The future of nuclear power

[Eddie Dane]

With fossil fuels depleting and alternative energy projects mostly insufficient (I'll probably start a thread about that later) it looks like the way forward is nuclear.

I suspect that the upcoming economies will not have the fears that live among the Western populations. Also China has autocratic leadership that can make long term plans and make large scale nuclear project much easier to implement.
In Western democracies, decisions are often reversed when power changes hands.

What direction will nuclear technology likely take? And who is in the best position to implement it?

How fast can we wean ourselves of the fossil crap that is poisoning our environment and puts billions in the pockets of religious nutbars?

I don't have a science background, so not-too-technical link are appreciated.

 

[DC]

In Switzerland we plan our future on nuclear power.
Only problem is waste treatment. no solution yet for it.

http://www.foratom.org/e-bulletin-t...proves-sites-to-build-new-nuclear-plants.html

 

[Bishadi]

In Switzerland we plan our future on nuclear power.
Only problem is waste treatment. no solution yet for it.

http://www.foratom.org/e-bulletin-t...proves-sites-to-build-new-nuclear-plants.html

Try Irony;

Nuclear energy uses fission (splitting of atoms) to heat. water to turn steam turbines. The physics suggests the 'hot' is real fast particles.

Then after heating the water, there is a 'waste' of hot matter, with real fast particles emitting for 1000's of years and the community dont know what do do with it.


funny dood.


How about convert the real fast particles to energy; maybe into utter hot stuff and heeat up cold stuff.

Maybe create a big glove to catch the real fast particles to load a spring, then put the spring up to a wheel?



i r do it............. hot mass, with half life/energy release for thousands of years; is a gold mine to a thinking person. ie.... what mass will convert the exposure? (one structure at a time). The sun does it.

try a reality;

Heating water with fission is like washing a car window with niagra falls.

just stupid!

 

[Fnord]

DC beat me to it. There's no real, effective and permanent solution for the accumulation of nuclear waste. While it is the responsibility of the government to dispose of the waste, there are sites where reactors have been shut down, decommissioned and dismantled, only to have the sites themselves become repositories of their own waste products; maintained at the expense of the taxpayers.

 

[Crossbow]

With fossil fuels depleting and alternative energy projects mostly insufficient (I'll probably start a thread about that later) it looks like the way forward is nuclear.

I suspect that the upcoming economies will not have the fears that live among the Western populations. Also China has autocratic leadership that can make long term plans and make large scale nuclear project much easier to implement.
In Western democracies, decisions are often reversed when power changes hands.

What direction will nuclear technology likely take? And who is in the best position to implement it?

How fast can we wean ourselves of the fossil crap that is poisoning our environment and puts billions in the pockets of religious nutbars?

I don't have a science background, so not-too-technical link are appreciated.

Nuclear power has a great deal of promise, but as yet there is no good solution for dealing with the nuclear waste; and some of the waste will be very, very, very toxic for tens of thousands of years. Therefore, until some way can be found to deal with the nuclear waste products, then I do not expect nuclear power to become all that significant.

 

[Cainkane1]

In Switzerland we plan our future on nuclear power.
Only problem is waste treatment. no solution yet for it.

http://www.foratom.org/e-bulletin-t...proves-sites-to-build-new-nuclear-plants.html

This is what worries me. Where is all the waste going to go?

 

[Dinwar]

We have several uninhabitable planets floating around. Why not drop the deposits into them? I know it'd be more expensive than a mountain, but by how much?

Also, is there any use (or possible use) for the byproducts? If we can use them somehow, we won't need to story them/dispose of them--we can sell them. I know of several factories that did this with toxic byproducts. I know nuclear is different, but the concept is still at least in theory applicable.

 

[Fnord]

We have several uninhabitable planets floating around. Why not drop the deposits into them? I know it'd be more expensive than a mountain, but by how much?

$1,300,000,000 per Shuttle mission (average)^WL, and that's just to go into Earth orbit.

Also, is there any use (or possible use) for the byproducts?

Nothing so far, unless you want to poison your enemy's environment for the next 10,000 years.

 

[Wowbagger]

How about convert the real fast particles to energy; maybe into utter hot stuff and heeat up cold stuff.

There are LOTS of ways to heat water. The problem is efficeny. Doing it with nuclear fission gives us the most useable power for the buck, at the moment.

Though, there are trade offs: How to handle the waste (it can't be reused effectively because the concentration of fissable material is not high enough to sustain a chain reaction, anymore), and the high up-front costs of building a plant, etc. But, even taking that into consideration, it remains a viable option, because.... it is sooo gosh-darn efficient!

 

[Dinwar]

$1,300,000,000 per Shuttle mission (average)WL, and that's just to go into Earth orbit.

This isn't really applicable, though. Shuttles are intended to be used by humans, and therefore have all sorts of extrenuous equipment, maintanence, etc. With nuclear fuel, we can calculate the trajectory, fire, and (more or less) forget. We don't need to worry about water recycling, or air, or a return trip.

I'm not saying it's economically viable right now--I'm just saying that comparisons with the shuttle aren't entirely valid, because adding humans to the equation necessarily adds a whole host of new issues that the waste-rockets simply wouldn't have to deal with.

Nothing so far, unless you want to poison your enemy's environment for the next 10,000 years.

Always an option. But it seems that this is a line of research worth persuing, and one I haven't heard much about. I'm not even sure what the standard byproducts are, to be honest--I know (well, can easily find out) the byproducts of uranium or plutonium decay, but that obviously doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[Dave Rogers]

With nuclear fuel, we can calculate the trajectory, fire, and (more or less) forget. We don't need to worry about water recycling, or air, or a return trip.

We do need to worry, on the other hand, about any kind of launch vehicle failure on takeoff. We need to worry about that a lot.

Dave

 

[Dinwar]

True. I didn't mean to imply that we could use ricketty rockets and cheap materials. I'm merely saying that we can save money because we won't need to include any life-support systems or the like.

 

[Fnord]

... I'm not saying it's economically viable right now--I'm just saying that comparisons with the shuttle aren't entirely valid, because adding humans to the equation necessarily adds a whole host of new issues that the waste-rockets simply wouldn't have to deal with...

Unfortunately, the only comparison I can make is to the Shuttle program. A more thorough analysis could best be performed by a real rocket scientist.

 

[Dave Rogers]

True. I didn't mean to imply that we could use ricketty rockets and cheap materials.

Quite. In fact, we need to use something orders of magnitude safer and more reliable than any current launch technology, because the results of a single launch failure, ever, could be so catastrophic. Would you want to be the manager who signs off on a system that requires that level of safety? I wouldn't.

Dave

 

[Vic Vega]

We have several uninhabitable planets floating around. Why not drop the deposits into them? I know it'd be more expensive than a mountain, but by how much?

What happens when there is an accident with a rocket carrying nuclear waste and it explodes before it gets out of our atmosphere?

 

[Dinwar]

Yeah, I knew that was an issue when I presented the option. However, like "What can we use the waste for?" I presented it more as a line of potential discussion than as a fail-safe conclusion. We've identified a specific risk. How can we mitigate it? How can we fix it?

What would it take to make the launches safe enough for this to be viable? And "Massive technical advances" doesn't really cut it (we've established the need for those; I'm asking what those are).

 

[Bishadi]

There are LOTS of ways to heat water. The problem is efficeny.

i know. Fission releases a whole range of em and 'heat' is just a small portion of the em spectrum when it comes to 'water'. I believe their is a single wavelength 2.45GHz that a microwave uses and heats water better than fission, per joule used of course.

Doing it with nuclear fission gives us the most useable power for the buck, at the moment.

that was what people thought of horse, at one time. Them steam engines and now 'steam' is what all them 1000'2 of years worth of waste is for.

If all that mass is life threatening just to heat water, i think your efficiency measure is a weee bit whacked.

Though, there are trade offs: How to handle the waste (it can't be reused effectively because the concentration of fissable material is not high enough to sustain a chain reaction, anymore),

That is what cracked me up on your post. Heat from the physicists point of view is just fast particles, why the heck cant the idiots make a better glove, versus trying to heat water?

ie..... heat is the product of morons. tO HEAT WATER is but a small range within the spectrum of em.

 

[Bishadi]

Yeah, I knew that was an issue when I presented the option. However, like "What can we use the waste for?" I presented it more as a line of potential discussion than as a fail-safe conclusion. We've identified a specific risk. How can we mitigate it? How can we fix it?

What would it take to make the launches safe enough for this to be viable?

how about; your idea was foolish and the waste of time dealing with it should be launched.

How about asking a physicist to address how to capture all the kinetic energy and convert it, from the waste?

 

[Vic Vega]

What would it take to make the launches safe enough for this to be viable?

I'd be interested in hearing ideas. I don't think it's possible.

 

[DC]

I thought to have read that NASA looked into shooting nuclear waste into space i thought into the sun, but the risk for a start failure were to big when i remember correctly.