Spent fuel storage solved?

Is this guy on the level?

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1108

If the lolution to the looming spent fuel storage problem is this simple, surely the politicians will never allow it.

I just want to get the the feedback of others who work in the nuclear field.

Chime in.

rmw

 

[electricpete]

It's an interesting proposition.

It definitely has a nice ring to it. Recyling rather than dumping. I wonder how much fissionable material is really left out there and whether/when we shouold begin to consider that a limited resource like we do with fossil fuel.

There is zero doubt that the recyling is technically possible. As mentioned in one of the responses, the US Navy has done it. I'm not sure if other countries have done it. One thing to note I suspect even though portions are recycled, I'm pretty sure there will still be some wastes created in the process.

I wonder about the economics. There was a number quoted mentioned somewhere around 10 billion to address spent fuel via reprocessing vs $50 billion to just bury it (oh yeah - make it safe for 10 thousand years or a million years or something ridiculous like that). I don't know the details but if the DOE can so royally hose up something sounding so simple (?!) as digging a hole to bury the waste in a secure manner (remember that billion dollar digger that got stuck in Yucca mountain... still in there?), then it would seem to me they would completely flounder with something which sounds to me quite a bit more complex... reprocessing.

I don't have the technical background to really judge. But I tend to believe big decisions often rest much more heavily on politics than technical merit. There was one of the responses that pointed out that none of the interest groups really has any incentive to push for reprocessing at this time... so even if it is a sound decision for our country, if there are no political gains to be made it's not going to happen.

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[nbucska]

The biggest danger of the nuclear technology is that
the decisions are in the hand of politicians who are
lawyers and not engineers.

This is the common source of most of the red tapes,
biggest waste of money and longest delay in technical/
scientific development.


<nbucska@pcperipherals DOT com> subj: eng-tips
read FAQ240-1032

 

[mauner]

I have worked at both Navy and commercial facilities. The unresolved spent fuel issue coupled with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl incidents has destroyed the nuclear industry.

President Carter (an ex-Navy Nuke) signed that law for a reason. About a 100 people died from acute radiation exposure at Chernobyl and countless more from long term exposure. Chernobyl was designed with the use of a graphite moderated core that was misoperated until it blew up. Our worst acident - Three mile Island may result in an increased death due to long term radiation exposure. US reactors are designed to use a light water moderator which provides inherient stability. A fast fission reator or breader reactor accident can destroy an entire region for hundreds of years. The worst case light water reactor accident - we have already had it.

The big obstacle for Yucca mountain is security. I think the number of trucks that are required to diliver spent fuel for what we already have stockpiled is one every minute for the next 10 years.

Who wants that many trucks coming into their neighborhood to unload and reprocess actinide fuel to be "burned" in a fast fuel reactor that could blow-up like a nuclear weapon! And don't forget that liquid sodium doesn't mix with air or water without a violent exothermic reaction.

Who can protect such a facility and where can it be built?

 

[rmw]

Mauner,

At the turn of the previous century three unrelated problems were perplexing the hand wringers.

First, it was a statistical realty that there was a boiler explosion for every day of the year. The hand wringers wanted to do away with steam power. It was deadly, after all.

An organization called ASME was formed and wrote standards that we all know are used until this day that have greatly minimized the problem of boiler explosions.

Second, the alarmists were worried that horses could not breed fast enough for every man, woman, and child could be assured adequate transportation.

Third, and closely associated with the second, the horses that did exist created quite a mess. Tons of horse manure, as well as dead animals on the street. NYC alone was hauling 25000 tons per day out to sea to be dumped there. The inland cities couldn't haul it out to sea.

The second and third problems were both solved by a young man who was tinkering in his garage about that time with a gadget we now know as the internal combustion gasoline engine. Horses are now sports and hobby items.

Point being that engineering solved, directly or indirectly, those burning issues of the day. Engineering can solve the problems that you mention, if the politicians get out of the way and let us do our work.

rmw

 

[electricpete]

"The big obstacle for Yucca mountain is security. I think the number of trucks that are required to diliver spent fuel for what we already have stockpiled is one every minute for the next 10 years."

So you're saying the number of truckloads of spent fuel 10*365*24*60=5,256,000?

Even if we had 200 reactors operating for 30 years each (6000 reactor years), that would be 5,256,000/6000 =876 truckloads of spent fuel per reactor per year.

Where did you get this ridiculous statistic?

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[mauner]

rmw,

If A fast fuel is comparable to pure alcohol and a thermal fuel is comparable to 80 proof gin. Which one, if thrown into a fireplace is more likely to burn the house down?Knowing that a mixture of alcohol and water will not burn if it contains less than 50% alcohol (less than 100 proof) it is not likely that a glass of gin could ever set the house on fire. There is a much greater probability that a fire could start in the house if a glass of pure alcohol is thrown into the fireplace.

My point is that I don't need an engineer to design a fire detection, sprinkler, and alarm system for my house if I only plan to throw a glass of gin into the fireplace. If you play with flammable liquids it is just a matter of time before you set the house on fire. The engineered systems may save the house but water and smoke damage will take some effort to clean up. The problem is that nuclear "smoke" damage can make a 10 mile region uninhabitable for hundreds of years.

electricpete,
Your right - It wasn't a truck every minute it was a truck every day for commercial spent fuel.

For commercial spent fuel: It would take approximately 1 truck every day for the next ten years to move 50,0000 tons of spent fuel from 72 sites in 33 different states across the country. This assumes a legal weight truck can hold about 27,000 lbs of spent fuel and not exceed the legal gross weight limit of 80,000 lbs.

Source for amount of spent fuel is

http://www.gao.gov/htext/d03426.html

If you want to count all radioactive shipments by truck it is one truck every hour based on a 99,700 shipments described in the excerpts below from:

http://www.earthmountainview.com/yucca/yucca.htm

"It is estimated that 99,700 trips by truck will be required from 72 of the nuclear power plants alone, with an additional 16,240 coming from the Hanford facility, and another 2,460 from Idaho National Engineering. Thousands of more trips would be required for the 57 additional sites."

 

[atomo]

Try looking up: ADS - Accelerator Driven System, it's beeing research now in Europe

 

[davefitz]

I may be going way out on a limb here, but I am still under the assumption that there is more to our efforts at solving the waste problem than is outlined in this thread.

 

[electricpete]

Go out on a limb. Please elaborate.

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[knji]

The French currently have numerous commericial fuel recycling operations. These guys recycle on a grand scale and even do so for countries like Japan who at this time generate ~60% of their electricity from Nuclear.

Bad politics is one of the items restricting the natural development of fuel recycling plants in the US, especially given that there were two in operation in the sometime ago. It just makes sense to re-use reactor fuel given that ~95% of the energy content is being dumped in the once-through cycle. Besides, recycling will allow our uranium supply to be infinite. If the concern is the exposure of plutonium during the recycling program, let us use pyrometallurgical processing techniques.

Adding to ADS, there is also ongoing research in the development of ALMRs which would use fast neutrons thus allowing most of the uranium and heavier atoms be consumed.

Talking about the comperative cost, why does government not add into the prices of electricity generated by fossil, all the greenhouse effects, acid rain, etc. That would sort of even the playing field or may even swing things in favour of nuclear, one would think.

 

[nbucska]

The progress during the last two centuries was 95 % due to
scientific and engineering efforts and 1% for legal work.
We shold invert the ratio of lawyers and scientists or engineers in the Congress.



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