Intelligent Absorbent Removes Radioactive Material

Zothecula writes "Nuclear power plants are located close to sources of water, which is used as a coolant to handle the waste heat discharged by the plants. This means that water contaminated with radioactive material is often one of the problems to arise after a nuclear disaster. Researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed what they say is a world-first intelligent absorbent that is capable of removing radioactive material from large amounts of contaminated water, resulting in clean water and concentrated waste that can be stored more efficiently."

Comments

Unfortunately

[SlippyToad]

It's a case of too little, too late. I have zero trust in the nuclear industry because no matter how urgent, present, demanding, and obvious the need to make double-extra super-safe reactors presents itself to the manufacturers of these facilities, they seem hell-bent on cutting corners and cheaping out on the front-end, to disastrous consequences (insert whatever link to "Japanese Reactor Meltdown / Chernobyl / Three Mile Island" you want here) which in retrospect were the result of shoddy workmanship, sloppy maintenance, wilfully stupid cost-cutting and just general all-around stupid douchebaggery of the kind you get when you give too much power and responsibility unto the hands of those fatally unprepared for the responsibility part.

While zombie-like steps continue to be made towards legitimizing this super-expensive but also unbelievably fraught with peril method of boiling fucking water the public's opinion on nuclear power seems to have solidified somewhere around the spectrum of "Holy Fucking Shit Those Things Are Massively Unsafe" and thank God and the FSM for it. There seems to be no amount of regulation or incentive that can persuade private or public nuclear power plant operators to actually operate safely, and none of that would even matter one damn bit if Mother Nature brought on sufficient catastrophe.

Can we please be done with nuclear energy? Yesterday? Solar, geothermal and wind are all coming rapidly into their own, already cost less than traditional non-renewables (especially if we take away Big Oil/Gas/Nuclear's free rides and subisdies) and it looks like about 30 years down the road give or take we could be living with a distributed power grid that takes inputs from every single solar roof/windmill/vent in the country.

Proof positive that this cultural shift in the trust of big, unaccountable institutions to manage such dangerous materials is the ever-burned-into-our-brains image of Homer Dumbass Simpson, nuclear power plant worker who routinely blows up his plant with his fumbling incompetence. THAT is what most of America and the world think of when we think "nuclear power plant."

Re:Unfortunately

[SwedishChef]

There are more. In fact Washington State back in the 1970s had a consortium of Public Utility Districts sell some $200 million in municipal bonds to build several nuclear power plants around the Pacific Northwest. The consortium, called Washington Public Power System (nicknamed "whoops") was plagued by corruption in the design and building of their nuclear plants. Finally they gave up... leaving several partially-built but never operated nuclear plants sprinkled here and there across the landscape. Then they repudiated $200 million in municipal bonds. That was big money in the 1970s and for many people who depended upon the supposed "safety" of municipal bonds it was a disaster. Largely forgotten now. But not for those of us who lived through it.

If you can't trust a corporation (and you can't) you REALLY can't trust any corporation that's going to build a nuclear plant. Or a public utility district, either.

Re:Unfortunately

[Baloroth]

You may want to check out, well, the facts.. Nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source. Yes, nuclear power, for all it's "shoddy" construction (never mind the concrete chimneys are designed to survive jumbo jets flying into them), the fact that power plants have been run for decades longer than intended instead of being replaced by newer, safer, and more efficient models (in part due to regulative costs. I won't get into the irony of that, since most of them have apparently been fixed recently), and counting in the horror that was Chernobyl (which still only managed to kill ~4000 people total), is safer than solar power.

Also, the best sources I can find agree that renewables aren't cheaper than other sources (and won't be for another good 5-15 years. Hence why there are government subsidies for them, at least in the US.) If that were true, we would be seeing a lot more of them. Companies don't buy gas and oil because they like ruining the environment, they do it because it is the cheapest option. Once you make solar, et al. cheaper than the alternatives, then people will start using them.

If the choice was really between solar and nuclear, I would agree with you. The problem is, that isn't the choice. The choice is between coal/ oil and nuclear. Solar (or geothermal and definitely not wind) isn't even a viable option yet. And presented with the dichotomy between nuclear and coal, I will vote for nuclear every single time. So would anyone else who understands how bad coal is (it's worse in normal operation than a nuclear plant is when it breaks down.)

Re:Unfortunately

[Jonathan_S]

Don't most current methods of generating electricity pretty much break down into somehow generating heat to boil water to force steam to turn a turbine etc etc? Except for maybe hydroelectric, where you have gravity acting on water turning turbines AFAIK.

That depends on how you define "most current methods". In terms of watt/hours produced you're probably right; but in terms of number of methods not necessarily.

Nuclear, Coal, and (most?) Oil, are used to boil water to run steam turbines.
Natural gas peak load plants are usually gas turbines, no intermediate water boiling step.
Hydroelectric, as you mentioned, is water turbines
Solar thermal is boiling water (or other working fluids)
Solar-voltaic is basically direct electricity generation
Wind turbines obviously don't use boiling water, and neither do tidal power plants.
Geothermal plants are (mostly?) steam turbines.

Re:Unfortunately

[leucadiadude]

This one:

http://www.energy-northwest.com/generation/cgs/

Re:Unfortunately

[DrBoumBoum]

You may want to check out, well, the facts.

Your "facts" are utter bullshit, and you're an idiot for putting them forth. This well-known page, that comes back each time an idiot feels like defending NP, says that the WHO announced 4000 deaths from Chernobyl in 2005 but fails to indicate that the same WHO admitted later that the report was "a political communication tool" and issued a new statement in 2006 pointing at very different figures.

Also comparing rooftop fall deaths to nuclear is ridiculous because you're comparing very shoddy construction practices to the extreme requirements of nuclear, but nothing prevents people from using proper equipments and practices when going on roofs. Also it ignores solar thermal energy which is probably the cleanest and safest way of generating electricity bar none.

Ultimately the issue here is that you need to consider the intrinsic risks, which are high with nuclear, not the mitigated risks, which indeed have been reduced but mostly by pure luck.

Anyway believe what you want but don't blind yourself with partisan bullshit when trying to form an opinion.

Solar (or geothermal and definitely not wind) isn't even a viable option yet.

Not less than breeder and thorium reactors that people need to push forward as soon as proposing NP as an acceptable solution, because in its current form it is not.

Re:too bad

[jd]

India and China do. Though given the shorter lifespans of their new range of reactors it might not be regarded as a problem.

However, there's plenty of spills that need cleaning. The Irish Sea is the most radioactive in the world because of contamination from nuclear power stations and recycling. Strathclyde is now considered "incurably" contaminated from Dounray power station, as conventional cleanup would likely stir up radioactive sediment that would be far more dangerous if mobile. Something that would clean up these locations would be of enormous interest to a LOT of people, especially the power station owners who are under enormous pressure to do something.

Re:Old news?

[boristdog]

RTFA, How does it work?

"the world-first intelligent absorbent, which uses titanate nanofibre and nanotube technology, differed from current clean-up methods, such as layered clays and zeolites, because it could efficiently lock in deadly radioactive material from contaminated water."