighten me on Sodium-as-coolant or the PRISM in particular.  I though one of the problems was that sodium has a nasty habit of breaking into flames?  Have they solved that issue?  What are the other pro's and con's of a fast sodium reactor?

Thanks!

Andrew