Nuclear Waste

its the ultimate green energy but we need to stop operating the old systems that we have. it is almost as if some are waiting for an accident to prove NP as dangerous. The Davis-Besse power plant in ohio was scheduled to be shut down this year but now that date has changed. In fact, residence are paying more money to subsidize the plant, as natural gas plants are more efficient. i could be wrong but i thought these systems had a design life of 20yrs. and this one was put on-line back in 1978.

Unfortunately, until a certain political party accepts this technology and propagates its safe usage, it will not be used in my lifetime, instead we will waste time, resources and money on less profitable technologies that will uglify the landscape throughout America and create brown-outs like California is now enjoying. i have to bring politics into the discussion because we all know that politics are the only thing that steers our nations energy producing technology.

I think nuclear power plants can operate almost indefinitely, they just need to be recertified like every 40 years....

I remember posting a few years ago about a inventor that developed a means of getting electrical energy from depleted nuclear plant waste.

I have lost the link,but maybe SE can find it?

He surrounded the waste with a copper coil and the neutrons generated a current in the coil.

He used an oscillator and switching circuit to convert it into a usable level.

There is a lot of energy left in spent fuel,so why should we bury it instead of using it?

I remember posting a few years ago about a inventor that developed a means of getting electrical energy from depleted nuclear plant waste.

Yes, the U-238 (depleted uranium) can be used as fuel. It is fissionable in a fast reactor with fast neutrons.

The fast reactors are good,but it is not the article to which I was referring.

The process I saw was very simple:it surrounded a container of nuclear waste with coils of copper wire,and the neutrons passing through the coils produced an EMf,which was converted into a usable frequency,voltage and current by external circuitry.

You'll have to explain more--I'm dense today. You're saying that the alpha, beta, gamma, and some neutron radiation from the reactor waste induces an EMF in the copper coils? You mention frequency, which suggests alternating current.

Neutrons passing through copper coils are not going to produce much in the way of direct current. Additionally, spent fuel will have a few neutrons very early on, but not an abundance. Other nuclear waste will not be a significant source of neutrons typically.

Alpha particles could certainly build up charge. Alternately beta particles could build up the opposite charge.

Alphas and betas are abundantly produced via decay of fission daughter products. Shielding either exclusively would yield a build up of charge, i. e. a DC source.

It has been probably close to 20 years or more since I saw this article,and it was a printed article, in Popular Electronics,perhaps,but not certain..I do not recall the details of the process,except in a general way.I seem to remember there was an external circuit that switched the coils from open loop to closed loop configuration,which implies a magnetic field being induced in the coils and alternately being collapsed by the external circuitry.I cannot seem to find a reference on the net to the process,but I may not be using the proper search terms.

Obviously,it would be in use now it it were a lucrative method,so it may have been bunk.

Never heard of such a thing....

..."Dynamic generators can provide power at more than four times the conversion efficiency of RTGs. NASA and DOE have been developing a next-generation radioisotope-fueled power source called the Stirling Radioisotope Generator (SRG) that uses free-piston Stirling engines coupled to linear alternators to convert heat to electricity. SRG prototypes demonstrated an average efficiency of 23%. Greater efficiency can be achieved by increasing the temperature ratio between the hot and cold ends of the generator. The use of non-contacting moving parts, non-degrading flexural bearings, and a lubrication-free and hermetically sealed environment have, in test units, demonstrated no appreciable degradation over years of operation. Experimental results demonstrate that an SRG could continue running for decades without maintenance. "...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_battery

thanks, i don't recall where i got that info. in college we toured the Perry Power plant in ohio, and i thought i got that from then which seemed like a lot of money to only last only 20yrs.

thanks for the clarification. never did make sense to me.

No! Nuclear power plants are not eternal. Nothing escapes the wrath of entropy or Murphy's Law. Nuclear embrittlement is one of the unique fatigue concerns of nuclear power.

Certainly maintenance and strategic parts replacement of those parts fatigued by nuclear embrittlement can extend the expected lifetime but there will always be a time where the plant cannot safely operate any further.

Neutrons emission is the main cause of embrittlement in nuclear energy,including fusion reactors,which so far have not been an over unity reaction.Most of the energy from hydrogen fusion is wasted in neutron emission.

But Helium 3 promises to be a more efficient source of fissionable material,emitting a lot lest neutrons,than Hydrogen fusion, but it is very rare on Earth;However,the moon is a rich source of H3,having been soaked in it for billions of years from the solar wind.

If the moon was made of gold,it would not be profitable to mine it from the moon and send it back to Earth,but H3 is much more valuable than gold,and suddenly everyone is interested in going back to the moon.

I have always thought that space exploration would not take off until private industry got involved,and it seems to be happening now.

Curiosity is one thing,but profit is the great motivator for innovation.

The French are leading the way on large scale controllable fusion power production with their ITER project.

Helium3 is estimated to be worth $3billion a ton,and has the potential,when combined with Deuterium,to produce pollution free fusion energy.

Here is a link with some more details,though it is a little outdated:

https://explainingthefuture.com/helium3.html

I don't see at all how Helium 3 from solar winds would remain on the surface of the moon. This lightest of all noble gasses will not chemically combine for capture. The lunar soil results from mechanical breakdown of the lunar regolith so mechanical trapping is very unlikely to succeed. The small amount that succeeds to mechanically cling to the soil will escape quickly after being disturbed.

Mining the moon for Helium 3 could be far more difficult to achieve than ITER successfully producing more power than what was put in using deuterium and tritium.

I am no expert,so I cannot effectively argue either way, but the reference is from supposed "experts".

Perhaps you could enlighten them on the futility of their plans.

I have read that H3 was found in lunar rock samples brought back from the first visit,and they were 40+ years old when tested for H3,so it must be more stable and entrained than first thought.

The European Space Agency prefers "mining" Jupiter for Helium 3 instead of the Moon. They also very reasonably point out that neither energy productive Helium 3 fusion nor any extraterrestrial mining operation have ever happened by humans. This still resides within the realm of science fiction.

On the other hand, ITER is presently an actual work in progress. You and I might live to see Deuterium and Tritium fusion produce more power than it consumes.

IMHO:

If the exodus of businesses out of California continues,there will be plenty of energy for the few that are left,until the mandate for no fossil fuel vehicles come into effect,then California will become a ghost state.

Design life: When nuclear power plants were first certified, the lifetime was a conservative estimate. They have learned enough in the years since then, that the lifetime estimates can be greatly extended. Unfortunately, we have to go back to politics! As we gain more operating experience, politics are preventing even more extension of the lifetime.

I like it!!! I have been in favor of using fast reactors for a long time. The present thermal reactors use only a small percentage of the fuel, but a fast reactor can use a percentage in the high 90s. That leaves much less waste; waste that is also much less radioactive.

Some folks are looking at thorium thermal breeder reactors. There are a lot of factors to consider besides waste, one of which is generating material that contributes to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium.html

Why bother with a thorium thermal reactor? Thorium can be used as fuel in a fast reactor. I believe Th-232 transmutes to U-233 which is fissile in the fast neutron spectrum. We have lots of thorium and uranium-238, which both can be used as fast reactor fuel.

I hate it when a formal presentation contains a simple mathematics error or at the very least an apparent error and it is never addressed. The given total mass of initial uranium fuel is 30 tons. The final total mass of uranium fuel and all six highly radioactive byproducts is 30.01 tons.

Now this might be the result of a cumulative rounding or quantizing error. It could even be materials transmuted from something other than the given uranium fuel. Not addressing why this doesn't add up to 30 tons or ever so slightly less puts the whole presentation into doubt.

Some of the energy is transformed into mass...He clearly mentions that...

When? At what time mark?

To transform that much mass requires 8.15 *10^17 Joules or 2.26* 10^11 kWh of energy. That is a lot of energy. I realize this transformation happens over decades of time. The presentation ends up with more mass than when they started. Where did that energy come from? Where does the energy exported out of the plant come from? That does not make sense for a net energy producing process that converts mass into energy to have more mass in the end.

I think it is more likely either a typographic error crept into the presentation or some of the final mass products come from mass not initially accounted for in the 30 tons of fuel.

I do believe nuclear power must be part of future power production. A presentation with discoverable errors puts everything else in the presentation to doubt.

He also clearly states that the figures are approximate...The fuel assemblies vary in weight from reactor to reactor and from each fuel assembly to the next, the figures can only be given as approximate when generally speaking...your argument here is without basis and pointless, shortsighted, and shows a complete failure to comprehend the subject...

Nuclear power plants operate by converting mass to energy. Around 1 gram of mass is converted to energy for each thermal megawatt day.

Even if the turbines used off site power to be the prime movers changing the turbines into compressors to reverse the heat flow to go from the (former) steam generators into the primary coolant to ultimately heat the nuclear fuel, there is not going to be an appreciable conversion of energy into mass resulting in any gain in fuel mass.

This is the result of someone not paying attention to significant figures. 30 is 2 significant figures, but 30.01 is 4. "30" could be anywhere from 29.51 to 30.49.

Yes, my quantizing error suggestion is another way to describe a significant figure error. Strictly speaking, 30 has only one significant figure, the three. Zeros adjacent to the decimal point should not be assumed to be significant.

With the exception of this faux pas I like the information these videos provide. Had he addressed this in some fashion it would prevent a lot of good information from going to waste. (No pun intended.)