While the reprocessing plant Sellafield and La Hague had their issues, none of them have been converted to superfund sites. Maybe the civil EU plants can, where the US and USSR military sites couldn't or wouldn't because it was too easy to sandbag everything under a layer of national interest secrecy?
CANDU is another example for a reactor design that while not sub-critical is much safer than most other designs due to its ability to use natural uranium. The latter obviously does not have a tendency to spontaneously sustain a fission reaction. (Although in nature this apparently occurred at least once in earths history in Africa).
What's new and unique to Belgium is that they are embarking on constructing the industrial scale MYRRHA reactor. Don't know of any other accelerator driven reactor project of this scale. TFA contains links to a presentation with the detailed blueprints for this machine.
The article on that can be found here. It is not settled science that this effect is real, and it is a very small effect. That neutrinos may be causing this is conjecture at this point.
What makes the effect exciting is that it'll hint at new physics if confirmed.
Producing fast neutrons is not that simple. It either requires a critical breeder type of reactor or a powerful particle accelerator.
For the longest time the latter where high tech custom build experimental devices for physicist to play with. Only recently have we gotten to the point where you can order one "of the shelve" for instance from Siemens for medical purposes (e.g. ion irradiation of tumors as a more targeted alternative to chemo).
This is the concept of a fast breeder critical reactor. Only Japan was still attempting this. Had a nasty accident, and after Fukushima probably no future.
As another commenter pointed out transmuting U238 is kind of pointless. The Minor Actinides is specifically what they are after (this becomes clear if you look at the linked papers and presentation in TFA).
If you read the TFA it links to a paper that discusses Thorium use in an accelerator driven reactor. I guess in a sense this is a breeder but the Thorium fuel cycle only requires Plutonium to achieve criticality. Don't see a need for it in this kind of sub-critical design.
Plutonium management really is a matter of political will, one can also argue that Thorium can be used to constrain Plutonium as this paper does (PDF).
This is really neat. So is the current control software in Mol using your code? Will MYRRHA use the same code base or does it require a complete re-write?
Are you using a real-time kernel?
What kind of quality control are you using to ensure the software performs exactly as designed?
Are you using a functional programming paradigm?
Are the reactors computer systems networked to the outside world? If so what kind of security measures do you have in place to safeguard access?
Is your software a critical component of the control feedback loop e,g. reduces beam intensity based on the measured neutron flux? If so what kind of redundancy is build into the system?
Ever wondered why there are so many more biographical entries on athletes (even 2nd rate ones) than academics on Wikipedia?
That is because athletes are much more likely to be interviewed and have biographical information published.
Contrast this with finding biographical data on some researchers. Even high profile ones with a long publication record will usually at best have some self-reported biographical data if any (e.g. Facebook). Hence it will be rejected by Wikipedia due to their secondary source policies.
And so the largest Internet encyclopedia operates like your local high-school where all the attention goes to the sport jocks and nobody cares about the nerds.
Indeed, if only a small percentage of the money that is spend on terrorism hysteria was going towards public health significantly more lives could be saved.
These are all valid points, but my comment was in regards to the previous post that implicated that somehow this research was not high quality enough to merit a/. submission. I think that'll stretch this notion a bit towards the absurd.
While neutrinos mostly just pass through earth, some limited shielding may occur and the added distance might make for a slightly different neutrino flavor mix.
Slashdot Mirror
Good luck trying to get another fast breeder approved in Europe.
On the other hand the inherently safe sub-critical design gets the go-ahead.
Makes perfect sense form my point of view. I wouldn't want to live near a fast breeder.
While the reprocessing plant Sellafield and La Hague had their issues, none of them have been converted to superfund sites. Maybe the civil EU plants can, where the US and USSR military sites couldn't or wouldn't because it was too easy to sandbag everything under a layer of national interest secrecy?
TFA links to a science paper of how this design could work with Thorium.
The news value of TFA is really in the fact that the planned MYRRHA project is supposed to be industrial scale.
Thanks for the correction with regards to the plutonium. Indeed any fissile material will do.
CANDU is another example for a reactor design that while not sub-critical is much safer than most other designs due to its ability to use natural uranium. The latter obviously does not have a tendency to spontaneously sustain a fission reaction. (Although in nature this apparently occurred at least once in earths history in Africa).
What's new and unique to Belgium is that they are embarking on constructing the industrial scale MYRRHA reactor. Don't know of any other accelerator driven reactor project of this scale. TFA contains links to a presentation with the detailed blueprints for this machine.
The article on that can be found here. It is not settled science that this effect is real, and it is a very small effect. That neutrinos may be causing this is conjecture at this point.
What makes the effect exciting is that it'll hint at new physics if confirmed.
Producing fast neutrons is not that simple. It either requires a critical breeder type of reactor or a powerful particle accelerator.
For the longest time the latter where high tech custom build experimental devices for physicist to play with. Only recently have we gotten to the point where you can order one "of the shelve" for instance from Siemens for medical purposes (e.g. ion irradiation of tumors as a more targeted alternative to chemo).
This is the concept of a fast breeder critical reactor. Only Japan was still attempting this. Had a nasty accident, and after Fukushima probably no future.
If the consequence of this political pork means long lasting nuclear waste gets transmuted into shorter lived waste, I won't complain.
An accelerator beam I would not consider a mechanical system. No moving parts.
At any rate these research reactors are build to determine technological feasibility, are they not?
As another commenter pointed out transmuting U238 is kind of pointless. The Minor Actinides is specifically what they are after (this becomes clear if you look at the linked papers and presentation in TFA).
If you read the TFA it links to a paper that discusses Thorium use in an accelerator driven reactor. I guess in a sense this is a breeder but the Thorium fuel cycle only requires Plutonium to achieve criticality. Don't see a need for it in this kind of sub-critical design.
Plutonium management really is a matter of political will, one can also argue that Thorium can be used to constrain Plutonium as this paper does (PDF).
This is really neat. So is the current control software in Mol using your code? Will MYRRHA use the same code base or does it require a complete re-write?
Are you using a real-time kernel?
What kind of quality control are you using to ensure the software performs exactly as designed?
Are you using a functional programming paradigm?
Are the reactors computer systems networked to the outside world? If so what kind of security measures do you have in place to safeguard access?
Is your software a critical component of the control feedback loop e,g. reduces beam intensity based on the measured neutron flux? If so what kind of redundancy is build into the system?
No, I blame them solely for stupid policies. In many case as the article aptly demonstrates primary sources are perfectly reasonable.
FYI: The world is not like high school. You will learn this after graduation.
It is also surprisingly hard to change. Harder than bone headed Wikipedia policies anyway.
Ever wondered why there are so many more biographical entries on athletes (even 2nd rate ones) than academics on Wikipedia?
That is because athletes are much more likely to be interviewed and have biographical information published.
Contrast this with finding biographical data on some researchers. Even high profile ones with a long publication record will usually at best have some self-reported biographical data if any (e.g. Facebook). Hence it will be rejected by Wikipedia due to their secondary source policies.
And so the largest Internet encyclopedia operates like your local high-school where all the attention goes to the sport jocks and nobody cares about the nerds.
Indeed, if only a small percentage of the money that is spend on terrorism hysteria was going towards public health significantly more lives could be saved.
Thank you for making this point so succinctly.
These are all valid points, but my comment was in regards to the previous post that implicated that somehow this research was not high quality enough to merit a /. submission. I think that'll stretch this notion a bit towards the absurd.
Good point.
True, It is a very strenuous, tortured argument, earth shouldn't really matter all that much to neutrinos.
Very well sourced and compelling,
The claimed effect on alpha emitter has certainly been convincingly refuted.
If this claimed effect on Beta decay turns out to be bad science it will certainly make Jenkins and Fischbach look rather bad.
Pu-238 on board Cassini is an alpha emitter. The conjecture is that this only affects Beta decay.
While neutrinos mostly just pass through earth, some limited shielding may occur and the added distance might make for a slightly different neutrino flavor mix.