[Winona Online Democracy]
I couldn't help Googling nuclear waste and related info, after our discussion here. I came across the following proposal - the Roy Process - for getting rid of nuclear power plant waste. The excerpt I include below is part of a larger piece at:I find it interesting (mysterious) that the article trails off in mid-sentence, when talking about costs and the legacy for generations to come. This is linked to the web site of the Light Party, an eclectic group of some sort - I can't figure out if they are serious or totally tongue-in-cheek. Enjoy.Phil Carlson, Mpls-------------------------------------------Is there a safe process to get rid of nuclear waste? Maybe!
One possible solution is a process invented by Dr. Radha R. Roy, former professor of Physics at Arizona State University, and designer and former director of the nuclear physics research facilities at the University of Brussels in Belgium and at Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Roy is an intemationally known nuclear physicist, consultant, and the author of over 60 articles and several books. He is also a contributing author of many invited articles in a prestigious encyclopedia. He is cited in American Men and Women of Science, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World and the International Biographical Centre, England. He has spent 52 years in European and American universities researching and writing recognized books on nuclear physics. He has supervised many doctoral students.
Roy invented a process for transmuting radioactive nuclear isotopes to harmless, stable isotopes. This process is viable not only for nuclear waste from reactors but also for low-level radioactive waste products.
In 1979, Roy announced his transmutation process and received international attention. The Roy process does not require storage of radioactive materials. No new equipment is required. In fact, all of the equipment and the chemical separation processes needed are well known.
What is the basis for the Roy Process? If you examine radioactive elements such as strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 239, you will see that they all have too many neutrons. To put it very simply, the Roy process transmutes these unstable isotopes to stable ones by knocking out the extra neutrons. When a neutron is removed, the resulting isotope has a considerably shorter half-life which then decays to a stable form in a reasonable amount of time.
How do we knock out neutrons? By bombarding them with photons (produced as x-rays) in a high-powered electron linear accelerator. Before this process, the isotopes must be separated by a well-known chemical process.
It is feasible that portable units could be built and transported to hazardous sites for on-site transmutation of nuclear wastes and radioactive wastes.
To give an example, cesium 137 with a half-life of 30.17 years is transformed into cesium 136 with a half-life of 13 days. Plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,300 years is transformed into plutonium 237 with a half-life of 45.6 days. Subsequent radioactive elements which will be produced from the decay of plutonium 237 can be treated in the same way as above until the stable element is formed.
The Roy Process could be developed in three distinct phases, according to Roy. Phase I consists of a theoretical feasibility study of the process to obtain needed parameters for the construction of a prototype. Phase II will involve the construction of a prototype and supporting facilities for demonstrating the process. Phase III will consist of the construction of large scale commercial plants based on the data from Phase II.
Cost estimates for Phase I and II are in the neighborhood of $10 million. For Phase III, Roy estimates a cost of $70 million. Says Roy, "It will be interesting to do a cost analysis of eliminating nuclear waste by using my process and by burying itfor 240,000 years - ten half- lives of plutonium - under strict scientific control. There is also an ethical question: can we really burden the thousands of generations yet to come with problems which we have created? There is no god among human beings who can guarantee how the geological structure of waste burial regions will change even after ten
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