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Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

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Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#231

Post by Krasnol »

petre wrote: post #230
Krasnol wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is clearly misleading to point at an island of green energy when there's coal all around it. ...which is the reason why they have to turn off turbines. And the reason why they keep this coal running is because nobody want's to kill jobs when there are elections incoming and the right wing party is on the run in the region. > You can just export it, coal is valuable. No, it's not. It's already heavy subsidized an…

Come on, coal is not clogging your infrastructure. Coal plants can be fired at will (3 hrs hot stratup, 6% of full load per minute ramp up) when there's demand. Gas turbine fired plants are event better in this regard (quicker startup and/or ramp up). There's no point in firing up coal plants if you already have renrewable electricity in the infrastructure. Which means that they're only fired when the sun doesn't shi…

> Come on, coal is not clogging your infrastructure. Coal plants can be fired at will (3 hrs hot stratup, 6% of full load per minute ramp up) when there's demand.

Coal is clogging up the infrastructure...this is why wind generators have to be stopped. It's a very known fact here we even get it explained by power providers at the end of the year when they explain the bills and this is also the reason there are huge projects to expand the infrastructure. We even have to pay for coal plants which HAVE been turned off (especially in states which do not produce coal) because of the ongoing contracts. We have coal plants which never have been turned on and the company which build it now tries to sue for money from the tax payer for all those Euros lost or at least to cover the costs to remove it again...and no those lignite-fired plants are not that easy to fire up/down. That's why they run through even in East Germany where there is more then enough renewable energy.

And why should I look at Frances power mix (calling it "mix" is ridiculous...)? It's dangerous remains of a dead technology. Germany can only hope Fessenheim will finally be turned off before it falls apart and Luxembourg can hope that Cattenom doesn't eradicate it completely one day. Meanwhile Germany is exporting energy and has to turn off renewables after they dropped nuclear. There is no way back to that and only because France doesn't care about their nuclear waste (especially if it disappears in Sewersk),doesn't make it less of a problem. Germany will have to deal with that for decades and millennia to come even without a single new plant. Nobody wants the shit back here and all over the world. You need to finally face the facts. Meanwhile renewables grow further and further.

https://www.agora-energiewende.de/service/agorameter/chart/p...

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#232

Post by gambiting »

Krasnol wrote: post #214
gambiting wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if there is a geological process that can bring stuff up from 6km depth then we're all dead anyway - the layer of impermeable rock above it is not called that for no reason. And with the half life of some of the elements in the waste as long as 100k years yes, it's ideal if it's buried and forgotten where no one can get to it. Irresponsible is storing this stuff on the surface - if the civilization collapses…

The irony here is that you already propose to disturb this layer. Even though the technology is pretty new. Despite that you already not only want to penetrate this layer, you want to drop radioactive waste in there. Btw what about Countries like Japan. They can't do that for obvious reasons. Will the US take this waste? I mean, they will keep producing it. And what about the next country that comes along. I'm sure t…

But....we already do penetrate it, routinely. Oil and gas fields are below it more often than not. Punching a 50cm hole in impermeable rock does nothing to it.

As for other countries - again, just because Japan cannot do it doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing this altogether. They can store their waste on the surface until we come up with a better plan. But countries like US can, and US has enough nuclear waste to fill 800 of these boreholes already - it's definitely worth doing for them, even if Japan can't. The answer to your question would be ultimately political, and yes, I imagine Japan would pay someone else to have it disposed of. But that's just a guess.

And I do read a lot of Sci-Fi, thank you for your concern. I just don't think you realize what sort of depths we are talking about - there is no geological process bringing material up from these depths to the surface. When we dig to that depth we literally find material buried for millions of years. You'd be talking about rupturing of the Earth to a point where a new mountain range rivaling the Alps would be created - and if that happens then like I said - we're all dead anyway.

As for the lack of imagination - quite the contrary! The mantle in the shallowest spot is only 7km below the surface - and the temperatures there can be as high as 4000C. That's enough to melt nuclear fuel, in which case it would just become part of the Earths crust forever - and it's not like you're polluting the Earth with filthy waste that someone might dig up at some point - the composition of the Earth at that point is already radioactive itself, dropping our nuclear waste into it is not just a proverbial but a literal drop in the ocean. Just like sending this stuff into the sun doesn't make the sun any worse off - the Earth's mantle is already an extremely dangerous place where no Sci-Fi would even suggest digging or future human activity of any kind. In that sense it's a good place for our most dangerous waste, since putting it there doesn't really make it any worse off.

And finally - as you noticed, whatever we do is irresponsible. In my mind, keeping it as we do right now is more irresponsible than burrying it in a way that makes it completely safe even if a comet struck our planet and civilization was completely wiped out. Whoever survives that won't accidentally run into steel containers full of death pebbles. And if civilization emerges that is somehow capable of not only digging but also retrieving material from close to the Earth's mantle, then that civilisation will understand what radioactivity is - no one will ever dig this stuff out "by accident". It's just the sensible option right now, while keeping it around isn't.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#233

Post by DoctorOetker »

hairytrog wrote: post #197
sandworm101 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And sand from sandblasting of painted metal to remove contaminants. There are tons and tons of very slightly radioactive sand that needs a place to live.

The beach would probably be fine. Safety by dilution.

cyclotron exhaust stacks already do this, they also have activity monitors

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#234

Post by DoctorOetker »

coredog64 wrote: post #183
pvaldes wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are no security issues, since as the name indicates its a “waste”; you can’t make a bomb out of it Without applying a lot of imagination, I can think out about some non trivial security issues in the idea of adding deplected uranium waste to a bomb as shrapnel. Definitely a bomb can be made with this stuff.

Depleted uranium is uranium that isn’t as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium. That’s what the depleted means. It’s so dangerous that they use it in hospitals as X-ray shielding. Paper, your clothing, or even your dead skin cells is enough to block what little radioactivity is present in DU. What is dangerous about DU is that it’s a heavy metal (and pretty toxic). It’s not easy to work, so even forming it into…

Obvioysly the GP does not literally mean depleted uranium, but spent uranium, i.e. containing whole decay chains of radioactive isotopes...

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#235

Post by NikkiA »

vertex-four wrote: post #96
mort96 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't afraid of terrorists or people making bombs, I'm not American. I was worried about a truck or train crashing and showering an area in nuclear waste. > The cask systems are designed to handle a wide range of severe environmental conditions, including earthquakes, flooding, extreme temperatures, and tornadoes. This includes objects that may impact the cask at high speed, such as during a tornado. I suppose tha…

In the U.K., a nuclear cask was tested in a train crash and came out fine. I’m sure a car crash would be alright too. :)

The US also did some testing with their flasks:

https://youtu.be/1mHtOW-OBO4?t=80

It's a pretty awful source (dubbed impact sounds), and very much in UK dialect, but it has some footage of the US testing I've not seen elsewhere.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#236

Post by graeme »

andor wrote: post #48
godelski wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a counter source[0]: France is highly powered by nuclear and is on the cheaper side of European cost of electricity. Not the cheapest, but cheaper than the average and especially so for being a major country. Part of the reason France does so well is that 17% of its energy comes from recycled nuclear waste. That's not 17% of nuclear power is from waste, that's 17% of TOTAL power is just from waste. [0] https:/…

I think the point of the OP was that pollution and long-term storage are not priced in. Try coming up with a price for safely storing nuclear waste for the next few thousand years.

But nuclear is competing against carbon. The price of those externalities is also not priced in. We have not stored carbon safely, we dumped it into the atmosphere.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#237

Post by xanth »

turbohz wrote: post #64
xanth wrote: post #20

I wonder how much this processes would consume and further reduce the effective yield.

Energy from other sources, such as renewals could be used. The disposal could be scheduled when those are generated in excess.

Good point, even with non renewable resources excess power is often entirety wasted when the expected grid consumption is lower than the production.
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