Re: Will Hydrogen be the fuel of the future?

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:33:58 -0500, Elliot Richmond <xmrichmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Unlike my fellow envirowackos, I have long advocated using nuclear
energy for electricity generation. It is safe, clean, and in
utility-scale systems, cost-effective. Waste can be stored on-site for
at least 100 years. In that length of time, we should be able to
figure out a way to safely dispose of the stuff. I suggest magnetic
launchers that would send containers of the material on a trajectory
to fall into the sun. It is almost within our technological ability to
build such a system now and in a hundred years it certainly will be.

Can you imagine the envirowhacko wailing and gnashing of teeth in response to
something like that, given the hysteria that surrounded the Cassini probe?

How 'bout something a bit more mundane but at the same time practical and doable
today? Separate out the fission products so that the ~97% of the fuel that remains
unused in "spent fuel" can be used. Run that concentrated high level waste through a
"burner reactor", a reactor designed to fission some isotopes and transmute others
into short-lived isotopes which decay back to stable elements over a short period of
time. The burner reactor is optimized for isotope burning and not power production,
though it can do both.

Los Alamos started researching this in the 50s and built at least one test burner
reactor that I know of. It worked as designed. All that's needed to start this
process working is the removal of that pesky political defect.

Accelerator-based actinide burning has also received a LOT of attention from the
national labs. It works - the physics are proven - and will probably turn out to be
efficient enough to supplant reactor burners. Accelerator power has been tracking
high power semiconductor and very high power microwave sources for years.
Accelerator-based medical isotope and tritium production have pushed the envelope in
all those areas. Accelerator-based actinide burning is just about ready for prime
time, IMO.


However, I also see this as a short term solution. Nuclear fuel is a
limited commodity. Even with fast-breeder reactors, we will eventually
run out of that fuel.

Only in the sense that the sun will also eventually run out of fuel. IOW, not in any
foreseeable time frame. There's enough HEU and Pu laying around from dismantled
bombs to fuel the nation's current crop of reactors for at least a hundred years,
according to a Los Alamos study paper that I have. Recycling of existing spent fuel
will be good for several hundred years at current consumption rates. There's plenty
of proven reserves of U still in the ground and if that ever gets short, Th is almost
literally everywhere. Then there's the whole matter of extracting U and Th from sea
water.

Any prediction of the future any farther out than maybe 50-100 years is just plain
silly. Can you imagine how silly an energy prediction for our times made in 1920
would seem now? After all there were already bleatings of impending doom and gloom,
running out of oil.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
I like you ... you remind me of me when I was young and stupid.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Will Hydrogen be the fuel of the future?
    ... unused in "spent fuel" can be used. ... "burner reactor", a reactor designed to fission some isotopes and transmute others ... Accelerator-based actinide burning has also received a LOT of attention from the ... high power semiconductor and very high power microwave sources for years. ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: Will Hydrogen be the fuel of the future?
    ... unused in "spent fuel" can be used. ... "burner reactor", a reactor designed to fission some isotopes and transmute others ... Accelerator-based actinide burning has also received a LOT of attention from the ... high power semiconductor and very high power microwave sources for years. ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: Will Hydrogen be the fuel of the future?
    ... unused in "spent fuel" can be used. ... "burner reactor", a reactor designed to fission some isotopes and transmute others ... Accelerator-based actinide burning has also received a LOT of attention from the ... high power semiconductor and very high power microwave sources for years. ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
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