If people are so concerned about plutonium, then we can stop using uranium. Thorium works just as well as a nuclear fuel, is more abundant, and does NOT have plutonium in it's decay chain!!! If people are cutting down nuclear energy because of plutonium, we should just pick an element that does not make it.
About the materials, you are correct that we still do not have a steel that can withstand years of neutron bombardment, however we do have methods to study the materials in relatively short times. You can simulate neutron damage pretty well in stainless steels with a proton accelerator. We cannot learn all of the problems associated with neutron damage with protons, however it is a great first step toward narrowing down the materials. Only the best proton resistant materials will we spend money on testing within a neutron source. We have started understanding the mechanisms that make irradiated steels brittle like the migration of chromium away from grain boundaries and the collection of "black dot" (black dot damage is a few interstitials or vacancies created by radiation in a materials lattice.) damage into larger faults. Hopefully with good science and unbiased reporting we can solve the materials and waste problem associated with nuclear energy.
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If people are so concerned about plutonium, then we can stop using uranium. Thorium works just as well as a nuclear fuel, is more abundant, and does NOT have plutonium in it's decay chain!!! If people are cutting down nuclear energy because of plutonium, we should just pick an element that does not make it.
About the materials, you are correct that we still do not have a steel that can withstand years of neutron bombardment, however we do have methods to study the materials in relatively short times. You can simulate neutron damage pretty well in stainless steels with a proton accelerator. We cannot learn all of the problems associated with neutron damage with protons, however it is a great first step toward narrowing down the materials. Only the best proton resistant materials will we spend money on testing within a neutron source.
We have started understanding the mechanisms that make irradiated steels brittle like the migration of chromium away from grain boundaries and the collection of "black dot" (black dot damage is a few interstitials or vacancies created by radiation in a materials lattice.) damage into larger faults. Hopefully with good science and unbiased reporting we can solve the materials and waste problem associated with nuclear energy.