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New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

theregister.co.uk

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Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#81

Post by DennisP »

wazoox wrote: post #72
rbanffy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are any Chernobyl-like reactors in operation today. Even if the design of reactors like ones at the Fukushima plant may be considered horribly flawed (they should be able to cool themselves passively, with no external power input whatsoever, after someone hits the scram button) the magnitude of the disaster is much smaller. An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fu…

> An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fukushima are 3x less radioactive than downtown Denver. This is something to think about. Radiation is like cancer: one word to describe many different, related phenomenons. Denver radioactivity comes from radon, which is a relatively harmless gas as long as you allow it to disperse rapidly. OTOH pollution from nuclear accidents mainly comes fr…

True, but the decay products of radon are solid alpha-emitters that get lodged in people's lungs. And the comparisons to Fukushima are generally in terms of rem, which is already adjusted for biological effect.

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#82

Post by rbanffy »

wazoox wrote: post #72
rbanffy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are any Chernobyl-like reactors in operation today. Even if the design of reactors like ones at the Fukushima plant may be considered horribly flawed (they should be able to cool themselves passively, with no external power input whatsoever, after someone hits the scram button) the magnitude of the disaster is much smaller. An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fu…

> An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fukushima are 3x less radioactive than downtown Denver. This is something to think about. Radiation is like cancer: one word to describe many different, related phenomenons. Denver radioactivity comes from radon, which is a relatively harmless gas as long as you allow it to disperse rapidly. OTOH pollution from nuclear accidents mainly comes fr…

The numbers quoted in the article were, IIRC, about cellular damage and aren't dependent of the isotope the person was exposed to. I agree some radioactive materials are much more dangerous than others and a noble gas has less chances of ending up in important molecules inside your body, but if the scale measures damage, not exposition, I assume they are equivalent.

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#83

Post by pjscott »

afterburner wrote: post #60

The problem with nuclear power generation today is it's always way more expensive than promised, in often unpredictable and sometimes not-easily-quantifiable ways. Add the uninsurable nature, the constant risk of human error/decision making increasing the risk factor (eg. not decommissioning old plants), and waste problem, and it gets even less attractive. Meanwhile, renewable energy and power grid improvements conti…

It's not inherently more expensive than promised; that's caused by a combination of first-of-a-kind construction and unpredictable political and regulatory situations. In places like South Korea, where they have a more reasonable regulatory situation and they build a bunch of each type of plant, they've had a better track record with completing nuclear plants on time and within an affordable budget.

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#84

Post by baq »

rbanffy wrote: post #52
baq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think that the biggest problem is the potential for making places on our planet unsuitable to live in forever (for all practical purposes). people look at chernobyl and see a place that will be dangerous to all life long after they're dead. they don't want that to happen again. fukushima is potentially the next such place, albeit on a lower scale. the fact that radiation doesn't hurt doesn't help either. if our civ…

I don't think there are any Chernobyl-like reactors in operation today. Even if the design of reactors like ones at the Fukushima plant may be considered horribly flawed (they should be able to cool themselves passively, with no external power input whatsoever, after someone hits the scram button) the magnitude of the disaster is much smaller. An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fu…

solar can definitely fulfill any power requirements. the problem though isn't power generation but energy storage. if we had better batteries, we wouldn't be putting internal combustion engines in cars. gasoline is about two (or is it three? can't remember) orders of magnitude better at energy density than li-ion batteries.

i strongly suggest reading this blog http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/.

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#85

Post by justatdotin »

mrinterweb wrote: post #23
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #5

I really thought this was going to be about Thorium. Surprise - its about extracting Uranium from seawater.

I can not figure out why more effort is not put into thorium nuclear technology research. The only reason I have heard why thorium is not being considered is because it is not weaponizable. Are there any other reasons why thorium based nuclear fission is not being pursued as an energy source?

thorium reactors would make it a little bit harder to divert materials / technology / capabilities for weapons applications

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#86

Post by baq »

jlarocco wrote: post #65
prawks wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've read Normal Accidents by Perrow, how would you respond to someone who said that a good reason is because of the extreme complexity of nuclear power coupled with our relatively new understanding of it? I think that's a pretty good criticism of nuclear power.

I would ask them if they feared computers, which are more complex, more recent, and used to control almost everything.

when computers break down, they don't kill people for the next hundred years.

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#87

Post by InclinedPlane »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #24

Let's reverse the logic. Instead of talking about how much radioactive material we're pulling from the ocean, how much could we put in? Am I mistaken in saying that we could put back in every bit of radioactive material we'd use until 5000AD and only double the natural background radiation amount? I know the math isn't exact -- it's not a symmetry -- but on a rough-order-of-magnitude basis, is that a reasonable concl…

Not at all. Uranium-238 has a half-life of billions of years, and Uranium-235 has a half-life of about 2/3 of a billion years. This means that the natural decay rate, and thus the rate of generation of radioactivity is very low. However, if you pull that out of the ocean and put back things like Radium, I-131, Sr-90, etc. you will vastly increase that rate because such isotopes have a much lower half-life.

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#88

Post by justatdotin »

pjscott wrote: post #83
afterburner wrote: post #60

The problem with nuclear power generation today is it's always way more expensive than promised, in often unpredictable and sometimes not-easily-quantifiable ways. Add the uninsurable nature, the constant risk of human error/decision making increasing the risk factor (eg. not decommissioning old plants), and waste problem, and it gets even less attractive. Meanwhile, renewable energy and power grid improvements conti…

It's not inherently more expensive than promised; that's caused by a combination of first-of-a-kind construction and unpredictable political and regulatory situations. In places like South Korea, where they have a more reasonable regulatory situation and they build a bunch of each type of plant, they've had a better track record with completing nuclear plants on time and within an affordable budget.

"too cheap to meter" they promised.

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#89

Post by jakejake »

I decided to look up some of the authors previous articles and he has an pretty impressive range of alien conspiracy theory and climate change related articles including:

"NASA: WE'VE FOUND Four-toed NON-HUMAN FOOTPRINTS" "Martian lakes seen where NASA Curiosity rover WON'T BE GOING" "Using Facebook causes less eco damage than farting, figures show" "Climate was HOTTER in Roman, medieval times than now: Study" "Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show" "Amount of meat we eat will barely affect future climate change"

http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Lewis%20Page

Re: New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

#90

Post by InclinedPlane »

ericd wrote: post #79
ChuckMcM wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DoE actually did extensive research into subduction encapsulation and while expensive (you are working at depths that crush most stuff we build up here) was technically quite acceptable (their design ended up essentially drilling what amounted to bore holes 5000' below the surface and dropping in waste from the top until its half full then covering it up and moving on. The advantage was that containment was expec…

So we'd essentially need a very tightly controlled fast breeder reactor or 20 that handle the world's less pleasant nuclear byproducts? It seems that if the breeder reactor is cohabitated with the reprocessing facility, most of the danger would be nullified (I imagine that transport is the riskiest part). Or perhaps people simply don't want those things to exist in concentrated form, ever, to eliminate the risk of so…

How many nuclear power plants of any sort has the US build in the last 4 decades? That's the reason why it's hard to get the concept of reprocessing nuclear fuel off the ground.
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