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Fusion-Fission System Burns Hot Radioactive Waste
An anonymous reader writes "A hybrid fission-fusion process has been developed that can be used in some traditional fission reactors to process radioactive waste and reduce the amount of waste produced by 99%. This process uses magnetic bottle techniques developed from fusion research. This seems like the first viable solution to the radioactive waste problem of traditional nuclear reactors. This could be a big breakthrough in the search for environmentally friendly energy sources. Lots of work remains to take the concept to an engineering prototype and then to a production reactor."
If at any point in this process (say you stop it at 50%) the 'waste' is now weapons grade this will never be allowed in the US.
If it's still 'radioactive' you can still get energy from it. You can refine it, clean it up and shove it back through again.
Generations ago we were masters of waste not want not. If you burned candles for light, you collected your drippings, remelted them into new candles. Imagine if the 13 Colonies outlawed this because you could also remelt them into canon wicks... absolute stupidity.
This is neat technology, and may some day be practical. But, i don't think that day is coming for 50-100 years.
Here's why : solar is getting cheap very rapidly. Today, you can pick up panels at $2.85 a watt off the shelf. Below $1 a watt, and it will be cheaper to put panels up than it will be to burn coal.
A fusion-fission hybrid system will cost a LOT. According to the wall street journal, nuclear fission plants are already deal-breaker expensive. It would be cheaper per watt to build more wind farms than new fission reactors. http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/05/12/its-the-economics-stupid-nuclear-powers-bogeyman/
Another way to look at it :
To operate a fusion-fission hybrid system, as well as dozens of large gigawatt fission reactors takes a lot of well trained and educated people working round the clock to make all of the technology work. There are very real dangers, and very expensive regulations that have to be followed.
To build more solar panels? You print some more off the reel and slap them on to glass. You park the panels in the desert and leave them alone for 25 years. Maybe a simple robot wipes them off occasionally.
There's no liability, or need for exhaustive quality control. If a panel fails prematurely, you pay a warranty claim.
Inherently, solar is going to always be cheaper for the foreseeable future.
Most corporations diversify, and the smart ones don't waste money maintaining their infrastructure. (Federal bailouts FTW.) If I had oil production revenues, I'd be plowing all my profits into tying up all the alternative energy IP and buying legislation to benefit from the coming switch.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Amen. That article was a reprint from Dec. 2005, IIRC.
Here a link to a QA session regarding AFR/IFR technology. It irks me to no end that ignorant, short-sighted politicians quashed this technology 15 YEARS AGO, and the greenies have taken that long to get over the "my god, it's nucular!" fearmongering and actually start to embrace it as an environmentally-safe alternative to our current mess.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Forgive my vast amounts of ignorance on the matter, but I thought breeder reactors were a viable way of burning nuclear waste down to nothing. Or is this the same thing? I'm confused.com.
Either way, it's good to know there are options to hush up them "ZOMGZ NEWKEELER HOLLERCAUST!" crowd that's so vehemently opposed to the cheapest and quickest to implement short- to mid-term solution we have to burning fossil fuels.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
Because the eco lobby does not like it and will scare monger anything to do with it. Grandma thinks that a reactor failing will look like Hiroshima.
Unfortunately people can not get it through there heads that fission/fusion is the only sustainable method of energy generation that can deal the increasing demand. Demand will not decrease, this would mean your children will have a lower standard of living than you.
No sir I dont like it.
That's great that they may have a way to solve the issue of nuclear waste, but that doesn't solve the main problem which is that you average person is afraid the power plant will blow up and destroy everything around it for hundreds of miles.
The fusion will be of lighter nuclei; deuterium or helium probably. They won't be fusing the 'sludge' or anything heavy that; that would take more energy than it would produce (thats why stars stop fusing at iron).
The fusion of the lighter nuclei will produce a lot of neutrons, their idea being to bombard the 'sludge' with neutrons to cause its nuclei to destabilise and fiss apart. Its kinda win-win really: the fusion reaction won't be terribly efficient, and on its own would probably produce only about as much energy as it takes to sustain it, but the fissing of the heavy nuclei will release a bunch more.
I lived in the same township as Three Mile Island for about 10 years. Also, my National Guard unit was tasked with providing an additional security presence in the months following 9/11. Anyone who wants to say anything about the horrible environmental impact of nuclear energy need only visit the southern 2 miles of the island (don't actually try to visit...you'll get arrested and possibly shot a bunch). It is as off-limits and protected as the rest of the facility, and is covered in wildlife, including more deer than I have seen anywhere else in my life. It's a nice area, plenty of good farm land, and not a single three eyed fish to be found. Be gone with your fear fueled rhetoric against nuclear power. I'll take one in my back yard before a fossil fuel plant any day.
-=Bang Bang=-
Weed is natural and they hate that. I don't think the 'average' person has a pattern, they are just idiots.
Courtesy of the media brainwashing the public. People are spoon fed lies by the media. They are told to fear doctors for they are fallible, have alternate agendas and are just plain instruments of "big pharmaceutical". Yet at the same time they preach alternative medicine, spirit-healing, homeopathy, chi energies and other "alternative medicine" to the public, as if they are miracle cures that somehow all scientists and doctors have missed so far after so many years of study. Most fall for this kind of thing, just like they fall for the propaganda advocating against nuclear energy.
Logical and scientific thought is being spit on by the "average joe". Yet at the same time, "average joe" loves to watch tv, have a cell phone and enjoy dental work.
People used to trust and respect doctors. Now they all read medicine websites and think they know better than their doctors.
Fortunately, soon enough, the Baby Boomers, the generation who both fought against nuclear power and have proven time and time again to be happy to fuck over their children and grandchildren so they can indulge in the present, will all either be senile or dead. Then, we can stop banking on some tech riding in on a white horse to save us all and talk about a real solution to our energy needs.
Culinarily, the deer which cross the river in the fall to raid farmer's corn fields taste no different than deer shot 200 miles away. TMI is not Chernobyl, and the events are wholly different. To use the stand-by car analogy; Chernobyl was a Pinto (Kablooie!), where TMI was a town car with an engine that overheated and needed to be shut down.
-=Bang Bang=-
Instead of calling it "fly ash," we need to start calling it "carbon fallout"
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