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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."
First, they have to get sustainable fusion working, then they can installed the Super-X Divertor to bleed off neutrons to burn fission waste.
Why not use safe, proven technology available TODAY to burn 99% of current fuel AND WASTE?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
How much does the battery system cost?
You mad
This idea was (in some sense) around in the 1960's, believe it or not.
The high neutron flux produced means that the CFNS would itself become radioactive, and the steel of its construction weakened by neutron irradiation. I would like to see a life-cycle analysis to make sure that the total waste consumed was more than that produced by the CFNS itself.
This general issue is why I would like to see a lot more emphasis places on He3 fusion, and also on linear fusion devices. (He3 fusion, either He3 - Dt or He3-He3, produces much less neutron flux. To me, the end goal would be to have nuclear fusion power that did not produce radioactive waste, which ITER definitely will do. Linear fusion is for spacecraft propulsion, of course - it is thought to be much easier technically than making a tokomak work.)
I'm also guess here. A decade ago, Los Alamos pioneered Accelerator Transmutation of Waste. There the idea was you bombard high level waste with a particle beam to, ironically, make it even higher level waste. The clever thing was this. The higher the radioactivity the shorter the half life.
The plan was to convert things with halflifes of 50,000 years to half lifes of hours. An insanely clever idea. But it never got much funding.
I'm guessing that this Fission/fussion system is probably playing the same game. Fusion makes for heavier nuclii, which if they are not stable, tend to be even short lived as a general trend.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
That was the consequence of materials costing more than manhours. Now thanks to industrialization and automation, manhours are vastly more expensive than material, simply because one manhour produces 1000x more material than it did before. (In the grand scheme of things, the cost of either is a function of its exchange rate with the other.)
Our allegedly wasteful modern society is wasteful of the visible component (material) because it is so careful to conserve the invisible component (manhours). Unfortunately most people are concrete-bound and so do not understand what's going on.
Indeed.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
As a former nuclear engineer you must also be aware that nuclear material can and is frequently used with virtually no risk to anyone.
I too am scared by unregulated, corner-cutting businesses working with the stuff. But no more afraid of a commercial farmer breeding a potentially lethal or ecologically dangerous super-crop though... and that's legal. So is colliding particles that may or may not cause the end of the planet.
The nuclear industry exists now, and there have been tremendous strides in the technology and safety. To suggest that we should not encourage an industry that may, with advances such as this article discusses, result in nearly zero net effect on the environment is pretty awesome if you ask me.
Honestly, nuclear fission is probably the best energy source we could pursue right now. Why, because we can do it now with virtually no waiting and no chance of finding out later that we rushed into something we shouldn't have (like corn ethanol).
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
What we need is a mainstream movie and miniseries about the hazards of coal; perhaps going through the life of a Chinese coal miner?
Oh, and point out the cost/hazards of solar and wind while you're at it.
I don't read AC A human right
Unfortunately much (most?) of the US public thinks that:
Everything that's "natural" is good. (Umm... what about ricin? Perfectly respectable "natural" product...)
Everything "nuclear" is bad. (The parent is potentially a good counterexample).
Everything "renewable" is good. (Using corn-based ethanol as a fuel source is a really bad idea ... there are better sources that have less environmental and economic impact).
Etc. Unfortunately the state of science education in the US is in such a sorry state that too many people are unable to think rationally about many of the choices facing us - they'll pay more attention to what Oprah or Paris think about some scientific question than they would to the scientists and engineers who actually do know something about those choices.
For all those people, I've got a bridge for sale in Manhattan! Cheap!! Buy it now while you have the chance, because it'll sell fast!!!
:-( :-( :-( Our country is so screwed... hopefully some of the rest of the world can keep civilization going until the nitwits here die out ... :-( :-( :-(
Plutonium generated from normal reactors have too high a content of Pu-240 to ever be weapons-grade. It gets bombarded with neutrons for too long, Pu-239 + n -> Pu-240. The containment shell makes it quite cumbersome (to the point of shutting down the reactor for weeks, I believe), so you can't just remove it earlier. So, If you have a containment shell around your reactor, you can't really use it to make weapons grade plutonium.
Not true
Thanks to Jimmy Carter declassifying this
http://www.ccnr.org/plute_bomb.html
The Department of Energy is providing additional information related to a 1962 underground nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site that used reactor-grade plutonium in the nuclear explosive.
SPECIFICALLY:
A successful test was conducted in 1962, which used reactor-grade plutonium in the nuclear explosive in place of weapon-grade plutonium.
Everyone now knows it's possible to use reactor grade plutonium in a bomb.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Well one approach would be to not do anything and live with a reduced yield, i.e. 1kt-3kt (depending on who you believe) rather than 10kt.
http://www.ccnr.org/plute.html
Designing and building an effective nuclear weapon using reactor-grade plutonium is less convenient than using weapon-grade plutonium, for several reasons.
Some nuclear weapons are typically designed so that a pulse of neutrons will start the nuclear chain reaction at the optimum moment for maximum yield; background neutrons from plutonium-240 can set off the reaction prematurely, and with reactor-grade plutonium the probability of such "pre-initiation" is large. Pre-initiation can substantially reduce the explosive yield, since the weapon may blow itself apart and thereby cut short the chain reaction that releases the energy.
Nevertheless, even if pre-initiation occurs at the worst possible moment (when the material first becomes compressed enough to sustain a chain reaction) the explosive yield of even a relatively simple first-generation nuclear device would be of the order of one or a few kilotons. While this yield is referred to as the "fizzle yield," a one-kiloton bomb would still have a radius of destruction roughly one-third that of the Hiroshima weapon, making it a potentially fearsome explosive. Regardless of how high the concentration of troublesome isotopes is, the yield would not be less.
It's possible that the North Koreans did this. In fact they messed up even more because they got less than one kt.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=kims-big-fizzle
Soon after the news broke that North Korea claimed to have conducted a nuclear test, experts realized that the blast had been much smaller than is usual for a first device. Nuclear explosions are measured in kilotons, an energy release equivalent to that of thousands of tons of TNT. Most countries' first tests range from five to 25 kilotons. For example, the U.S.'s 1945 "Trinity" test had a yield of about 20 kilotons. Yet estimates of the North Korean test clustered around half a kiloton. Reportedly, North Korean officials had told China to expect a blast of four kilotons.
Sci am speculates they used reactor grade plutonium and didn't do anything clever or that they got the implosion design wrong. Or maybe both.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
This fear has already been proven to be unfounded. I thought of it too, but if you consider the rational extension of this thought, that windmills are certainly no more harmful than trees, well now you have your answer. I wouldn't worry about them too much.
With every power generating technology comes disadvantages and/or hazards.
Solar power generates electricity from solar radiation that would normally be bounced back out of the atmosphere for some 90% orso. This energy is converted to heat in your microwave and electric car. Hence raising the temperature of the earth.
Wind generators have the tendency to chop up birds. As long as they're doves I don't mind much, but greenpeace kinda thinks otherwise. The generated electricity also gets converted to heat, but the friction between the air-particles that you slow down during power generation would've done thesame so I think that's about equal. (haven't calculated that)
Wave generators generally do thesame thing with fish as the wind generators do with birds, but there are a few types that are benign. They use the wave action in a column of air to push air back and forth in a tube, creating an airflow to generate power. This type when using a mesh in the air side, won't hurt birds or fish, so Greenpeace shouldn't have anything to complain about that, but I'm afraid they'll find a way anyway. Wacko's.
Manuals are your last resort only