Gone Fission

[billroper]

Here's a good article on nuclear power, including a discussion of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel which -- according to the author -- would greatly reduce our problem with storing reactor waste.

Comments

nuclear energy and reprocessing

[jdonat.livejournal.com]

Excellent article, aside from the couple of political cheep shots.. :) I think the French have the best of it here, as far as it goes. They've got 3 standardized sizes of reactors for sale, depending on capacity needed. All 3 are modifications of US designs... 2 GE, 1 Westinghouse. Maybe we should just swallow our pride and talk to them.

When I was working for Sun, one of my customers for years was the Argonne National Labs. I got a chance to see some of the research on new reactor designs, including one, if I remember rightly could NOT melt down no matter what you did to it. It was pretty cool, but no one wanted to fund the research on it. So it lies dormant. Stupid.

[poltr1]

What are William Tucker's credentials? I'd love to hear a debate between him and Harvey Wasserman, the father of the "no nukes" movement.

As a young boy growing up in Buffalo, I remember seeing and hearing (mostly negative) news stories about the nuclear reprocessing plant in West Valley, NY. The plant shut down in 1980. If there really is a way to recycle spent nuclear fuel rods, other than burial, I'd love to hear it. To me, that's the biggest problem I have with nuclear power -- all the radioactive waste it generates.

I'd also like to see the US continue to explore the generation of electricity by burning trash.

[billroper]

I don't know his credentials, but I didn't see anything in the article that I knew to be obviously wrong, so I passed it along.

This website is obviously pro-nuclear, but if you scroll down far enough, you'll find the section on reprocessing. Apparently, the high-level waste is 3% of the original total mass and is vitrified -- converted into glass -- a technique that I recall discussed many years ago in this context. Also, since the high-level waste has a relatively short half-life compared to the original mixed wastes, it ought to get down to a tolerable level of radiation in a few centuries at worst as opposed to being a problem for millenia. (I'd have to check the half-lives of all the isotopes involved -- beamjockey probably knows all this off the top of his head. :) )

waste....

[jdonat.livejournal.com]

Didn't RAH do a short story that talked about how much (or little) of nuclear waste is dangerous?? I also remember reading about vitrification, and how well it works for high level stuff...

And for those of us living in Northern Illinois, we are grateful for the nuclear teakettles that provide power, no matter how cold or frozen the coal piles get.. :)

Re: waste....

[billroper]

You may be thinking of "Blowups Happen". It doesn't have a lot in common with our current theories, as I recall.

[kizoku42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my question is, if it has a really long half life doesn't that make it relatively low level? Except for those elements that are taken up and concentrated by the body I wouldn't think you'd have to worry much about those. My impression was that it's the short lived isotopes that will crisp you.

[billroper]

I think so too. But if the short-lived isotopes are mixed with the long-lived isotopes, then you've got a huge volume of waste. If you pull out the original uranium that's still there, plus the plutonium, the volume of waste that you need to store drops by about 97%.

That's a lot easier to find a place to put.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

That was a very interesting article. I'm going to use it with my Environmental Studies student, who also must analyze a persuasive essay for English, and is following election issues for Government class. I'll get several birds with one stone.

Our current texts where I work (not the most up-to-date, I must admit,)have a bewilderding slant that first explains how fission works, along with power and advantages, then takes the eco-friendly hard line of the "dangers" of long term radioactive poisoning whilst never actually explaining what we currently *do* with the waste, or even what it is!

[billroper]

I'm glad that it was helpful to you!

The problem right now is that we don't do anything with the waste. It's sitting in temporary storage near the reactors waiting for the promised "permanent waste storage facility" that the government is supposed to open up. This should be the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, but it's become the most amazing political football...