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THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Mon 04 Mar 2019, 16:38:51

Tanada wrote:Video

For those who are confused.
This video is full of "republicans good, democrats bad" without acknowledging that The Yucca Mountain Repository is opposed for far simpler reasons: NIMBY. Nevada Democrats and Republicans seem to have united on this issue to do everything they can to block the Yucca Mountain Repository. Even if the country as a whole would benefit from a centralized nuclear storage facility, it is not something that locals are going to be happy about having in their back yard.

Supporters of the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada face a familiar fate despite bipartisan momentum to restart progress on the site: Once again, their hopes appear dashed by a Silver State senator. For years the Senate spoiler was the chamber’s top Democrat, Harry Reid, who departed in 2017. This year Republican Dean Heller played the role, a vocal opponent of the project who faces an uphill re-election bid in a state that went for Hillary Clinton and Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in 2016. The outcome: Funding backed by the House to restart the Yucca process was dropped in the conference agreement on the three-bill spending package that includes the fiscal 2019 Energy-Water title, unveiled Monday. It also means bipartisan House legislation to restart the project will likely linger untouched by the Senate this Congress.

Nevada says ‘no’
Nevada has long opposed hosting the nation’s nuclear waste, especially since it does not have nuclear power plants within its borders. Opponents say the site and the movement of waste there represent significant public health and safety risks that could expose Nevadans and others to deadly radioactivity in the event of accidents or groundwater leakage. Heller wasn’t the only Nevada lawmaker to oppose restarting the Yucca project. His challenger, Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, was equally eager to show Nevada voters she had what it takes to stop the project. Cortez Masto also mounted opposition on the Hill. “Once again, the U.S. House of Representatives has failed in its relentless pursuit to turn Nevada into our nation’s nuclear waste dump,” Heller said in a statement Monday. “As long as I’m in the U.S. Senate, you can count on me to never let up on my fight to keep nuclear waste out of the state of Nevada.”
Yucca Mountain Halted Again as GOP Aims to Retain Senate

Nevada officials have put every ounce of their political muscle into stopping the dump, worried that a radioactive spill or even the possibility of one could destroy their tourist economy. There are also fears that, in the distant future, the dump might leak radioactivity into groundwater supplies — that has happened at several Energy Department plants. The state is quickly gearing up for a new fight, readying new legal strategies and pushing a resolution through the state Legislature. Cortez Masto said the state is united against the dump across party lines, including Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, another former attorney general. "Yucca Mountain is just a hole in the ground," she said in an interview. "It is time for members of Congress to recognize that Yucca Mountain won't work." Sandoval said he had "reaffirmed my unwavering opposition to any potential progress toward developing the site as a potential destination for high-level nuclear waste."

In 1987 Congress directed the Energy Department to put a single dump in Nevada, ending what was supposed to be a process of scientific evaluation. The state quickly branded the legislation "The Screw Nevada Act." The state shocked the Energy Department with its political and legal tenacity. It successfully fought the federal standard that said the site must be capable of keeping any waste isolated for 10,000 years. A federal court ruled the waste had to be kept safe for many hundreds of thousands of years — as long or longer than humans have roamed the Earth. The state engineer shut off water to the site. Las Vegas officials threatened to arrest anybody who tried to transport waste through the city. Nevada has filed some 300 legal "contentions" against the Energy Department's license, each of which must be examined by a special board. The state is swinging into action to file even more contentions if the license action is resumed, said Robert Halstead, chief of the state's nuclear office.
Decades-old war over Yucca Mountain nuclear dump resumes under Trump budget plan

Nevada voters oppose renewed efforts to reopen the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site and don’t favor the recently approved hikes in hotel room taxes to help finance a possible NFL stadium in Las Vegas. Both policies are opposed by large majorities of Nevada voters. Nevada political leaders largely oppose efforts to revisit Yucca — Republican Sen. Dean Heller and Democratic Rep. Dina Titus have introduced identical legislation designed to make it more difficult for the site to open without explicit approval from the state.
The Independent Poll: Yucca, stadium taxes unpopular with voters
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby dissident » Tue 05 Mar 2019, 01:14:22

Poor Democrats. They think that they are misrepresented.

It remains a fact that Democrat presidents have undermined US nuclear waste treatment development. Carter was a total loon. How can anyone sane promote indefinite storage when there is a choice to further burn the "waste" and leave actinide waste that decays in less than 300 years. Obama's actions are transcendentally retarded as well:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ... =101689489

Total schizophrenia. We don't want nuclear waste, but we will undermine any effort to actually get rid of it.
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Tue 05 Mar 2019, 01:59:47

Dissident, there is currently bipartisan support for the Yucca Mountain repository. Except in Nevada where there is bipartisan opposition.

Bipartisan Support for Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Bill — Except in Nevada
The House will take up legislation this week that would help restart the stalled process for making Nevada’s Yucca Mountain a central repository for commercial nuclear waste. After years of false starts and misses, the bill is moving with bipartisan support. In Nevada, however, there is bipartisan opposition to the Yucca project, and the state’s congressional delegation prepared a series of amendments meant to ensure that the House would consider key safety provisions for the project, which is located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas and adjacent to the land where the government tested nuclear weapons.

Nevada opposition
Local opposition to the Yucca site has always been strong, but this year two members of the Nevada delegation, Republican Sen. Dean Heller and Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, are heading toward a close Senate race against each other in November. Both oppose the project. The state’s resistance extends back to when Congress first officially designated Yucca Mountain as the nation’s commercial waste repository in 1987 as an update to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Dubbed the “screw Nevada bill” by Democrat Harry Reid — a freshman senator at the time — the law moved forward without the support of Nevada lawmakers. Critics complained that the site and shipment of nuclear waste through the state could expose citizens to radioactivity via leaks into the water tables or a potential shipping derailment.

But with the Trump administration renewing interest in moving Yucca Mountain forward, Nevada lawmakers are seeing the potential for a second “screw Nevada” congressional moment. “This legislation is Screw Nevada 2.0,” Titus said in a statement. “Nevada is not a wasteland, and I’ll continue to fight any attempt to turn it into the nation’s nuclear waste dumping ground.”
Bipartisan Support for Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Bill — Except in Nevada
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 05 Mar 2019, 15:37:42

Funny thing, the State of Nevada opposes Yucca mountain repository, but the people who actually live there are eager for the jobs and taxes it will result in for their poor section of the state and are majority in favor.
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Tue 05 Mar 2019, 17:48:55

Tanada wrote:Funny thing, the State of Nevada opposes Yucca mountain repository, but the people who actually live there are eager for the jobs and taxes it will result in for their poor section of the state and are majority in favor.
The people of Nevada oppose the Yucca mountain Repository as well. Some support it for the money it would bring in. But overall Nevadans oppose it. It's been that way for a long time now. Nevada's opposition to nuclear goes back longer than Yucca Mountain. Back in 1951, The Atomic Energy Commission started testing nuclear bombs in Nevada and continued to do so for decades. They told Nevadans this was perfectly safe. Nevada even started inviting tourists to come watch the "mushroom clouds". It was only later when Nevadans learned that atomic fallout is actually dangerous that they got angry at being lied to. The nation's first nuclear waste repository was opened in Nevada in 1962 in Beatty, Nevada. However it started leaking. In 2015 there was an explosion there. Nevadans' opposition to nuclear waste is understandable in the context of these events.

2003 - A majority of Nevadans are still opposed to the Energy Department's plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. A poll conducted for Nevada released Thursday found that 75 percent oppose locating the high-level waste storage site at Yucca Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Only slightly more than 20 percent support the project.
75 percent of Nevadans oppose Yucca dumpsite

2004 - Results of an annual statewide survey show that nearly 73 percent of all Nevadans believe the state should continue fighting, rather than seek some sort of deal with the federal government, in Nevada’s battle against the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. If given the chance to vote on the project, the survey found that nearly 77 percent of all Nevadans would vote against it, with only 19 percent saying they would vote for it.
Annual statewide survey shows Nevadans are increasingly opposed to a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain Nearly 77 percent oppose it, with 73 percent saying don’t make any deals.

2007 - Nevada voters remain overwhelmingly opposed to federal plans to store the nation’s nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, according to a statewide poll published Tuesday. 76 percent oppose the project. The survey also found that opposition to the project crosses party lines.
Poll finds Nevada voters strongly oppose Yucca

2017 - The roots of statewide resentment
Two-thirds of Nevadans oppose this plan, according to a 2017 poll. The state’s experience with federal actions, including nuclear weapons and waste, may help explain the proposed repository’s long-standing unpopularity.

In 1951, seeking a cheaper domestic location for nuclear tests and research, the Atomic Energy Commission chose part of Nellis. Until 1963, the Nevada Test Site was the scene of about 100 aboveground atomic tests, with more than 800 additional underground tests to follow until nuclear testing ceased in 1992. When aboveground testing began, Nevada cashed in. The governor welcomed the chance to see the desert “blooming with atoms.” Las Vegas marketed the mushroom cloud as a tourist attraction, as well as an atomic hairdo and cocktail. Atomic Energy Commission pamphlets and videos declared the tests to be harmless to those living nearby.

After learning more about the health dangers associated with nuclear fallout, Nevadans began to trust the government less. Repeated leaks and safety issues at the nation’s first low-level nuclear waste dump, opened in 1962 in Beatty, Nevada, eventually led to its closure in 1992.
Separately, some rural Nevadans came to resent federal regulations overall, especially after the federal government increased the Bureau of Land Management’s regulatory powers in the mid-1970s. Their Sagebrush Rebellion sought state control over almost all federal lands within Nevada’s borders and spread throughout the rural West.
The federal government has long treated Nevada as a dumping ground, and it’s not just Yucca Mountain

2018 - But there is one spot in that record that may haunt Heller: an opinion penned by Kavanaugh compelling the federal government to move forward with a nuclear waste storage project deeply unpopular in his home state of Nevada.
The Energy 202: Kavanaugh's court decision on Yucca Mountain could be campaign issue in Nevada Senate race
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby Zarquon » Fri 08 Mar 2019, 16:51:44

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/15 ... -watchdog/

"...
Obama himself has had a long and unpleasing record of engagement with the nuclear industry, notably the Exelon Corporation, which has been making generous provision to Obama’s campaign chest ever since his days in the Illinois Senate, where he performed various useful services on the corporation’s behalf. It should therefore have come as no surprise that when a vacancy arose on the NRC board early in his administration, Obama nominated Magwood.

The nomination was opposed by over a hundred organizations which vainly cited Magwood’s shameful record as a tout for the industry he was now supposed to regulate. Once installed early in 2010, he showed every sign of a zealous commitment to advancing the priorities of the nuclear power industry.
...
Opposing the infamous bill was freshman Senator Harry Reid. Outraged and humiliated by the way that legislators from Washington state and Texas, the two other nominees for a waste site, had effectively consigned Nevada to be the radioactive trash dump, Reid, a former amateur boxer, remarked that “sometimes you have to go round the back of the bar” to finish a fight.

In ensuing years, as the construction crews tunneled away into the depths of the mountain, Reid took several initiatives to ensure that Yucca Mountain never opened for business. First, he advanced through the Democratic leadership to become Majority Leader in 2006. Second, he maneuvered successfully to move Nevada’s Democratic caucuses to January, thus rendering them potentially crucial in the nomination race. This had the natural consequence of generating fervent pledges from Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton in 2008 that, so long as there was breath in their bodies, Yucca Mountain would never hold nuclear waste. Thirdly, Reid recruited as his appropriations director and science policy adviser Gregory Jaczko, a former aide to veteran anti-nuke congressman Ed Markey. Fourth, he induced George W. Bush in 2005, to nominate Jaczko as a Commissioner to the NRC in exchange for dropping Democratic opposition to a number of federal judgeships. Following Obama’s presidential victory, Reid demanded and secured Jaczko’s appointment as Chairman of the NRC.
..."
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby eclipse » Wed 01 May 2019, 23:10:53

the reality is, nuclear waste is *the solution* to climate change! Imagine digging up your best crude oil and refining it into A-grade jet fuel only to bury it again! Madness. Burying nuclear waste is like that! Breeder reactors eat nuclear waste, getting 90 times the energy out of it.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor Dr James Hansen’s science council for global initiatives recommends breeders.
GE have a breeder reactor called the PRISM that's ready to commercialise in the first country that will allow it.http://gehitachiprism.com/https://en.wi ... M_(reactor) The UK has enough nuclear waste to power her for 500 years. Nuclear ‘waste’ in America is worth about $30 TRILLION because it could run America for 1000 years. Finally, once the breeder reactor has burned the waste again and again, Argonne labs shows how to melt the final waste product down into ceramic tablets and store it under the reactor-park for just 300 years. Then it is safe!

Here’s the 4 minute Argonne Labs video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMDDhQ9-pE
Dr James Hansen recommends breeder reactors that convert nuclear 'waste' into 1000 years of clean energy for America, and can charge all our light vehicles and generate "Blue Crude" for heavy vehicles.
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby Yonnipun » Thu 02 May 2019, 03:49:39

eclipse wrote:the reality is, nuclear waste is *the solution* to climate change! Imagine digging up your best crude oil and refining it into A-grade jet fuel only to bury it again! Madness. Burying nuclear waste is like that! Breeder reactors eat nuclear waste, getting 90 times the energy out of it.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor Dr James Hansen’s science council for global initiatives recommends breeders.
GE have a breeder reactor called the PRISM that's ready to commercialise in the first country that will allow it.http://gehitachiprism.com/https://en.wi ... M_(reactor) The UK has enough nuclear waste to power her for 500 years. Nuclear ‘waste’ in America is worth about $30 TRILLION because it could run America for 1000 years. Finally, once the breeder reactor has burned the waste again and again, Argonne labs shows how to melt the final waste product down into ceramic tablets and store it under the reactor-park for just 300 years. Then it is safe!

Here’s the 4 minute Argonne Labs video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMDDhQ9-pE


In practice those plants do not work. Simple as that.
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Thu 02 May 2019, 14:55:33

To expand on Yonnipun's comment, here is some more info on why breeder reactors are no solution to the nuclear waste problem.

In October 2016, Japan’s science and technology ministry announced that it was going to start decommissioning its Monju fast breeder reactor in 2020. Monju had a troubled history, and the decision to shut it down was in line with decisions in the United States and Western European countries to cancel their breeder reactor programs—which had come to be seen as unnecessary, unsafe, or uneconomical.

In the more than 60 years that have passed since the adoption of the three-phase plan, we have learned a lot about breeder reactors. Three of the important lessons are that fast breeder reactors are costly to build and operate; they have special safety problems; and they have severe reliability problems, including persistent sodium leaks.

These problems were observed in countries around the world, and have not been solved despite spending over $100 billion (in 2007 dollars) on breeder reactor research and development, and on constructing prototypes.
A fast reactor at any cost: The perverse pursuit of breeder reactors in India

After decades of research and experimentation, fast neutron reactors remain unsafe, uneconomical, and unable to address the problems of nuclear power.

Fast neutron reactors are typically high temperature reactors fueled by a plutonium/uranium blend and cooled using an inert gas or liquid metal. They were first promoted as a way to extend uranium supplies, because as they operate, unusable uranium can be converted to fissile plutonium that can be used as fuel. It has since become clear that uranium is more abundant than originally thought. Now, fast reactors are being advocated as a waste solution that would reduce the radioactivity of spent fuel by converting long-lived plutonium and other radioactive heavy metals in the waste into shorter-lived radionuclides. Fast neutron reactors, however, have a terrible track record in safety and economics, and are not capable of solving the waste problem.
Fast Reactors

Hopes that the “fast breeder”– a plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor designed to produce more fuel than it consumed -- might serve as a major part of the long-term nuclear waste disposal solution are not merited by the dismal track record to date of such sodium-cooled reactors in France, India, Japan, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to a major new study from the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Titled “Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status,” the IPFM report concludes: “The problems (with fast breeder reactors) … make it hard to dispute Admiral Hyman Rickover’s summation in 1956, based on his experience with a sodium-cooled reactor developed to power an early U.S. nuclear submarine, that such reactors are ‘expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair.’” Plagued by high costs, often multi-year downtime for repairs (including a 15-year reactor restart delay in Japan), multiple safety problems (among them often catastrophic sodium fires triggered simply by contact with oxygen), and unresolved proliferation risks, “fast breeder” reactors already have been the focus of more than $50 billion in development spending, including more than $10 billion each by the U.S., Japan and Russia. As the IPFM report notes: “Yet none of these efforts has produced a reactor that is anywhere near economically competitive with light-water reactors … After six decades and the expenditure of the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars, the promise of breeder reactors remains largely unfulfilled and efforts to commercialize them have been steadily cut back in most countries.”
REPORT: UNSUCCESSFUL “FAST BREEDER” IS NO SOLUTION FOR LONG-TERM REACTOR WASTE DISPOSAL ISSUES
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Thu 02 May 2019, 16:49:02

Myths, half-truths and lies; Oh My!
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Thu 02 May 2019, 17:16:35

if something is a lie or half truth then correct it. What exactly are lies and half truths?
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby eclipse » Thu 02 May 2019, 19:47:04

There were plenty of early car designs that weren't that great, let alone early attempts at flight! But after trial and error they commercialised stuff that works.

After 400 Fast Neutron Reactor reactor-years we know the physics works, it's just which of the many breeder reactor strategies is the best to commercialise.

But that's all in the future! We can build out today's non-breeder Gen3 reactors with passive safety, like the AP1000. We've enough uranium to last us a few generations in which time the breeder commercialisation programs already in play will have matured, including the Japanese Fast Neutron Reactor program.

Russia just opened their BN-800 and, while I'm not saying it's the best design and the one that will be adopted in the future, they have sold plans to the Chinese and is one of the first fast breeder reactors in the world to be exported. Mind you, the Japanese paid a billion dollars for the plans for the Bn-600, a Fast Neutron Reactor that has operated well, proved reliable, and is the backbone of the Bn-800 design. You've quoted a mostly anti-nuclear organisation with a fear bias against plutonium but whenever asking proliferation questions you have to ask which kind of plutonium is being produced. You'll find many FNR designs burn weapons grade plutonium and turn it into reactor grade fuel. And far from being doomed as your piece above suggests, there are many FNR reactor programs that have worked, are working, and are still in development around the world.

Japan’s nuclear energy policy now includes having a Generation IV sodium-cooled demonstration FNR in operation by 2025. Indeed, the Monju and Joyu reactors were experimental - they were testing a bunch of different operations and kit, and broke some stuff. As you do when you push experiments to see what happens! But were they failures?

In October 2016 METI’s Conference on Fast Reactor Development agreed that it would be technologically possible to develop a demonstration reactor using the experience obtained from the prototype fast breeder reactor (FBR) Monju and the experimental reactor Joyo, owned by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). It also affirmed the importance of international cooperation in such an endeavour, and was briefed on progress with France’s Astrid project. METI’s Agency for Natural Resources & Energy (ANRE) set out requirements for any new demonstration fast reactors.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/informatio ... ctors.aspx

They ran some tests on these test reactors and are now moving through to commercial demonstration. That hardly sounds like a failure to me!

And while we're talking Fast Neutron Reactors, let's not forget America's EBR2 program.

GE Hitachi's PRISM reactor is a modernized and commercial implementation of the technology developed for the Integral Fast Reactor(IFR), developed by Argonne National Laboratory between 1984 and 1994. With the primary purpose of PRISM differing in the focus on burning up spent nuclear fuel from other reactors, rather than breeding new fuel. Presented as an alternative to burying the spent fuel/waste, the design reduces the half lives of the fissionable elements present in spent nuclear fuel while generating electricity largely as a by-product.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor


GE nearly got approval to build this in America and then in the UK, but the UK seems to have moved in another very exciting direction - molten salts. This is a thermal reactor, not a fast reactor, a whole different approach in the basic physics. (So the physicists tell me! I'm not a scientist. :-D )

Moltex Energy proposes the SSR as an improved version of the molten salt reactor with improved safety characteristics and economics. Stable salt reactors do not need expensive containment structures and components to keep them in a stable condition. In the Chernobyl accident the two most troublesome by-products were caesium-137 and iodine-131 in gaseous form, which are harmful to land and people. This hazard is inherent with any water-cooled reactor, but in a molten salt reactor these elements do not exist in the form of a gas — they are bound in nonvolatile salts, which cannot escape the plant in most accident scenarios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_salt_reactor


In the meantime, China is also investing heavily in the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR). The MSR's a personal favourite of mine because it *cannot* melt down. It's already a liquid! Instead it wants to freeze up the moment it gets below 400 degrees C. The other great thing about some of these reactors is they don't use water as the heat exchange fluid. That means the reactor core isn't a gigantic pressure cooker at 150 atmospheres ready to blow, but instead operates at much more reasonable pressures. It's a safety feature, but it also makes the core easier to build. High pressure cores have to be cast out of a single-piece of steel like a giant washing machine drum 2 stories high! That's expensive, and uses gigantic foundries. Room-pressure cores can be manufactured on the assembly line. In other words, the right breeder reactor program could crash the cost right down, like when Henry Ford first put cars on the assembly line! It's the difference between cost in a hand crafted Rolls Royce and a factory line Hyundai.

But the Molten Salt Reactor is probably in the future. They're probably going to build the solid-fuelled salt reactor first. It has great safety, but it's with the goal of getting to the MSR. http://www.world-nuclear.org/informatio ... ctors.aspx
Dr James Hansen recommends breeder reactors that convert nuclear 'waste' into 1000 years of clean energy for America, and can charge all our light vehicles and generate "Blue Crude" for heavy vehicles.
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby dissident » Fri 03 May 2019, 18:48:57

The only near-commerical stage fast neutron reactor on the planet is the BN-800. The BN-600 operated for 30 years and refined the
French concept that was deployed with the Superphenix reactor. The BN-800 is not an experimental reactor but en early stage variant of the BN-1200 that will be widely deployed in Russia and, given Rosatom's 67% share of the global reactor business, abroad as well.

Molten salt reactors get lots of lip service but never leave the test stage. This is strange for such a superior design. It looks like the corrosion of the piping and the need for developed chemical reprocessing technology is basically ignored by advocates but is a show stopper. Carter killed the molten salt reactor chances by killing nuclear "waste" reprocessing. France has the reprocessing capacity but is not working on any molten salt reactors. Japan is way behind after wasting all its time on the nonsensical Monju test reactor (which is a conversion of a water moderated/cooled type design instead of the French concept) and does not have any nuclear reprocessing capability. And this capability is not something one gets in a few years by spending some money.

https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/thorium ... m-problem/
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby eclipse » Fri 03 May 2019, 23:09:57

dissident wrote:The only near-commerical stage fast neutron reactor on the planet is the BN-800.

I note you didn't mention the BN-1200? Oh yeah, because it doesn't exist yet. Yet. It's so easy to dismiss a whole category of technology with terse statements like "only near-commerical stage fast neutron reactor on the planet". That's now. That's too narrow a snapshot of the overall trends. It's like saying "It's warm today, so I deny climate change." Or worse, "The world only has a market for 4 computers." Remember that these projects are huge infrastructure commitments from multiple countries, kind of like building the Large Hadron Collider (although not quite as extreme as that.) But they're still big investments. So with the GFC etc some of the participating countries have slowed programs down, but there are many — taking a variety of approaches to FNR design. There's Astrid in France, partly funded by Japanese corporations. Indeed, Atrid is really interesting because due to GFC slow-downs, it sounds like Japan is getting frustrated and about to split off and go their own way!

In June 2018 the French government stated that Astrid will have its capacity scaled down from the initially planned 600 MWe to between 100 and 200 MWe to reduce construction costs and also due to development of a commercial fast reactor no longer being a high priority. Following the decision, Toshiba said that the smaller Astrid would be a step back for Japan's fast reactor development process, possibly forcing the country to build its own larger demonstration reactor in Japan rather than rely on Astrid.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informatio ... ctors.aspx

Indeed, just have a browse at the link above through all the countries and programs still underway. Some of these are shorter term, others out to 2050.


dissident wrote:Molten salt reactors get lots of lip service but never leave the test stage.

I blame Nixon. The original molten salt reactor test worked well, but then Nixon wanted a jobs program in California for political reasons and didn't understand the MSR program and joked that he didn't quite get all this sciencey stuff, and funded the fast breeder program as well. Now the FNR is still a good reactor, and the programs I linked to above could ultimately produce ultra-safe ultra-cheap breeder reactors that eat nuclear waste and would have survived the Fukushima power outage easy. But. The MSR is the road-not-taken, the great 'what if'? It has even greater safety, greater efficiency, and the super-high temperatures of this thing mean it could perform so many other industrial processes (hydrogen cracking and any industrial processes requiring extreme heat) that its electricity is almost a by-product!

dissident wrote:It looks like the corrosion of the piping and the need for developed chemical reprocessing technology is basically ignored by advocates but is a show stopper.

I don't think it's a show stopper at all from what I'm reading? The MSR program identified these issues about 60 years ago, and materials science has bounded ahead since then. Also, which fuel mix? There are many, some more corrosive, some less. If corrosion was identified as a 'show stopper' in the 1969 Argonne labs tests, why are there so many different MSR and SSR programs in the world?
http://www.world-nuclear.org/informatio ... ctors.aspx

dissident wrote:Carter killed the molten salt reactor chances by killing nuclear "waste" reprocessing.

And Bill Clinton shut down the great EBR2 Fast Neutron Reactor program due to plutonium concerns as well, and our Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has approved yet another giant coal mine. Politicians are sometimes uninformed, sometimes wilful lobby-appeasing morons. But this does not reflect on what is possible in the science.

France has the reprocessing capacity but is not working on any molten salt reactors.
Hmmm, depends what you mean by 'France'. As a State, or as a member of the EU? I mean, it looks like you didn't even read the wiki before making that statement?
The CNRS project EVOL (Evaluation and viability of liquid fuel fast reactor system) project, with the objective of proposing a design of the MSFR (Molten Salt Fast Reactor),[26] released its final report in 2014.[27] R& Various MSR projects like FHR, MOSART, MSFR, and TMSR have common R&D themes.[28] The EVOL project will be continued by the EU-funded Safety Assessment of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor (SAMOFAR) project, in which several European research institutes and universities collaborate.[29]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_sa ... tor#France


There is now renewed interest in the MSR concept in Japan, Russia, China, France and the USA, and one of the six Generation IV designs selected for further development is the MSR in two distinct variants, the molten salt fast reactor (MSFR) and the advanced high temperature reactor (AHTR) – also known as the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (FHR) with solid fuel, or PB-FHR specifically with pebble fuel. The Generation IV international Forum (GIF) mentions 'salt processing' as a technology gap for MSRs, putting the initial focus clearly on burners rather than breeders.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/informatio ... ctors.aspx



Japan is way behind after wasting all its time on the nonsensical Monju test reactor (which is a conversion of a water moderated/cooled type design instead of the French concept) and does not have any nuclear reprocessing capability. And this capability is not something one gets in a few years by spending some money.

Maybe not a FEW years, but as I've repeatedly said the world should mass produce today's best passive-safety Gen3 reactors like the AP1000 (or better) as these will produce the perfect fuel for tomorrow's breeders. We've still got enough uranium for a few generations to get the breeder thing perfected. Indeed, nuclear advocates and boosters like Michael Shellenberger say we should NOT build breeders yet but concentrate on standardising the best passive-safety reactor we have now and MASS produce it to bring costs down and defeat energy poverty and climate change.

Having restated that qualification, breeder programs are (slowly) moving along in the countries you appear to be having a go at. There's negotiations and planning seminars and reengineering workshops, but gradually these things tend to come to fruition, spend a bunch of money, and finally build something. You mentioned Japan? Here's their plan, and it might be good to browse this page as well to get a summary of all the other SSR and MSR programs around the world. I'd bet on the UK's Solid Salt Reactor before any Molten Salt Reactor.

Fuji MSR
The Fuji MSR is a 100-200 MWe graphite-moderated design to operate as a near-breeder with ThF4-UF4 fuel salt and FLiBe coolant at 700°C. It can consume plutonium and actinides, and be from 100 to 1000 MWe. Batch reprocessing. It is being developed internationally by a Japanese, Russian and US consortium: the International Thorium Molten Salt Forum (ITMSF), based in Japan. It is derived from the Oak Ridge MSBR, and several variants have been designed, including a 10 MWe mini Fuji. Thorium Tech Solutions Inc (TTS) plan to commercialise the Fuji concept, and is working on it with the Halden test reactor in Norway.
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 04 May 2019, 00:46:31

Fuji MSR
The Fuji MSR is a 100-200 MWe graphite-moderated design to operate as a near-breeder with ThF4-UF4 fuel salt and FLiBe coolant at 700°C. It can consume plutonium and actinides, and be from 100 to 1000 MWe. Batch reprocessing. It is being developed internationally by a Japanese, Russian and US consortium: the International Thorium Molten Salt Forum (ITMSF), based in Japan. It is derived from the Oak Ridge MSBR, and several variants have been designed, including a 10 MWe mini Fuji. Thorium Tech Solutions Inc (TTS) plan to commercialise the Fuji concept, and is working on it with the Halden test reactor in Norway.
The Halden test reactor in Norway has been shutdown permanently and is being decommissioned:

The board of directors of Norway's Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) has decided to close the Halden Reactor permanently and to start its decommissioning. The board will not apply to extend its operating licence, which expires in 2020, and the reactor, which is currently shut down due to a safety valve failure, will not be restarted.
Halden Reactor to be decommissioned

France's ASRTID might meet the same fate:

The French government has informed Japan it will halt joint development of advanced nuclear reactors, Nikkei has learned, dealing a blow to the fuel cycle policy underpinning much of the East Asian country's energy plans. France is expected to halt research from next year into the Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration project, or Astrid, and stop setting budgets for the fast breeder reactors from 2020.
France halts joint nuclear project in blow to Japan's fuel cycle

The Japanese do not seem happy at this prospect:

France is expected to halt research from next year into the Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration project, or Astrid, and stop setting budgets for the fast breeder reactors from 2020.

French President Emmanuel Macron revealed plans Tuesday to cut France's nuclear reliance to 50% from the current 70%. Under that plan, the Astrid project, which has faced ballooning construction costs and cutbacks, appears to have been viewed as less urgently needed.

The French government denied it has made an official decision on the matter, according to Reuters. But the consideration comes at a time when tensions between Tokyo and Paris are mounting over the arrest of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, and Renault's control over the Japanese automaker.

Japan viewed Astrid as a keystone of its plans to recycle spent nuclear fuel. The country pulled the plug in 2016 on its own prototype fast breeder reactor. That reactor, known as Monju, encountered a great deal of trouble and incurred heavy costs over its decades-long history.

the loss of Astrid is significant. Just a few of Japan's nuclear reactors currently use mixed-oxide fuel, and the country's plutonium stores continue to pile up far faster than it can be consumed -- driving the U.S. to express concern, as the fissile material can be used in nuclear weapons. The blow to the fuel cycle policy may trigger calls from Japan's government and from opposition parties to revise national energy policy.
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby eclipse » Sat 04 May 2019, 03:09:15

First of all, which Halden Reactor? The one you're talking about isn't a MSR at all, but is an old boiling water reactor from 1958. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halden_Reactor

Maybe they were going to retrofit a smaller MSR inside the Halden complex? I'm not sure. It does seem that the Fuji MSR plans were bought out by another company but I'm not sure if they've got the funding yet to try and commercialise this specific design. All I see is their website, and there isn't even a wiki for them yet? Whatever. These are long term projects developing the potential in the physics into a commercial reality. There will be bumps along the way, but we know the physics works and we know the benefits.

2 main reasons.

Fuel: if we just get the configuration right, we can get 60 to 90 times the energy out of each unit of uranium, stretching both uranium and thorium use on earth out for billions of years. Uranium from seawater is 'renewable' in that uranium particles are topped up by erosion. I'm not betting on exactly which breeder will win out of the 2 main categories, but that there are dozens of approaches within each branch of the physics, whether Fast Neutron Reactor or Thermal breeder reactor (SSR or MSR), gives the nuclear engineering world a high degree of confidence that the human race will commercialise what they already know to be true. We already have 400 reactor years of experience with FNR's. We know it works. We're just tidying up the model. It's like the Wright Brothers have not only flown their plane, but we've had WW1 and WW2 and are now just getting into the commercial passenger jet market. Back then we knew the physics worked, but just had to spend the money to commercialise it.

There are no technical barriers. We can do this, we just need the willpower. I expect that willpower to arrive with our first real climate disaster or peak oil hitting, and then we'll have a race to electrify transport AND build out a huge fleet of AP1000's while R&D on commercialising the perfect breeder continues. There's no rush. The original nuclear engineers imaged we'd all be using breeders by now, but that was based on a very pessimistic appraisal of the world's uranium reserves. We found too much uranium to make the race to breeders a priority. Also, the Cold War meant research into Fast Breeders got the nod from the Pentagon, as they can be weaponised. But the MSR thermal breeder pathway is not as easy to weaponise. So there are historical forces at work here as well.

Second main reason, the nuclear waste from breeder reactors only has to be melted down into ceramic blocks and then stored under the reactor for 500 years and then is safe.

They're two GREAT reasons to look forward to a breeder reactor future!
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby eclipse » Wed 08 May 2019, 02:38:29

Now, as to what projects might be commercialised first? Well, that would be the BN-800, unless you have another definition of 'commercial'?

Unit 4 of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in Russia has started commercial operation, state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced today. The BN-800 fast neutron reactor started operating at 100% power for the first time on 17 August.... The 789 MWe BN-800 Beloyarsk 4 is fuelled by a mix of uranium and plutonium oxides arranged to produce new fuel material as it burns. Its capacity exceeds that of the world's second most powerful fast reactor - the 560 MWe BN-600 Beloyarsk 3.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Ru ... 11602.html

These could also be contenders soon.
http://www.elysiumindustries.com/

https://terrapower.com/technologies/mcfr

Finally, National Geographic says nuclear waste in breeder reactors could run the ENTIRE PLANET for 72 years!
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/maga ... ergy-plan/
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 08 May 2019, 05:01:56

If you want to say fast breeder reactors are the solution to the nuclear waste problem I'm not sure using Russia is a very good example. Not when they've been taking nuclear waste from Beloyarsk and dumping it in a nearby swamp.

Russia's laws prohibit dumping of liquid radioactive waste in the open hydrographic network. Despite this, it takes place at the Beloyarsk NPP over many years. During the operation of the plant’s three units, radionuclides have been accumulated in sediments of the Olkhovsky wetland (the BNPP water dump site) and removed by the Pyshma river to 180 km downstream. In fact, the Olkhovsky wetland and the Olkhovka river have turned into an illegal dump-site of radioactive waste and become a secondary source of pollution. More than 100 Ku of long-lived radionuclides have been dumped to the Olkhovsky wetland. According to the Institute of Geophysics, in terms radionuclides content, muddy bottoms of the Olkhovka river are close to the category of radioactive waste - the concentration of radionuclides in them is more than 30 kBq / kg. Increased level of activity has led to the need for closure of the wetland area (about 40 ha). Independent studies carried out by the Radiation Safety Committee found multiple exceeding of cesium-134 and cesium-137 content in the water.

In addition, heavy hydrogen - tritium - emerged in result of the first two blocks operation. In water of the Beloyarsk Reservoir concentration of tritium 2-3 times exceeds natural background. According to the Institute of Geophysics, "tritium is found in the Elizavetisky underground water intake from which drinking water is taken to Yekaterinburg”. Meanwhile, the existing system of radioactive monitoring does not take into consideration impact of tritium, radon and carbon-14.


Russia's fast breeder reactor program doesn't exactly have a stellar safety record either. Because of all of the accidents and radiation leaks the safety zone around the plant has grown to the size of Chernobyl.

One of the serious problems of the BN-600 operation is a possible leak of sodium. There were 27 leaks at the unit, five of them occurred in systems with radioactive sodium, 14 were accompanied by burning of sodium, and five were caused by improper maintenance or repair operations or by the unit input/output operations.

The most serious incidents at the Beloyarsk NPP:

From 1964 to 1979 disintegration of fuel assemblies repeatedly occurred in the first unit core. In 1977, a half of fuel assemblies melted down in the second unit core. Repairs took about a year. December 31, 1978, a fire occurred at the second unit. The fire was caused by the floor slab in the machine room falling on the turbo-generator oil tank. The entire control cable burned out. The reactor was left without control systems. Eight people got irradiated during emergency cooling water supply operations.

January 21, 1987, accident occurred at the BN-600 reactor: in result of exceeding the permissible operating temperature in the reactor core a massive break of fuel elements hermeticity happened. This led to the release of radioactivity with total activity of about 100 thousand Ci. By all its characteristics it was a 4 level accident by the INES.

In August 1992, the expedition of the State Chernobyl Committee of Russia in the Beloyarsk NPP area found anomalous concentration of cesium-137 and cobalt-60. Maximum radiation was registered at about 1200 mcR/h and formed mainly by radiation of cobalt-60.

December 22, 1992, due to personal negligence of staff a liquid radioactive waste storage pumps service room was flooded. Water reached soil under the storage, and then, by special drainage network, the cooling pond. Total amount of liquid radioactive waste leaked was about 15 m3 with total activity of 6 Ku. The total activity of cesium-137 entered the cooling pond, about 6 mKu. This incident was assigned to the 3rd level on the INES.

January 29, 1993, due to the increased number of failures in the technological process at the Beloyarsk NPP the sanitary-protective zone of the plant was expanded. Its radius has grown from 8 to 30 kilometers and became equal to the size of the Chernobyl zone.

October 7, 1993, at 11:19 am, the third unit of Beloyarsk NPP was stopped on the grounds of the increased radiation background in the ventilation system. The reason was a coolant leak in one of the auxiliary systems. Also, according to director of the plant, there was a small fire. The incident was rated a 1st level on the INES.

June 6, 1994, during the major repair non-radioactive sodium leaked from the second circuit, causing the fire. The plant personnel was unable to manage the situation on its own and called 15 the fire brigade. The brigade also did not have means extinguish sodium. Once the leak was stopped the released sodium burned out, and the fire stopped by itself.

In 1995, radiation levels in groundwater under the liquid radioactive waste storage was found to exceed the allowable concentrations of cesium-137 by 1.2-4.4 times and of strontium-90 by 1.8 -11.5 times at the Beloyarsk NPP.

June 9, 1999, one of the three turbo-generators was shut down because of the risk of ignition of the turbine. There was an alarm system signal. Two other generators were shut down automatically.

September 9, 2000, due to personnel errors an accident occurred in the Sverdlovenergo power grid that supplies the plant with electricity the station. In result the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant was disconnected from the power supply. 3 seconds later the BN-600 reactor was shut down by emergency system. As a result, the plant’s capacity reduced to 0. The station was deenergized for 9 minutes. Emergency situation of this kind is not described in the special instructions. According to independent experts, the BNPP was only a few minutes away from a disaster comparable with Chernobyl .

July 9, 2007, one of the three BNPP power generators was cut off in result of a lightning hit to the overhead power line.

In June 2008, due to some faults of one of the main circulating pump system the reactor capacity was reduced from 600 to 400 MW. In result, one of loops in which the coolant circulates was automatically shut down.
RUSSIAN PLUTONIUM PROGRAM: NUCLEAR WASTE, ACCIDENTS, AND SENSELESS HUGE COSTS
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby dissident » Wed 08 May 2019, 17:18:54

What a freaking joke! Brain dead propaganda for brain dead saps.

Sodium leaks from unpressurized vat reactors are irrelevant. These clowns and you, a clown, want to make it sound like it was corium release from full meltdowns. Take your denier BS and shove it back up your rear end, loser. Irradiated sodium half lives are short:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_sodium

Since these leaks do not escape the vat they have zero impact on the environment. This is not as bad as tritium leaks from conventional power plants that enter the ground water. And in spite of such incidents, the area around nuclear power plants is among the cleanest, like a residential neighbourhood. Not an industrial site, and not the toxic waste dump that surrounds a coal power plant.

Claims about Russian nuclear waste dumping are unproven and serve as convenient lies. It's not as if somebody from the west is actually going to investigate these claims. Also, we have the bait and switch of using events from the 1950s and making them out to be current ones. In case it is not clear, so-called nuclear waste is actually worth something, especially to Russia which does not have very large Uranium deposits. Trying to smear Russians as primitive savages who don't know how to add or even feed themselves is racist hate speech. Russia has been taking US nuclear warheads and reprocessing them into MOX reactor fuel to be burned by conventional nuclear power plants around the world:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informatio ... -fuel.aspx

Russia has launched production of MOX for the BN-800:

http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/ ... -assemblie

But according to liar zealots, Russians are just dumping everything into a swamp. Go and get f*cked.

http://euanmearns.com/the-bn-800-fast-r ... long-road/

Image

OMG, but meh sodium leaks in the BN-600 that never exited the building. Love canal? What's Love canal....
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Re: THE Nuclear Waste Thread (merged)

Unread postby Yonnipun » Wed 08 May 2019, 17:41:57

The only real solution to the nuclear pollution is dilution. And russians seems to aknowledge it.
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