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Scientific American Article on Used Fuel Technologies

The December issue of Scientific American includes an article on smarter use of nuclear waste (subscription required for full article) that provides a comprehensive summary of advanced used fuel treatment technologies.

Here's a glimpse at the overview of fuel recycling that the article provides:
• To minimize global warming, humanity may need to generate much of its future energy using nuclear power technology, which itself releases essentially no carbon dioxide.
• Should many more of today’s thermal (or slow-neutron) nuclear power plants be built, however, the world’s reserves of low-cost uranium ore will be tapped out within several decades. In addition, large quantities of highly radioactive waste produced just in the U.S. will have to be stored for at least 10,000 years—much more than can be accommodated by the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Worse, most of the energy that could be extracted from the original uranium ore would be socked away in that waste.
• The utilization of a new, much more efficient nuclear fuel cycle—one based on fast-neutron reactors and the recycling of spent fuel by pyrometallurgical processing—would allow vastly more of the energy in the earth’s readily available uranium ore to be used to produce electricity. Such a cycle would greatly reduce the creation of long-lived reactor waste and could support nuclear power generation indefinitely.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
What I always point out to the conservation-only advocates is that for conservation to work, you need an energy source to conserve. As power plants age, those sources are going away. Because of the wear-out factor alone, at some point you need to bring new sources in. It has been proven (in real-life, with the California electricity shortage of the past, the potential shortfall now facing the Northeast) that "renewables" alone can't carry the load. So what do you want those replacement sources to be, GHG-emitting (coal, oil, natural gas), or emissions-free (nuclear)?
Anonymous said…
Sorry. The previous comment was intended for another thread.
Anonymous said…
Apparently both are...
Paul, NIRS
Anonymous said…
... more to the SA article:

interesting, will have to pick up a copy... particularly with most recent news of Zimbabwe's recently discovered uranium deposits and President Robert Mugabe's announcement that Zimbabwe intends to pursue becoming a nuclear power.

Imagine a enough enriched uranium and plutonium worldwide to fuel an African nuclear weapons race as well as North Korea and Japan, Iran and Israel, Pakistan and India, on and on in horizontal as well as vertical nuclear weapons proliferation until somebody decides to use them...

It seems pitifully stupid,
Paul, NIRS
Brian Mays said…
The scenario above is not very difficult to imagine. In fact, there already exists enough highly enriched uranium and plutonium to fuel a nuclear weapons race (and in fact it already has fueled such a race between the US and the former USSR).

That is why this material should be converted into fuel and disposed of in reactors to generate electricity. Fortunately, there are programs underway to do just that.
Anonymous said…
Brian,

As long as we are enriching uranium and processing nuclear waste the pathway for open the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

My point being that the more possessors and greater number of weapons makes their use increasingly likely by accident or deliberately. Nuclear weapons proliferation and an increasing risks of nuclear war will always be the devil's bargin with nuclear power.

Paul, NIRS
Rod Adams said…
Paul:

Just as a thought exercise, consider the following - nuclear weapons have been used exactly twice in warfighting. At the time that they were used, the number of nations possessing the weapon was precisely one and the number of available weapons was two (after the initial test was complete), both of which were used.

Ever since then, the number of nations possessing the technology has increased and the number of weapons has expanded to number in the tens of thousands. None of those have been used.

Not that I advocate further weapons developments, but it appears that reality does not agree with your assertion.
Anonymous said…
Reality can change quickly both by accident and deliberately.

Neither you nor I know how close we have come to nuclear war or how many times. I am old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis.

Paul, NIRS
Anonymous said…
"Nuclear waste, despite the ignorant half-truths and inventions of those who fear it, and despite the fact that we would rather not have it, is one of the best reasons for developing nuclear power relative to any other major reliable source of energy other than hydro. When you add its minimal pollution contributions; its much better safety record than any large energy source; and its improving cost advantages at this time, there should be no contest, yet the emotionally slanted nuclear mythologies keep rearing their heads." John K. Sutherland, Chief Scientist, Edutech Enterprises

The good Doctor summarizes the situation of "Nuclear Power And Politics" in an article that may be obtained at web page:

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=360

The interested reader may also want to study Dr. Sutherland's other articles on this issue:

Nuclear Waste Perspectives Part 1
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=589

Nuclear Waste Perspectives Part 2
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=724

Nuclear Cycles and Nuclear Resources
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=374

Nuclear Power Comparisons and Perspective
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=498

Reprocessing has the capability to significantly reduce the amount of long-lived actinides in spent fuel by consuming them in either Integral Fast Reactors or Carlo Rubbia Energy Amplifiers. Instead of requiring storage in a geological repository for tens of thousands of years, only 300 to 600 years would be required. See web links below:

INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99xx7.htm

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html

CARLO RUBBIA ENERGY AMPLIFIER

http://doc.cern.ch//archive/electronic/other/generic/public/cer-0210391.pdf

As far as weapons proliferation concerns go, the US ban on reprocessing has NOT prevent India, Pakistan, North Korea or Israel from obtaining their own weapons, with Iran now playing catch-up. In fact, one could argue that the more plutonium that is consumed in reactors for pollution-free electrical generation, the less is availble for weapons proliferation.

WISE - NIRS are wrong again.

Regards,

Paul Primavera
Anonymous said…
Jim,
Why heist nuclear waste when you can hoist into the atmosphere of an enemy country.

This is precisely the concern of the National Acadamy of Sciences April 2005 report "Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage" and their analysis that current storage is vulnerable to attack.

Proliferation should be seen not only in the context of making more weapons grade material available globally but also in predeployed weapons of mass destruction, namely, reactor cores, spent fuel pools and unprotected spent fuel storage casks.

Paul, NIRS
Brian Mays said…
So, we've gone from a "nuclear weapons race" in Africa to the possibility of a terrorist attack. Why is it, when the debate over nuclear safety and proliferation becomes really heated, the bogeyman of terrorism always rears his ugly head as the fallback option?

We can quibble about the details of security until we're blue in the face, but the truth of the matter is that, from a terrorist's point of view, nuclear power plants are a hard target. If the goal is to cause death, destruction, and mayhem, there are far easier targets, which are readily available to a terrorist, than a nuclear power plant.

Using the same logic that has been applied here to chastise nuclear power, there should be a huge outcry to put an end to a technology that routinely dumps carcinogenic substances high into the atmosphere and exposes millions of people to excessively high levels of radiation each day as part of normal operation, that kills hundreds of people each year through accidents, and that already has been used as the weapon of choice by terrorists to kill almost 3,000 people. Yet, organizations that tout "public safety" as their primary goal do not call for the end of commercial passenger aviation. Why is that?
Anonymous said…
Brian and Jim,

Try as you may, you are not going to successfully trivialize the security threat from commercial nuclear power stations and the current vulnerability of the "civilian" nuclear waste stream to attack and its clandestine or open transfer into nuclear weapons production.

As far as "unrealistic radionuclide release fractions..."

Don't forget that both the NRC in a NUREG dated January 2001 (pre 9-11) and the NAS study April 2005 (post 9-11) analyzed the Zircoloy fuel fire from a drain down of a Mark I BWR fuel pool. Doesn't disturb you in the slightest that Chicago has 6 of these infernal elevated storage ponds with thousands of tons of HLRW perched atop the reactor building under sheet metal roofs?

Only the blind or the biased could disregard or trivialize the consequences.

Onward into the fog, gentlemen,

Paul, NIRS
Brian Mays said…
Paul,

By "trivialize," I assume that you mean that we provide additional information and place it in its proper context, since that is exactly what we have done. If you have issues with the information being provided, then please focus your rebuttal on the information itself.

If we do not provide such clarifications and additional information, then all that is left are rather short, vague assertions, given by you and others like you, which are presented out of context with the sole intention of causing fear in those who are not familiar with the issues being discussed. (Did someone mention fog?) The blatant hyperbole that fills your comments posted here speaks for itself. I leave it to the readers of this BLOG to draw their own conclusions.

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