thor wrote:Why not shoot nuclear waste into the sun by means of the very reliable Soyuz rockets? Besides, space is extremely 'polluted' with radioactivity.
Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste
Fast-neutron reactors could extract much more energy from recycled nuclear fuel, minimize the risks of weapons proliferation and markedly reduce the time nuclear waste must be isolated
By William H. Hannum, Gerald E. Marsh and George S. Stanford
Despite long-standing public concern about the safety of nuclear energy, more and more people are realizing that it may be the most environmentally friendly way to generate large amounts of electricity. Several nations, including Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, India, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam, are building or planning nuclear plants. But this global trend has not as yet extended to the U.S., where work on the last such facility began some 30 years ago.
If developed sensibly, nuclear power could be truly sustainable and essentially inexhaustible and could operate without contributing to climate change. In particular, a relatively new form of nuclear technology could overcome the principal drawbacks of current methods--;namely, worries about reactor accidents, the potential for diversion of nuclear fuel into highly destructive weapons, the management of dangerous, long-lived radioactive waste, and the depletion of global reserves of economically available uranium. This nuclear fuel cycle would combine two innovations: pyrometallurgical processing (a high-temperature method of recycling reactor waste into fuel) and advanced fast-neutron reactors capable of burning that fuel. With this approach, the radioactivity from the generated waste could drop to safe levels in a few hundred years, thereby eliminating the need to segregate waste for tens of thousands of years....continued at Scientific American Digital
Dezakin wrote:Bah, more crap rehashing of molten chloride reprocessing techniques from ANL and trumpeting of fast neutron reactors. Its as if all these guys saw the same NOVA episode on PBS.
Molten flouride fuel reactors are still far superior, and apparently no one ever remembers the MSBR experiment that illustrated a vastly superior fuel cycle.
Fast reactors shouldnt ever be used. They're expensive, expensive, and expensive. They're really good at breeding, which means they're ideally designed for producing weapons material, not destroying it. Chuck your waste into the flouride slurry of a molten salt reactor instead. Its cheaper and more elegant.
http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/gpr/global01/th_MSR_HR.pdf
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Of course as I like to point out, MSBR give excellent preformance in seperating Pa-233 through online reprocessing which gives you a steady supply of U-233 after a year for it to decay.
The great thing about U-233 isn't that it makes excellent bombs, whihc it does
Dezakin wrote:Of course as I like to point out, MSBR give excellent preformance in seperating Pa-233 through online reprocessing which gives you a steady supply of U-233 after a year for it to decay.
Undesirable. MSBR's have breeding ratios very close to 1; About 1.05 I believe is the breeding ratio quoted in most studies I've seen. This is just enough to fuel the reactor itself, not spin more fuel for LWRs. Besides, the partitioning of Pa-233 is onsite so you might as well save your dime that would have gone into fuel fabrication and whatnot. LWRs should be decomissioned, and the ones that are still running can easily get more fuel for them for many decades to come with ordinary uranium mining and enrichment without jury-rigging what essentially is a converter reactor into being something else.The great thing about U-233 isn't that it makes excellent bombs, whihc it does
Nitpick: Just because you can weaponize it doesnt make it good for bombs. If I was a weapon designer the best material would be Pu239. Its more stable (untill you blow it) and has only alpha as a decay mode which makes it very safe to handle and operate on. U233 decays in a blast of gammas. Better hope the shop fabbed your bomb right cause you arent taking it apart for any reason.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
As for the radiation danger of U-233 in its pure form, which is what you get after the Pa-233 has had time to decay, see U-233 LINK
Dezakin wrote:Whats the breeding ratio with Pa partitioning?
As I remember it it was quoted as about 1.05 in most designs. Not exactly a fuel source, because unless you are significantly above 1 you are only a converter reactor making only enough fuel for yourself.
I like the idea of using higher actinides in the fuel matrix, but only as a small percentage of it because transuranic actinides are generally less soluble in FliBe. While they are more soluble in FliNaK, FLiNaK also has unresolved corrosion issues and a poorer neutron economy hindering breeding performance.As for the radiation danger of U-233 in its pure form, which is what you get after the Pa-233 has had time to decay, see U-233 LINK
Pu239 has an alpha decay to U235 which has a very long half life while U233 decays to Th229 which has a short half life and explosive decay chain just underneath it. That and the U232 residuals from partitioning have explosive gamma decay chains.
You can avoid U232 contamination, true, but you would never bother in power production. Most prefer to use Pu239 because the gammas are a pain. India might use U233 because they have hardly any uranium and yet thorium reserves.
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq6.html
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
gg3 wrote:And while this doesn't solve the issue of oil as industrial feedstock (i.e. for fertilizers and so on), it may solve our energy problems far enough to give us some breathing room to deal with the rest of it.
gg3 wrote:What we need right now is a hardcore push for science & engineering education starting in elementary school levels, to start training the next generation of engineers who will build and operate these plants (as well as the wind installations and so on that will make up the rest of the power mix). I have to believe that a generation of rational people will also be better positioned to solve the other issues around oil, and also solve other core sustainability issues as well.
Dezakin, based on your posts in another topic, I'd almost written you off as an "economic ideologue" (i.e. someone who believes in growth for its own sake, based on economics-as-ideology, but doesn't have a whole lot of knowledge of science & engineering).
Frank N. von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton, said that a new generation of reactors would cost tens of billions of dollars and that it would be a long time before it was clear that reprocessed fuel was needed.
Frank N. von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton, said that a new generation of reactors would cost tens of billions of dollars and that it would be a long time before it was clear that reprocessed fuel was needed.
Slowpoke wrote:Frank N. von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton, said that a new generation of reactors would cost tens of billions of dollars and that it would be a long time before it was clear that reprocessed fuel was needed.
"- I want a million dollars !
- Umm, Dr. Evil...
- What now ?
- A million dollars isn't that much money anymore. Y'know, inflation and all that.
- Oh."
Daryl wrote:Is there alot of liberal spin in it?
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