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Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

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Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#31

Post by gruturo »

jannemann wrote: post #26
fsflover wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Nuclear power is considered a clean energy source because it has zero carbon dioxide emissions; > This is flat out wrong. No, it's not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464 .

Every energy source does require some sort of energy to make it possible to harvest it. And nuclear is no exception. We do not have any sustainable way to filter out enough carbon dioxide with any of the hypothetical excess energy. So saying there is a any energy source without any carbon dioxide emission is wrong.

> Every energy source does require some sort of energy to make it possible to harvest it. And nuclear is no exception

Indeed, and neither are solar, wind, hydro or any other - they all have environmental impact for producing the panels, turbines, dams, etc. So there are actually no exceptions at all, anywhere, which makes the classification completely useless. Could we get back to the topic now?

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#32

Post by senectus1 »

jannemann wrote: post #19

> Nuclear power is considered a clean energy source because it has zero carbon dioxide emissions; This is flat out wrong. Containing, mining, recycling and long term storage are so extremely costly and energy hungry that it does not make any economically sense in mid term to use nuclear power. And do not forget. Nuclear is not renewable. It has to be mined. There are mines which will be empty sooner than generally ex…

Its mostly carbon friendly, but not even slightly environmentally friendly.

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#33

Post by natmaka »

sylware wrote: post #15

There is also something about "fast-neutron"/"slow-neutron" (I don't recall which one) capture based fission reactors which could give a purpose to a significant part of nuclear waste. If I understood not too badly (but I expect to be very wrong), only China and Russia have such nuclear reactors. In my country, the public research project was cancelled without being able to do the same than China and Russia. I heard…

Breeder reactors research was quite huge (one of the first breeder was built in the US in 1951).

To this day there is no such reactor working industrially satisfactorily.

This architecture has been, for all practical purposes, abandoned by nearly all countries that were researching and developing it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Future_plants

One of the most (if not the most) ambitious project was Superphénix, costed billions and failed flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix

The most successful was Russia's BN-800 but "problems ((...)) indicated a redesign was needed", and construction of it's successor (the BN-1200) was put on indefinite hold. Problems related to cost and process/security seem quite difficult(?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor

Russians are back to the drawing board. The sole officially actively pursued (since 2021) pertinent design, BREST-OD-300 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor) ) will only (when completed, if ever) be a demonstrator (low power).

French ahead: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surg%C3%A9n%C3%A9ration

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#34

Post by natmaka »

Manuel_D wrote: post #23
jannemann wrote: post #19

> Nuclear power is considered a clean energy source because it has zero carbon dioxide emissions; This is flat out wrong. Containing, mining, recycling and long term storage are so extremely costly and energy hungry that it does not make any economically sense in mid term to use nuclear power. And do not forget. Nuclear is not renewable. It has to be mined. There are mines which will be empty sooner than generally ex…

Nuclear has the lowest net CO2 emissions per unit of energy besides hydroelectricity [1]. Waste recycling would make known terrestrial reserves last for several thousand years. Furthermore, seawater extraction would make nuclear effectively unlimited [2]. You can pedantically point out that nuclear isn't truly unlimited. But once you're getting to the point of energy sources lasting millions of years, the term "renew…

The more we obtain uranium (prospecting, mining, milling...), the more we add to the associated carbon footprint. Therefore a sustained growth of installed nuclear capacity will lead us to exploit mines at always lowering ore grades => more emissions. The media may be 110g CO‐eq/kWh by 2050.

Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#35

Post by Manuel_D »

natmaka wrote: post #34
Manuel_D wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear has the lowest net CO2 emissions per unit of energy besides hydroelectricity [1]. Waste recycling would make known terrestrial reserves last for several thousand years. Furthermore, seawater extraction would make nuclear effectively unlimited [2]. You can pedantically point out that nuclear isn't truly unlimited. But once you're getting to the point of energy sources lasting millions of years, the term "renew…

The more we obtain uranium (prospecting, mining, milling...), the more we add to the associated carbon footprint. Therefore a sustained growth of installed nuclear capacity will lead us to exploit mines at always lowering ore grades => more emissions. The media may be 110g CO‐eq/kWh by 2050. Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332

The same issues apply to the materials needed to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels, and the batteries needed to mitigate intermittency.

Uranium's incredible energy density means increases in raw uranium costs is negligible (enrichment is a much more expensive part of the overall nuclear fuel cost). From the previously linked article:

> Over the last twenty years, uranium spot prices have varied between $10 and $120/lb of U3O8, mainly from changes in the availability of weapons-grade uranium to blend down to make reactor fuel.

> So as the cost of extracting uranium from seawater falls to below $100/lb, it will become a commercially viable alternative to mining new uranium ore. But even at $200/lb of U3O8, it doesn’t add more than a small fraction of a cent per kWh to the cost of nuclear power.

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#36

Post by jpgvm »

lazyeye wrote: post #25
panick21_ wrote: post #6

A much more practical use of nuclear waste is to make traditional RTG. Nuclear waste could also be used for medical isotopes. There are lots of other interesting things in nuclear waste. This talk from 2010 is really amazing at understanding what 'nuclear waste' actually is and what it will be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv-mFSoZOkE

I've often wondered if neutralising radioactive waste is a lesser technical challenge than fusion.

It is. But fusion is much cooler and doesn't have the bad reputation that nuclear power does so funding is much easier to obtain for it.

Unfortunately society doesn't want safe nuclear, they want zero nuclear.

Massive blunder by humanity IMO and shameful that environmentalist parties that were founded to oppose nuclear continue to do so today for primarily historical/emotional reasons rather than hard facts.

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#37

Post by yb303 »

tragictrash wrote: post #16
kgc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pacemaker?

The pacemaker is probably only designed to last for 50 or so years. I'm not an expert, looking up the statistics, that seeems to be a very generous estimation. So you want to put a power source that can last hundreds of thousands of years in a device that's going to last 50, at great expense?

After death, the person will be giving back his/hers "water of life", like in Dune, to be reused by others :)

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#38

Post by panick21_ »

jpgvm wrote: post #36
lazyeye wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered if neutralising radioactive waste is a lesser technical challenge than fusion.

It is. But fusion is much cooler and doesn't have the bad reputation that nuclear power does so funding is much easier to obtain for it. Unfortunately society doesn't want safe nuclear, they want zero nuclear. Massive blunder by humanity IMO and shameful that environmentalist parties that were founded to oppose nuclear continue to do so today for primarily historical/emotional reasons rather than hard facts.

We should have been a nuclear society since the 80s ...

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#39

Post by natmaka »

Manuel_D wrote: post #35
natmaka wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more we obtain uranium (prospecting, mining, milling...), the more we add to the associated carbon footprint. Therefore a sustained growth of installed nuclear capacity will lead us to exploit mines at always lowering ore grades => more emissions. The media may be 110g CO‐eq/kWh by 2050. Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332

The same issues apply to the materials needed to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels, and the batteries needed to mitigate intermittency. Uranium's incredible energy density means increases in raw uranium costs is negligible (enrichment is a much more expensive part of the overall nuclear fuel cost). From the previously linked article: > Over the last twenty years, uranium spot prices have varied between $10 and…

True, however those materials needed to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels... can be recycled, most of them infinitely (at human scale), and it more and more becomes either legally or economically unavoidable.

Uranium isn't recyclable: there is no satisfactorily running fast-breeder.

My point was not about costs but about emissions. Extraction and immediate post-processing (before enrichment), and therefore ore grade, have a major impact on emissions: see figure 5 in the referenced communication (Werner, Heath).

Seawater: "pumping the seawater to extract this uranium would need more energy than what could be produced with the recuperated uranium" Source: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/jones-j2/docs/e...

Re: Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

#40

Post by sylware »

natmaka wrote: post #33
sylware wrote: post #15

There is also something about "fast-neutron"/"slow-neutron" (I don't recall which one) capture based fission reactors which could give a purpose to a significant part of nuclear waste. If I understood not too badly (but I expect to be very wrong), only China and Russia have such nuclear reactors. In my country, the public research project was cancelled without being able to do the same than China and Russia. I heard…

Breeder reactors research was quite huge (one of the first breeder was built in the US in 1951). To this day there is no such reactor working industrially satisfactorily. This architecture has been, for all practical purposes, abandoned by nearly all countries that were researching and developing it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Future_plants One of the most (if not the most) ambitious project wa…

It seems there is a difference between "fast-neutron" reactors and breeder reactors: the article states that russian BN-600 and BN-800 are "fast-neutron" reactors but not in "breeder" mode.

Since I am garbage in nuclear physics, I am wondering if those "fast-neutron" reactors "but not breeders" can reuse a significant part of current nuclear waste?

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