but in tshernobyl catastrophe be induced by idiots.

+1

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rOZZ
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All nuclear accidents so far were produced by human error (Windscale, Three Miles Island, Chernobyl). Fukushima was produced by a tsunami, with emergency Diesel generators flooded by incoming water. This points to operators' skill level but also to instrumentation not easily visible and understood.
Tullio

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... Fukushima was produced by a tsunami, with emergency Diesel generators flooded by incoming water...

Fukushima was an already reported known accident waiting to happen. The poor design was allowed to continue to operate for the sake of saving the expense of putting in place the needed safety/protection.

I'm sure there were various vague excuses due to the plant being near its end-of-life...

The human mind is hopeless at usefully comprehending risk!


All on our only one planet,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Controlled Nuclear Fusion

Very interesting read!

Never heard of the ITER project before...

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rOZZ
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Controlled Nuclear Fusion

Very interesting read!

Never heard of the ITER project before...

see nothing news or interesting except an "100 mWt from cold fussion" ?
i remember, all talks about "cold fussion" not be approved...?

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i remember, all talks about "cold fussion" not be approved...?

What do you mean? By whom?

Who could not approve of something like cold fusion when it hasn't been achieved yet?

In 2012 a grant of $5.5 million given by Sidney Kimmel to the University of Missouri was used to establish the Sidney Kimmel Institute for Nuclear Renaissance (SKINR). The grant is intended to support research into the interactions of hydrogen with palladium, nickel or platinum at extreme conditions.[14] In 2013 the United States Department of Energy included low energy nuclear reactions in a $10 million funding opportunity announcement.

There's still hope... Money is needed (as usual...)

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rOZZ
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I think that what he meant is that several claims of cold fusion have turned out to be bogus.

Lawrence Livermore was the source of some of this if I recall correctly. Very unfitting for a major Government supported Lab.

He probably should have used the word proved. The sentence makes more sense that way.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

+1

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rOZZ
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ITER is a Big Science project being built in France. It was to cost 6 billion euros, now it has cost 15 and will probably reach 25. It is about 10 years late and nobody venture to say when it will reach break even. I was a fan of nuclear fusion 30 years ago, I even wrote a chapter on it in an Encyclopedia of Physics, but is is becoming a mirage. We have a beautiful nuclear fusion reactor in the sky at a safe distance, the Sun.
Tullio

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I agree Tullio. Fusion would have to be contained somehow since it is millions of degrees hot. A magnetic field (Tokamak) has been used but fusion has occurred for only for microseconds. How to tap useful energy is a mystery to me. Maybe in many more lifetimes this will be possible--for now I would not be spending any major amounts of money on it. I would favor proceeding with getting breeder reactors to work to supply limitless fissionable material (i.e. Plutonium)

It would be sufficient to dismantle all nuclear warheads, using mostly plutonium, and mix the Pu with natural uranium in proven reactor types. I would say that there are about 80 tons of plutonium in nuclear warheads worldwide, and eight kilos are sufficient for a bomb.
Tullio

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I would favor proceeding with getting breeder reactors to work to supply limitless fissionable material (i.e. Plutonium)

The best untapped source of nuclear power is probably thorium. It occurs naturally, is far less dangerous, there's enough for thousands of years of reliance, etc.

Edit: Here's a good overview article. I like this:

What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.

I think we should be throwing money at this technology, rather than building more particle accelerators and oil pipelines. :^p

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I think we should be throwing money at this technology, rather than building more particle accelerators and oil pipelines. :^p

+100! we're just to dumb for it I guess

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rOZZ
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Thorium has been tested and abandoned in Italy because light water reactors using enriched uranium and heavy water reactors using natural uranium were easier to build and maintain. You need years just to test a new type of reactor and find its problems.
Tullio
Incidentally, Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia proposed to use a particle accelerator to ignite a thorium based reactor, what he called an energy amplifier. Not a bad idea, but very complex and costly to build.

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It would be sufficient to dismantle all nuclear warheads, using mostly plutonium, and mix the Pu with natural uranium in proven reactor types. I would say that there are about 80 tons of plutonium in nuclear warheads worldwide, and eight kilos are sufficient for a bomb.
Tullio

old reactor types, based on fission reactions, as you know, produce very large quantity of dangerous waste materials. that is very large problem today - recycling and store materials, especially work-off fuel from reactors. very dangerous and hard to store for ttens of thousands years in safe, hermetic place. in oceans already is lot of reactor compartments from russian nuclear submarines - too not very good gift of offspring. some of them is from sunken after avary submarines, but mostly - specially sunken reactor blocks.
that is biggest nuclear energetic problems. in largely because of that aspects all want to get usable thermobuclear reactions -that type of reactions leave almost nothing dangerous, when all is done...

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France, with 54 fission reactors operating, has chosen a site for spent fuel elements which still produce heat and are the main problem at Fukushima. A 800 meters pit will be bored in NE France and a 1 km horizontal tunnel will store the elements encased in glass. Only a country like Franca has a sufficiently authoritative gov to make such a decision In Italy, spent fuel elements from 4 nuclear reactors are still stored in pools of water near the spent reactors.
Tullio

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It seems there should be a way to take advantage of the heat that spent fuel material still generates if a heat exchanger that does not transmit any of the harmful radiation could be designed and built.

Forty five years ago, when I was still in college. power from fusion reactors was believed to be just around the corner and energy was going to be plentiful and cheap. Now, billions of research dollars later, we are still being told the same story and in most respects we are no closer to that goal than we were then. In anticipation of having fusion reactors online soon the USA abandoned all future construction of fission power plants. A good plan is in place for the storage of waste materials even though it does not satisfy everyone.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Bob,

I don't think that that is why the US has gone away from building Nuclear plants in the past 40 years. It was because of gross cost over runs that made them uneconomical. The Clinton plant in Illinois was to cost $400 Million. I believe it was finally finished for 4 Billion.

Delays in permits, environmental impact, rework due to unsupervised construction.

I had a friend who was an electrician who was doing welding at the plant. The X-rays of the welds were shown to be faked -all the same one--. Many of the welds were faulty and had to be re done.

I believe that with a tough-minded approach and still keeping dedication to absolute safety we could add another 200 reactors and actually reduce emissions and keep the cost of a kilowatt-hr under control.

We also had a plan to keep our nuclear waste in deep salt mines in Carlesbad New Mexico, encasing them in Glass and stainless steel tube.

We will get to this point at sometime in the future--I predict.

We also had a plan to keep our nuclear waste in deep salt mines in Carlesbad New Mexico, encasing them in Glass and stainless steel tube.

Things are not going well at Hanford regarding glassifing the waste.

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