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DailyDirt: Taking Another Look At Nuclear Energy...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Nuclear energy has been around for decades, but its safety and the safety of its radioactive waste have always been a political nightmare. Still, some researchers have been redesigning nuclear reactors to make them safer in many ways, but these newer designs have yet to be scaled up and used commercially. Maybe someday nuclear technology will be ubiquitous, but it'll likely take a long time before anyone is willing to embrace fission/fusion energy that doesn't come from the Sun.
- A European research reactor called Guinevere demonstrates the safety and benefits of a hybrid reactor-accelerator design. This nuclear reactor design is an accelerator-driven system (ADS) and uses a particle accelerator so that its nuclear reactor can run without enough fissile material to generate a nuclear chain reaction (so all the nuclear reactions stop when the external particle accelerator stops). A bonus feature is that its radioactive waste material can be transmuted via the particle accelerator into elements with lower half-lives that may be more convenient to handle and store. [url]
- Teenager Taylor Wilson has been building nuclear reactors for a few years already, and his current project is to build small, modular nuclear reactors capable of generating just 50-100 megawatts of electricity. Wilson's reactors would create a more decentralized network of electricity generation, but that's a lot of NIMBY to overcome.... [url]
- Italian scientists have halted research on piezonuclear fission. Low Energy Nuclear Reactions have been associated with Cold Fusion, so if there's any kind of non-classical fission/fusion going on, it may take extraordinary evidence to convince anyone of it. [url]
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In before...
Which, by the way, is how the production ADS is imagined to work: With a proton beam aimed at a thorium target.
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Re: In before...
So maybe these fancy new reactors could use thorium or plutonium or uranium... and help us destroy our weapons-grade stockpiles without needed a whole new reactor design?
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Even including Chernobyl, wind power has caused more fatalities per watt-hour than nuclear.
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Under capitalized nuclear power plants will likely never get cleaned up.
p.s., Re: Thorium- http://phys.org/news/2012-12-thorium-proliferation-nuclear-wonder-fuel.html
ppss-The gaseous diffusions production sites (Paducah, Oak Ridge) haven't yet been cleaned up- and they've been obsolete since the 1960's.
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Re:
Or maybe that does not happen.
Maybe every generation is safer and more efficient. Maybe NIMBY attitudes should not be allowed to place reactors on sea-level beaches in tsunami zones. Maybe the anti-nuke activists should enlighten themselves every now and then.
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Reducing energy consumption won't work; it never has. Other people just consume the cheaper fossil fuels. And unless you want to go to war to enforce your opinion, it is a losing battle.
Green energy is waiting for battery technology. The best we have is lithium ion, and that took a quarter century to develop.
One solution to global warming is to move fully to nuclear and wean off coal. (Oil and gas don't really affect climate change compared to coal.) Of course, another solution is to just deal with the consequences, like migrating farms and relocating coastal cities.
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Re: Re: In before...
yes.
"and there's a possibility that the nuclear fuel mixture could change, and the particle accelerator could be altered to change with it?
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yes.
"So maybe these fancy new reactors could use thorium or plutonium or uranium... and help us destroy our weapons-grade stockpiles without needed a whole new reactor design?"
yes, and yes.
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Number of people killed by nuclear power generation (directly) less than 100.
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"Someone "liberated" the gas for the backup generators "
a freaking great wave shut down the generators required to maintain the cooling ponds.
The reactors shut down safely when the quake struck, and were not damaged.
The backup generators that supplied power to pump cooling water around the SPENT fuel rods were overcome by a big wave.
If the cooling ponds were located remotely there would not have been any issues at all in Japan.
Again, how many people were killed ??
ZERO !!!!!
How many coal miners have died mining coal in the past 1 year ??? (I bet significantly more than 1).
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Re: Under capitalized nuclear power plants will likely never get cleaned up.
They show how Oak Ridge happened, and how the clean up of the site was conducted, how the reactor was dismantled and the decontamination process was conducted. It also shows the cause of the accident, as well as exposing what measures were taken so that could not happen in the future.
Many valuable lessons were learnt, and a lot of knowledge gained. 3 people died.. about the same as one bad car accident.
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Civilization's embarrasment
One day me might progress to Type 1, but as yet we simple cannot get away from "burning shit" to get our energy, just like the cave man did... Now that's progress for you..
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Decentralized power
It is better to create more location-based systems (for example, using solar to run individual housing units).
Now, you could perhaps have nuclear plants in very isolated, safe areas that use that electricity to create hydrogen that would then power fuel cells.
And perhaps some day there will be very small nuclear units that power homes or blocks.
But replacing current oil or gas-fired power plants with nuclear power plants is both costly and less flexible than other options.
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Re: Decentralized power
Also, since fuel isn't available equally in all countries, you have the same issues that generate wars and tension between countries.
It's far better, economically and politically, to give individual consumers as much control over their own power as possible. So the more that can be done locally and the more the entire system can be broken down into units cheap enough for individuals or small groups to own themselves, the better.
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Most famous wasn't a software error either. It was a scrap dealer who took apart a machine that he didn't know what it was, that never should have been scrapped, and killed 10 people.
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Google Therac-25
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Re: Re:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/liquid-batteries-0214.html
High temperature liquid metal batteries might be useful for grid-scale electricity. Someday?
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Or maybe that does not happen.
Maybe every generation is safer and more efficient. Maybe NIMBY attitudes should not be allowed to place reactors on sea-level beaches in tsunami zones. Maybe the anti-nuke activists should enlighten themselves every now and then.
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