Interesting...
It would be a new and productive way to use the vast amounts of energies at hand, but is it worth making the reactor to turn around and make chemicals with it? Would it not be cheaper to produce some of these chemicals in cheaper and alternative methods?
Could it be shifted to go back to making power? Could a power producing one be shifted to chemical manufacturing? This is a very interesting use for a reactor
I was reading about something called a “chemonuclear reactor” which is a way of using nuclear energy to make chemicals instead of mainly using a nuclear reactor to produce electricity.
The particular patent I was reading about, the idea was to use the energy released by nuclear fission to trigger a reaction between the nitrogen and oxygen in ordinary air, which then produces nitrogen dioxide. That nitrogen dioxide could then be combined with water and oxygen to make nitric acid.
So basically, instead of using a nuclear reactor to generate electricity and then using that electricity to run a chemical plant, the reactor itself is helping produce the chemical.
Also, in case you were wondering why someone would want to make nitric acid, it’s an extremely useful industrial chemical. One of its biggest uses is in making nitrate fertilizers (which provide plants with nitrogen they use to grow) and it’s also used in making explosives and processing metals too.
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