Can We Build a 1000 Year Generator?

Rory,

It understand your desire to make use of the heat given off by nuclear wastes, but I am having difficulty in trying to comprehend the rest of what you are talking about.

The "Undergrounds" you describe don't seem at all practical: Old mines would need extensive rework/additional excavation, and caves are caves typically because they were dissolved out of the rock (limestone usually) by water in the first place.

Your anecdotal concentration camp stories as a basis for the number of tubes is not exactly standard engineering design practice.

What is carried in the tubes, salt water or "wind"?

If salt water, what makes the water move up and over a 200' to 400' high elevation? It would have to be pumped, because the practical height limitation for a water siphon (at atmospheric pressure) is less than 30' and with salt water even less.

What is going on with the electron flow on the inside surface of the tubes?

Exactly how do you intend to capture energy from this arrangement?

Where did the 1000 year figure come from, and why? (It is a fleeting moment in terms of the radioactive half lives of some of the elements.)

"Great place for conservation of biostock storage of and genetic research from along with other material research. If hell ever comes to earth Undergrounds could save and restart civilazation."

Unfortunately, except for something like certain seeds, which might be stored for a long time, almost anything else modern would require a high level of technological infrastructure including the appropriately skilled scientists, engineers, and technicians to utilize. For instance, you could have all the design plans, information, software and actual samples of computer hardware stored, but without the interrelated "web" of high tech infrastructure, you would never be able to build a computer, hard drive, monitor, etc, let alone make an advanced "chip". If you gave the Wright brothers the plans for a modern jetliner, and they had the resources of the entire world at that time at their disposal, they could never even begin building one, any more than if we recovered some alien interstellar spacecraft, we could start making them. Whereas if you gave the Wright brothers plans for a Spad, they likely would have succeeded (although, they might have tried to fly it backwards, favoring canards as they did). In other words, if we wanted to store things to enable civilization to restart itself after some worldwide cataclysm, they had better be basic, useful, and "primitive" enough to be able to actually be made and utilized in the technological environment of what was left. Likewise, if we assume that many modern devices would have survived, then information related to how best to utilize them, power and maintain them would be of use.

Regards. Greg

old waste declines quickly as the shorter lived fragments decay. After 10 year heat/radiation falls by a factor of 100 times. Another 10 years = another drop by 100.

Bear in mind the fresh stuff would give you a lethal dose in 1/10 of a second if you were exposed to 500 pounds spread on a table evenly 1 foot away, so even after a long time it is radioactive.

http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/EZRA/

So no 1000 year heat engine can be made because long before that it will have decayed to very low levels. In fact after 1000 years it is safe to handle, but still emits more radiation than the conservative specs.

The decay is asymptotic

Hi Aurizon,

"old waste declines quickly as the shorter lived fragments decay. After 10 year heat/radiation falls by a factor of 100 times. Another 10 years = another drop by 100."

While I don't disagree with your numbers, it should be pointed out they only work for certain mixes of low level wastes (materials that were not originally radioactive, but became such after exposure to radiation) with an average half-life of about 18 months. Typically low level waste will decline to the level of background radiation in about 500 yrs or so.

Intermediate or high level wastes are as you know, are a different matter entirely, with many materials having half lives in the tens of thousands of years, so that even after 1000 years the radiation may only have declined a few per cent.

Unfortunately the OP has yet to explain better what he is talking about, and why he feels this very large investment in what he calls undergrounds is justified, except in the vaguest terms.

Regards, Greg

Yes, Neutron absorption induces this short lived high intensity stuff. Fragments live llots longer, I was not sure of the mix, so I generalised to illustrate that a heat device would not have a 1000 year constant source of heat.

1,3,5,8, what is the next number? What is the name of this progression? Some have guessed that this is an entropy engine. Actually some have brought up that the entropy engine is being thought to be used for long run space exploration. There is a mix of old an new radioactive materials that should work. Remember the Second law of motion and the third rule of thermal dynamics. Take this progression and take radio-active decay progression. You'll see. Thank You with my spell check! 1000 years is conservative. New progression drops to zero just before 1500 year.

I am not sure what the mixture is from assorted waste.

I suspect when they design plants they take some steps to select materials to minimize the problem. fission fragments are different, you get a scatter of those as well.

Now with careful design you could make somethig our of a pure element with a half life of 2000 years and the heat would have declined by 25% at 1000 years, Can they match that with a blend? I doubt it

The typical mix will have a summed series of half life declines and I am sure this waste varies somewhat, but there will be one common high volume waste. This is the stuff they cool in the water tanks for a few years to bring the level down.

I expect the snap reactors can be made with various lives.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22snap+reactor%22

Physics is physics. The large reflects the small. Look at the way most of the galacies are laid out. The pinwheel shape. The monster in the center (blackholes is the ultimate entropy machine) but the way galacies are laid out conserves energy. If it didn't we wouldn't be here. Good place to start. Placement of material along this pattern is important. Number of arms is important. Five is what I come up with. Also, the water is a molecule is a beautiful molecule. It resists becoming a solid, likes becoming a gas, and throws out lots of energy changing back to a liquid. Prefect for conservation of energy. My main concern is what happens to the water molecule over time. The alchemist's golden box. Next to a high radiator lead reduces to gold. The hydrogen atom in water will change also. My calculations the change only aids in the process, but a spell check is needed. Have fun with the spellcheck!

Thanks

First off we are not boiling water to create steam. You would be absolutely correct in your statement. We're raising the water's temperature, at most, to a mere 80F degrees. All we need is for the water in the hot side to be 20 to 10 degrees higher. Median temperature of the control pool which should be at 60F degrees. Secondly, you are assuming a flat bottom. You may not realize it, but you are. I did say egg shaped. Which means the center is deeper than the sides. For a matter of fact in the first 500 years I had problems keeping the storage (hot side) pool cool enough not to damage the transfer tubes. Greater than 200 mph winds. My solutions came from the weather not the type of weather we have outside our windows, (it helps to know that too), but a realization that we have Solar Weather, we also have Galactic Weather and string theory demands that we have Universal Weather. Take a look at our Nice Milky Way Galaxy. It is a pinwheel. Stars forming in the string areas like storms forming between two high pressures areas on earth. Energy and matter escaping out long the string with dark matter being drawn and recycled back in between the sun(s) filled strings. We have the hottest suns at the center and the cooler suns in the suburbs, with a monster in the middle driving it all. Time/space warp is the greatest in the middle and the least at the edges. Well, the center of my Storage pond is the deepest with nothing in the middle which is needed as thermal sink. Hottest nuclear material rings the center with five fingers going out cooler material at the edges. Add the Coriolis effect of the earth spinning and you have changing flows out a long the fingers and in between with chilled water from evaporation dropping down the middle in rising up out wards toward the edges. A whirl pool! What you keep worry about though important at first thoughts is not what worries me. What happens to hydrogen in does. Like an Alchemist's lead box with a piece of radium in it becoming gold lined, because lead reduces to gold in the presence of a strong radiator. Hydrogen increases its atomic weight too. This heavy water actually slows decay doesn't it? Helps to lengthen the useful time. But, what concerns me the most is evaporation rate. The control pool will act as a bulldozer and temperature differences between the two pools sync with each other naturally to - 4F degrees on the control pool and heavy water justs increases the pressure differences over time. If evaporation rates drops only 10 percent due to heavy water. It is the coefficient of evaporation of heavy water, I had to guess at that bothers me more than what you're worry about. As I pointed out in an earlier note my calculation gave me just under 1500 years maximum useful life. So there is some forgiveness in the 1000 year mark. The cooling process is what drives this generator. Not brute heat!

Thank You

It starts to be a piece of art.

Don't you have an artist impression.

I was wondered about the use of water as medium, I would go for a gas, Helium or so. Two pipes, one lined with the active materials heating up the gas in the pipe, generating a chimney, the other one cooled, dragging the gasses back down, the pressure difference will drive a turbine. A kind of Racine system.

If you want movements of 200mph in a fluid, the temperature differences must be high to overcome the viscosity. Most of the energy will be lost in it.

But how to prevent that someone wants to open up the system to collect the gold plated lead? (after 500 year in function the amount of gold in the lead shielding must be reasonable)

Please use line feeds to improve the readability of your text.

Gwen

Helium is a great idea and in space it would continue until a vacuum occurred or -452F degrees. Replacing our normal atmosphere with key step-down gases would allow the process to continue for a much longer time. We would have to insulate the control pool from the ambient temperature of the cave or mine, but that is doable. Gold to lead alludes to hydrogen in water becoming deterium and tritium not the lining that is what I wanted to be working on. The best materials to use to build with. The 1,3,5,8, alludes to the natural log e progression. That this system works on. So output is an "S" curve with frictiion being the limiter. Does that help any?

Thanks

You moderator will become heavier and the fuidity becomes worse, my moderator will also change but the working fluid stays the same.

My opinion is to keep the apparatus smaller and series producable, easy embedable in deep clay layers.

I'm woried on puttting to much decay material in one installation, what if your moderator gets lost (leaks)

Gwen

Not to be involved in this interesting discussion, just a humble note:

...We have the hottest suns at the center and the cooler suns in the suburbs, with a monster in the middle driving it all...

From what I hear, this is not exactly so. If we are to refer to statistical distribution, it's about the more massive and ancient in the center and then lighter outward.

And it all correlates: Massive, in sun lives, means shorter star-life and much bigger and brighter ones, and more ancient means second, third, fourth generation stars meaning, presence of elements heavier than C, N, O (The heavier being created in Novae and Super-Novae Shockwave-frontiers). Ours is classified "Third-Generation, Yellow, Intermediate, Midget" and it's initial mass-cloud already contained elements ever heavier than iron, which by itself is usually considered an energetic barrier in fusion (through means of nuclear transmutation).

These heavy elements are thought to be there, by the courtesy of a previous, local, already exploded, more massive, second generation star

This must be from which came first the Galaxy of the Black hole? New updated info from NASA. Please refer to David Spitzer I hope I got his name spelled right. This Model has been in the works for years. What gave it credence was a chance mapping from the Chandler and Hubble of Supermassive Black Holes and the rotational speeds of Sigma Planets- the outer most planets in the galaxy. After mapping size of black hole to Sigma planet rotation speeds. There soon became a straight line graph. After Switzer Satellite observatory came on line. The accretion disks around the these SMBH came into better view, more wave lengths could be seen and cross referenced. Young quasars the AD is supper heated causing a Galactic wind. This wind forms the rest of the Galaxy. Remember I said something about there might even be Galactic Weather? Streaming of the AD produced winds. The winds bow the rest of Galaxy away from SMBH, keeping rest of Galaxy from being devoured. Streaming not homogeneous forming waves or fronts. Stars form inside waves like Thunderstorms forms along a cold front. Remember things are remembered. Fronts form along lines of least resistance. SMBH acts to anchor the original shock-waves from the supernova of the SMBH and the Nova event(s) of the Accretion Disk formation became the natural future pathways for the AD winds to travel long. Some day we may even find a wormhole along one. Sorry, Mist and Splatter models are not what forms galaxies. Data from the Sigma plants prove it

Glad to hear your concerns Limestone mines and quaries are already extensively used to grow foods and store company records. Not top news. You may even be eating one of the crops tonight, mushrooms. Seeds need to be re-grown at least every two to ten years. People to do that is not part of this discussion yet, one thing at a time. This isn't the point of this discussions and is mute to it. Materials to make it with is. One more item is that the average speed in the tubes will be 200 mph. Not a gentile breeze. Tubes will vary in size from 24" to 2m in diameter depending on scale. Some have already guessed that what I'm talking about is an entropy engine. Once the cycle is started it will take very little added energy to maintain. Some have already guessed that it could be used in space too. Radio-active decay conscerns are realivant though, but entropy wins. Thus the one thousand years limit. Materials, manufacturing techniques and placement is my main concern For now. My wife complains that I think A-Z and the rest of us need to B,C,D, ext. As for the four men example. That is a hint, there is always a minimum number. Remember, this hint too. Money may make the world go 'round, but it takes energy to print the bills. Have fun with the spell check!

Thank You!

I love CR4 idea at work.

Nobel Price for NewYorker for his ANSWER!!!!

A scarey idea.

In isolation of radioactive waste, radioactive salt solutions that might escape confinment are the thing you want most especially to avoid.

Using radioactive waste for power generation is indeed a good idea.

NASA has designed a Stirling engine that runs on the waste heat of radioactive decay.

It is designed to power deep space missions.

The link.