One of the knocks on using nuclear energy in place of fossil fuel ...
hold-on, this may come as a big shock is ...
ta da ...the long-lived and toxic radwaste !!
Duh. Even more overly-simplistic and inane is that the geniuses in DoE
think that radwaste is so unspeakably toxic that it needs to be stored
securely underground in the wilds of Nevada for several gazillion years,
blah, blah, blah... This is not logic, it is logical-yucca-run-amucca.
What they are really doing is simple: catering to the well-disguised
whims and greed of their real bosses at GE and the other members of the
U-Cartel, who all want to make more new fuel [and more $$] instead of
reusing what we have already burned. Radwaste still has 95% of the
original energy content left in there, friends.
BUT... thinking outside the box, there is an alternative. We can bypass
the bureaucrats and try to find-out if radwaste can instead be put to
better use making by more energy. Even in modest amounts, some energy
being produced for that extended amount of time is worth a great deal of
effort and R&D investment,no?
But how?
Well - the problems experienced in an another pet project brings the
following concept to mind. Why not use the radwaste, in a closed
recirculating system (so that nothing escapes) along with oxygen
[extracted from the air and reused] to simply "make ozone" by ionization
and by passing the oxygen through the radwaste over-and-over-and-over?
[a gazillion years is a long time]
Best I can tell, the reaction of of two ozone molecules, made for free
(except for pumping costs) by the radwaste, when oxygen is passed
through it - and subsequently when they revert to three O2, releases
2.99 eV of mass/energy - about 1 eV per molecule of O2.
Hey, sports fans -- that is actually FAR more energy per molecule than
burning gasoline in air (since you have all that nitrogen which doesn't
contribute). What am I missing here? [other than greed]
Why not at least try it on a small scale before writing it off as one
more crank suggestion ???
For every mole of ozone, 48 grams, this gives about 25 watt-hours of
energy, but that is heat. An inline, no-friction Stirling engine,
capable of 3 KwH continuous would require about 2 kilograms of ozone per
hour if the energy was converted from thermal to torque at 25 % Carnot.
I do not have a clue how much radwaste would be required to make a
kilogram of ozone per hour, but even if it is a ton or more - isn't this
preferable to long-term storage?
Wonder how much ozone all of those millions of tons of radwaste could
manufacture, if we set our minds to using it productively, instead of
burying it in someone else's back yard?
Not that Nevada doesn't deserve the insult!
[not because of the immorality of gambling and prostitution - but
because of endless reruns of CSI ;-)
Jones
BTW - an auto going 60 miles per hour and burning two gallons per hour
uses about 100 kilograms of air per hour, since air is mostly nitrogen.
Anyway the point is this - the oxygen content of the air used in any
gasoline ICE is adequate to power the vehicle with no gasoline if half
of it can be converted into ozone (overlooking for a moment that little
problem).
Meaning almost nothing ! under normal circumstances - since ionizing O2
to ozone requires too much energy when it is derived from electricity,
that the possibility is a no-win situation.
However... there is that little problem that DoE has caused for itself
which can possibly be solved by this expedient.
If not here, then maybe by some country (India, China, Russia) with
"more sense than cents" ...
