On the general idea of re-instating nuclear energy
on
Fission in a Box
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· Score: 1
Ideas like the one described in the article are not new. Every few years, someone else comes up with the idea of so called safe minireactors to harness the demon of nuclear energy.
However, the core problem is never actually touched or discussed. Noone on this planet has yet found a way to dispose of the nuclear waste that reactors (Of any size!) inevitably produce. Waste that is so toxic and dangeorus it may never, ever come in contact with the environoment. Waste that has to be cooled and maintained for several ten thousand years - that is far longer than humanity exists on this planet.
Alone the idea of producing more of this waste is scaring me shitless, for anyone who has looked deeper into this topic will surely feel the same.
About the pebble pile type of core:
The fuel elements as well as the reflector of the reactor are made of graphite. Graphite is chemically carbon, wich means the stuff can burn. In a reactor of this type, it is common for the fuel elemets to reach temperatures about 1200 deg. Celsius, so they will ignite and burn the very moment they come in contact with oxygen.
So, if the reactor is ruptured, you have the same situation like in chernobyl - a burning lump of graphite that distributes the radioactive substances nicely into the atmosphere, creating a cloud of highly radioactive and toxic fallout that is able to render large areas uninhabitable for decades.
In Germany (that's where I live) there has been an attempt to build a large-scale reactor following the pebble bed principle, the THTR (Thorium high-temperature reactor). It was lauded as reactor type that could deliver high-quality process heat for the chemical industry as well as electric energy. The reactor never got out of the test phase, and was shut down permanently after only a couple of days of running, because there were enourmous problems with the fuel elemets that tended to break up.
Now if such a ball breaks up, radioactive dust (both graphite and fuel) contaminates the gas cycle and requiering shielding for the turbines as well, and making repairs very difficult. Also, the intense neutron radiation led to unpredicted effects in the material of the pressure vessel, quickly lowering its stability.
All in all, the concept has proven even harder to handle than the conventional pressurized-water type of reactor, wich already poses so many unresolved threats that most ppl agree that the risk of running such a plant is simply too high to accept.
I personally fear the day these machines are built and put into operation because every single of them is an accident that only waits to happen.
And an accident must not happen, the consequences of one we have seen at chernobyl.
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Ideas like the one described in the article are not new. Every few years, someone else comes up with the idea of so called safe minireactors to harness the demon of nuclear energy.
However, the core problem is never actually touched or discussed. Noone on this planet has yet found a way to dispose of the nuclear waste that reactors (Of any size!) inevitably produce. Waste that is so toxic and dangeorus it may never, ever come in contact with the environoment. Waste that has to be cooled and maintained for several ten thousand years - that is far longer than humanity exists on this planet.
Alone the idea of producing more of this waste is scaring me shitless, for anyone who has looked deeper into this topic will surely feel the same.
About the pebble pile type of core: The fuel elements as well as the reflector of the reactor are made of graphite. Graphite is chemically carbon, wich means the stuff can burn. In a reactor of this type, it is common for the fuel elemets to reach temperatures about 1200 deg. Celsius, so they will ignite and burn the very moment they come in contact with oxygen.
So, if the reactor is ruptured, you have the same situation like in chernobyl - a burning lump of graphite that distributes the radioactive substances nicely into the atmosphere, creating a cloud of highly radioactive and toxic fallout that is able to render large areas uninhabitable for decades.
In Germany (that's where I live) there has been an attempt to build a large-scale reactor following the pebble bed principle, the THTR (Thorium high-temperature reactor). It was lauded as reactor type that could deliver high-quality process heat for the chemical industry as well as electric energy. The reactor never got out of the test phase, and was shut down permanently after only a couple of days of running, because there were enourmous problems with the fuel elemets that tended to break up.
Now if such a ball breaks up, radioactive dust (both graphite and fuel) contaminates the gas cycle and requiering shielding for the turbines as well, and making repairs very difficult. Also, the intense neutron radiation led to unpredicted effects in the material of the pressure vessel, quickly lowering its stability.
All in all, the concept has proven even harder to handle than the conventional pressurized-water type of reactor, wich already poses so many unresolved threats that most ppl agree that the risk of running such a plant is simply too high to accept. I personally fear the day these machines are built and put into operation because every single of them is an accident that only waits to happen. And an accident must not happen, the consequences of one we have seen at chernobyl.