Nuclear Fusion-Fission Hybrid Could Destroy Nuclear Waste

[Zachstar]

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/

AUSTIN, Texas — Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin have designed a new system that, when fully developed, would use fusion to eliminate most of the transuranic waste produced by nuclear power plants.

This is extremely good news and deserves every penny of money that can be thrown at it.

Now I doubt this will mean net positive energy. Its easy to produce a plasma and a boatload of neutrons in these vessels but not net energy. Even when you are burning the remains.

No I am not saying this will lead to thousands of new plants. But this will mean that Yucca mountain will be the only place that has to become a radioactive hellhole. The faster we can get rid of this crap the better!

[UnderseaLcpl]

This is extremely good news and deserves every penny of money that can be thrown at it.

You worry me when you say things like that:-?

I don't really understand why you don't think there will be any net positive energy though. If one of these can burn the waste from 10 to 15 light water reactors, as they claim, or even if it can only burn the waste from one, surely the additional nukes would provide a net gain?

[Onkel Neal]

radioactive hellhole

:har:

[Zachstar]

This is extremely good news and deserves every penny of money that can be thrown at it.
You worry me when you say things like that:-?

I don't really understand why you don't think there will be any net positive energy though. If one of these can burn the waste from 10 to 15 light water reactors, as they claim, or even if it can only burn the waste from one, surely the additional nukes would provide a net gain?

LWRs are pretty good at getting the "good stuff" the sludge I hear has not all that much energy potential. And the idea is to burn this slow so you roast everything and not get left with a bunch of short lived super radioactive crap contaminating everything. Even with the fusion helping it would take years to burn that much material.

[SandyCaesar]

Actually, waste-burning power plants aren't even an old idea. Look up the Integral Fast Reactor program from the 1980s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor

Closed-fuel system, high level of safety, proven record? I'd buy that. But apparently there are "proliferation" concerns, as it is technically a breeder reactor, and everybody knows that breeders are evil, nasty things whose sole purpose is to create weapons-grade.:nope:

[UnderseaLcpl]

Actually, waste-burning power plants aren't even an old idea. Look up the Integral Fast Reactor program from the 1980s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor

Closed-fuel system, high level of safety, proven record? I'd buy that. But apparently there are "proliferation" concerns, as it is technically a breeder reactor, and everybody knows that breeders are evil, nasty things whose sole purpose is to create weapons-grade.:nope:

You are correct in asserting that fast-breeders have a lot of potential. Zachstar will disagree, though.

[Zachstar]

I have no serious issue with breeders. But its one of the #1 talked about things in anti-nuc circles tho. I think we will see a fusion-fission hybrid long before we see too many of those.

[Onkel Neal]

Any progress on eliminating nuke waste efficiently is a good thing, it allows us to fully tap into nuclear energy tech.

[Zachstar]

Any progress on eliminating nuke waste efficiently is a good thing, it allows us to fully tap into nuclear energy tech.

Indeed tho the cost of fission reactors will never drop because the idiocy never ends.

I LOVE the modern designs. HIGHLY efficient and HIGHLY safe. But the cost is just too much. Modern heat solar kicks its ass nine ways to Sunday.

[SandyCaesar]

Any progress on eliminating nuke waste efficiently is a good thing, it allows us to fully tap into nuclear energy tech.
Indeed tho the cost of fission reactors will never drop because the idiocy never ends.

I LOVE the modern designs. HIGHLY efficient and HIGHLY safe. But the cost is just too much. Modern heat solar kicks its ass nine ways to Sunday.
Agreed, partially. I maintain that reactors, in principle, are better than solar plants, and are also cheaper in the cost-to-output sense (solar plants just don't produce enough bang for the buck, IMHO). The fission-fusion plant looks very intriguing in the long run, but you have to factor in R&D, while breeders are an existing technology, and so work better for the short term.

But you're very right about public opinion changing the cost equation. To the general public, breeders are suddenly very bad, while fusion and solar plants become sexy as all hell, even if you do have to wait a decade or so for them to become really competitive. Then, the associated costs change accordingly, and before you know it...What was it that Newton said? "I can predict the motion of the stars, but I cannot predict the madness of men," right? Ah, well.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Any progress on eliminating nuke waste efficiently is a good thing, it allows us to fully tap into nuclear energy tech.

Indeed, though, the cost of fission reactors will never drop because the idiocy never ends.

I LOVE the modern designs. HIGHLY efficient and HIGHLY safe. But the cost is just too much. Modern heat solar kicks its ass nine ways to Sunday.


A large part of that cost is due to the ridiculous amounts of insurance that nuclear plants are required to maintain, as well as a few federal regulations that mandate completely superfluous safety systems.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/450561/government_regulation_hinders_nuclear.html?cat=17

Fission plants need not be prohibitively expensive. What is needed is to overcome the public fear of nuclear power and the legislation that was drafted in response to such irrational fear. Let us do that, and let the market handle the rest. If nuclear power is cheap enough after such reforms, it will thrive, if not it will wither and die. I'm a fan of nuclear energy but I could care less either way. I just want to see the most effective energy policy implemented and only the market can do that. Most people are hesitant to pay for crap they do not need, or that is too expensive, or ineffective, or that threatens their safety.

We don't need an energy policy that is dictated by the needs of legislators for votes or lobby interests, we need an energy policy that is dictated by the needs of consumers, whose voice is represented by their dollars. In such an environment, I don't see any kind of modern solar technology being competitive in most markets.
I may be wrong about that, but the voices of over 300 million energy consumers will speak the truth. They should be the ones to decide which energy policy we need, and they should be directly represented by their choice of energy sources.

[Penelope_Grey]

Nuclear power does not deserve the bad rep it has IMO... especially not because of Chernobyl. A poor facility staffed by badly trained people.

[baggygreen]

Indeed penny, and one need only look to Japan to see that reactors are safe, even in one of the most earthquake-prone places in the world

[Platapus]

Nuclear power does not deserve the bad rep it has IMO... especially not because of Chernobyl. A poor facility staffed by badly trained people.

Or how about Three Mile Island - The worst Civilian Nuclear accident in the United States.

Number of Deaths - 0
Number of Injuries - 0

Amount of Radiation contamination from the accident - 1 miliREM
Background radiation that naturally occurs in the area - 125 MiliREM/Year

A chest X-Ray is 6 MiliREM by the way.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html

And this is our WORST accident?

Nuclear Energy can be dangerous but the risks can also be mitigated with current technologies and safeguards.

I always wondered if people got spun up over TMI because of that stupid movie?

[SUBMAN1]

Yep, and they should just remove Fission from the equation altogether. An accident resulted recently in the finding that simple radio waves can mitigate the fusion reaction from hitting the containment wall (who would have known? They have been trying to use magnetics for this for ages) and thus destroying its containment facility. Fusion doesn't have the waste of fission since its byproduct is helium so it is the future.

To further clarify - The fission fusion works because the fusion is not self sustaining - it requires the power from the fission side to maintain the fusion side and the fusion side then eats the waste from the fission side. Removing the fission from the loop fixes all problems. Until now, that was not possible.

-S

[SandyCaesar]

I think the idea behind using fission as part of the reaction was so that it could be available before all the engineering challenges of pure-fusion could be resolved. Nothing but fusion is a very nice idea, but unfortunately it won't be available for some time yet; until that time, it's U-235.