Re: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
Muons will produce fission in transuranics without the need to produce neutrons, Neutrons that result from transuranic fission can be minimized by adding boron to that muon catalyzed fission reaction to absorb those secondary neutrons. On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 4:31 PM, wrote: > In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Mon, 18 Dec 2017 15:53:20 -0500: > Hi, > [snip] > >material is left in it. In other words, breeder reactors may improve > >tremendously hundreds of years from now. > > We already have the technology to do this. Accelerator based reactors > would be > able to burn up the Actinides, which are the major long lived > radioisotopes. > > As previously mentioned, muon based fusion reactors creating fast neutrons > might > also be used. > > BTW, I'm surprised you didn't mention the possibility of using LENR to > remediate > the waste. ;) > > [snip] > Regards, > > > Robin van Spaandonk > > local asymmetry = temporary success > >
Re: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
The navy has patented the remediation of nuclear waste via LENR. https://www.google.com/patents/US8419919 Original Assignee: Jwk International Corporation, The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Navy. This patent means that the process of stabilizing radioactive isotopes described therein absolutely works as certified by the US patent office. On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 4:32 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > wrote: > > >> BTW, I'm surprised you didn't mention the possibility of using LENR to >> remediate >> the waste. ;) >> > > There have been some reports of that, as I expect readers here know. But I > do not put much stock in them. > > - Jed > >
Re: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
wrote: > BTW, I'm surprised you didn't mention the possibility of using LENR to > remediate > the waste. ;) > There have been some reports of that, as I expect readers here know. But I do not put much stock in them. - Jed
Re: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
In this type of thorium breeder reactor, the thorium is just an minor additive to the fuel because most of the fuel is U238 as a proliferation protection mechanism (less than 5% fissile). A thorium reactor produces loads of plutonium 239 because of all that U238 in the fuel as required by nrc regulations. Also. neptunium-237, is a proliferation risk and is water soluble which makes it a very dangerous nuclear waste that thorium reactors cannot burn that can travel far and wide through the water table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptunium "Neptunium is fissionable, and could theoretically be used as fuel in a fast neutron reactor or a nuclear weapon, with a critical mass of around 60 kilograms.[71] In 1992, the U.S. Department of Energy declassified the statement that neptunium-237 "can be used for a nuclear explosive device".[140] It is not believed that an actual weapon has ever been constructed using neptunium. As of 2009, the world production of neptunium-237 by commercial power reactors was over 1000 critical masses a year, but to extract the isotope from irradiated fuel elements would be a major industrial undertaking.[141] In September 2002, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory briefly created the first known nuclear critical mass using neptunium in combination with shells of enriched uranium (uranium-235), discovering that the critical mass of a bare sphere of neptunium-237 "ranges from kilogram weights in the high fifties to low sixties,"[1] showing that it "is about as good a bomb material as [uranium-235]."[27] The United States Federal government made plans in March 2004 to move America's supply of separated neptunium to a nuclear-waste disposal site in Nevada.[141]" On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 6:43 PM, bobcook39...@hotmail.com < bobcook39...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I think fast breeders generally use a liquid metal as a coolant. That is > not nice to repair or refuel. It leaves a mess to cleanup in the end. > > > > A light water breeder like that in the last Shipping Port reactor is a > better bet that can be back-fitted into light pressurized water reactors. > It bread Th-232 to U-233 and was proven to work in the late 1960’s early > 70’s. > > > > Any fission reactor LEAVES A MESS for future generations, including the > fast breeders. And they have less intrinsic nuclear (physics) safety than > thermal light water reactors to avoid operating accidents. > > > > IMHO India and China do not have the managerial safety ethic to handle the > large fission reactor technology they are betting on. I hope they give up > and focus on LENR R&D. > > > > I would love to see their safety analyses for the new reactor. I bet it > has all sort of holes similar to the design assumptions the Japanese folks > found satisfactory for Fukushima. The first issue is siting it near a > large population—idiocy IMHO. An exclusion zone of 100 km would be > warranted to start with. > > > > Bob Cook > > > > > > . > > > > > -- > *From:* Adrian Ashfield > *Sent:* Saturday, December 16, 2017 1:43:08 PM > *To:* vortex-l@eskimo.com > *Subject:* [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor > > India about to step up its renewable energy game > https://www.rt.com/business/407709-india-russia-nuclear-reactor/ >
Re: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Mon, 18 Dec 2017 15:53:20 -0500: Hi, [snip] >material is left in it. In other words, breeder reactors may improve >tremendously hundreds of years from now. We already have the technology to do this. Accelerator based reactors would be able to burn up the Actinides, which are the major long lived radioisotopes. As previously mentioned, muon based fusion reactors creating fast neutrons might also be used. BTW, I'm surprised you didn't mention the possibility of using LENR to remediate the waste. ;) [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk local asymmetry = temporary success
Re: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
Nanoplasmonics can now be used to purify ever present U232 contamination from U233 so that U233 can be made pure. Extremely toxic U232 as a prodigious alpha emitter is touted as a full proof proliferation barrier since it destroys the chain reaction mechanism of U233 and will kill anyone truing to make a bomb. . When U 233 is pure, you can make a gun type bomb in your basement. Therefore, thorium breeders are extremely dangerous as a proliferation enabler. https://phys.org/news/2012-12-thorium-proliferation-nuclear-wonder-fuel.html *Thorium: Proliferation warnings on nuclear 'wonder-fuel'* *"*Alongside its abundance, one of thorium's most attractive features is its apparent resistance to nuclear proliferation, compared with uranium. This is because thorium-232, the most commonly found type of thorium, cannot sustain nuclear fission itself. Instead, it has to be broken down through several stages of radioactive decay. This is achieved by bombarding it with neutrons, so that it eventually decays into uranium-233, which can undergo fission. As a by-product, the process also produces the highly radiotoxic isotope uranium-232. Because of this, producing uranium-233 from thorium requires very careful handling, remote techniques and heavily-shielded containment chambers. That implies the use of facilities large enough to be monitored." On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > bobcook39...@hotmail.com wrote: > > >> Any fission reactor LEAVES A MESS for future generations, including the >> fast breeders. >> > > That is true. Yet despite this, and despite the terrible problems at > Fukushima, I still think nuclear reactors are better than fossil fuel > alternatives such as coal and natural gas. I still hope the reactor in > Georgia is completed. > > There is no doubt that fission reactors leave a mess for future > generations but it will probably be less of a mess than alternatives > because: > > The total mass of the mess is surprisingly small and it is concentrated in > a small, well-defined area, rather than being spewed out in the air and > over the landscape the way radioactive products from coal are. > > Nuclear power does not cause global warming. It is better to leave a pile > of radioactive garbage than global warming. > > Posterity may be upset with us but I think they will be able to deal with > the mess much better than we can. I hope they will have better technology. > > I am sure they will have robots far better than ours which are capable of > doing the physical work of moving, packaging or burying the nuclear waste. > > It is conceivable that nuclear theory may improve and they will find a way > to neutralize or "use up" the fuel to the extent that not much radioactive > material is left in it. In other words, breeder reactors may improve > tremendously hundreds of years from now. > > In the distant future, people may have something like an extremely > reliable space elevator. I mean an elevator that handles millions of tons > of freight and passengers and has not had an accident in over 100 years. > With something like that, they might package up the nuclear waste, put it > in orbit, and drop it into the sun or store it on the moon. This might call > for an extra "strand" (elevator path) dedicated to dangerous or radioactive > freight only. That would be a tremendous expense today, with a first > generation space elevator, but centuries from now it might be a trivial > expense equivalent to a few million dollars. > > I doubt there will ever be antigravity spacecraft and I do not think that > rockets will ever become reliable enough to carry radioactive waste from > earth to orbit, but we cannot rule out these possibilities. Rockets are > extremely unreliable today despite 70 years of intense development. But if > space elevators are not developed, perhaps rockets will become so reliable > they go for decades or centuries without an accident. From the 1920s to the > present day, airplanes went from being the most dangerous mode of > transportation to the safest per passenger mile, despite the inherent > danger of traveling close to the speed of sound 10 km above the ground. I > would not want to transport nuclear waste on airplanes -- or rockets, no > matter how safe they become. But perhaps some method of packaging the > material can be developed that would survive a crash, or falling from > orbit. We are talking about the distant future, in any case. > > I have read discussions about how we have to make sure people know that > nuclear waste is dangerous thousands or tens of thousands of years into the > future. I do not think this will be necessary. I expect that before > thousand years have passed people will deal with the waste that we have now > generated. A thousand years is not very long. There are many buildings, > infrastructure such as roads and irrigation lakes, and institutions such as > universities, and even a few Japanese companies that have continued for a > th
Re: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
bobcook39...@hotmail.com wrote: > Any fission reactor LEAVES A MESS for future generations, including the > fast breeders. > That is true. Yet despite this, and despite the terrible problems at Fukushima, I still think nuclear reactors are better than fossil fuel alternatives such as coal and natural gas. I still hope the reactor in Georgia is completed. There is no doubt that fission reactors leave a mess for future generations but it will probably be less of a mess than alternatives because: The total mass of the mess is surprisingly small and it is concentrated in a small, well-defined area, rather than being spewed out in the air and over the landscape the way radioactive products from coal are. Nuclear power does not cause global warming. It is better to leave a pile of radioactive garbage than global warming. Posterity may be upset with us but I think they will be able to deal with the mess much better than we can. I hope they will have better technology. I am sure they will have robots far better than ours which are capable of doing the physical work of moving, packaging or burying the nuclear waste. It is conceivable that nuclear theory may improve and they will find a way to neutralize or "use up" the fuel to the extent that not much radioactive material is left in it. In other words, breeder reactors may improve tremendously hundreds of years from now. In the distant future, people may have something like an extremely reliable space elevator. I mean an elevator that handles millions of tons of freight and passengers and has not had an accident in over 100 years. With something like that, they might package up the nuclear waste, put it in orbit, and drop it into the sun or store it on the moon. This might call for an extra "strand" (elevator path) dedicated to dangerous or radioactive freight only. That would be a tremendous expense today, with a first generation space elevator, but centuries from now it might be a trivial expense equivalent to a few million dollars. I doubt there will ever be antigravity spacecraft and I do not think that rockets will ever become reliable enough to carry radioactive waste from earth to orbit, but we cannot rule out these possibilities. Rockets are extremely unreliable today despite 70 years of intense development. But if space elevators are not developed, perhaps rockets will become so reliable they go for decades or centuries without an accident. From the 1920s to the present day, airplanes went from being the most dangerous mode of transportation to the safest per passenger mile, despite the inherent danger of traveling close to the speed of sound 10 km above the ground. I would not want to transport nuclear waste on airplanes -- or rockets, no matter how safe they become. But perhaps some method of packaging the material can be developed that would survive a crash, or falling from orbit. We are talking about the distant future, in any case. I have read discussions about how we have to make sure people know that nuclear waste is dangerous thousands or tens of thousands of years into the future. I do not think this will be necessary. I expect that before thousand years have passed people will deal with the waste that we have now generated. A thousand years is not very long. There are many buildings, infrastructure such as roads and irrigation lakes, and institutions such as universities, and even a few Japanese companies that have continued for a thousand years. They have detailed records of what they did circa 1000 AD. They know where their ancestors put things, and why they put them there. - Jed
RE: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor
I think fast breeders generally use a liquid metal as a coolant. That is not nice to repair or refuel. It leaves a mess to cleanup in the end. A light water breeder like that in the last Shipping Port reactor is a better bet that can be back-fitted into light pressurized water reactors. It bread Th-232 to U-233 and was proven to work in the late 1960’s early 70’s. Any fission reactor LEAVES A MESS for future generations, including the fast breeders. And they have less intrinsic nuclear (physics) safety than thermal light water reactors to avoid operating accidents. IMHO India and China do not have the managerial safety ethic to handle the large fission reactor technology they are betting on. I hope they give up and focus on LENR R&D. I would love to see their safety analyses for the new reactor. I bet it has all sort of holes similar to the design assumptions the Japanese folks found satisfactory for Fukushima. The first issue is siting it near a large population—idiocy IMHO. An exclusion zone of 100 km would be warranted to start with. Bob Cook . From: Adrian Ashfield Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2017 1:43:08 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]: Fast breeder thorium reactor India about to step up its renewable energy game https://www.rt.com/business/407709-india-russia-nuclear-reactor/
