Self-Healing Ceramics for Nuclear Safety

Roland Piquepaille writes "Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers have used supercomputers to simulate how common ceramics could repair themselves after radiation-induced damages. This is an important discovery because 'materials that can resist radiation damage are needed to expand the use of nuclear energy.' These ceramics, which are able to handle high radiation doses, could improve the durability of nuclear power plants. They also might help to solve the problem of nuclear waste storage. But read more for additional references about how this research could improve nuclear safety."

Comments

Waste storage?

[momerath2003]

The only problem with nuclear waste storage is politicians. Radioactive waste storage is a proven, safe technology. Even so, long-term geological storage is not the right solution, since we would be throwing away a lot of good, fissionable material that can be recycled for energy production in, e.g., fast reactors.

Re:Waste storage?

[Chandon Seldon]

If you get your fuel recycling going properly, then the cycle-end waste gets back to ore-level radioactivity in a couple hundred years. We have building technology that can reliably be trusted to store stuff for a couple hundred years - poured cement anywhere that isn't in a flood zone or on a tectonic fault line.

It's only with this damn fool "recycling nuclear fuel gives the terrorists nuclear bombs" nonsense that we're stuck with dangerously radioactive material 1500 years from now.