Nuclear power

[Niwantaw]

there is a slight upside in everyone having lots of nukes

everyone would know that if they set off a nuke then they would be nuked in return

However if someone found a way to defend against a nuclear weapon then we have a serious problem

country with nukes + can't get nuked back = one county that can eventually do what it likes.

which is not a good thing

['eylan na'viyä]

I think the technology that is used today is not a really good choice, better than other fossil fuels but not that much. I changed my opinion when i saw a documentation about powerplant inspectors in france. The companies make it impossible to let them do their job properly. it seems that capitalistic forces are a much greater risk than the technology itself hence surprisingly its going to get riskier in future.
But besides that nuklear != nuklear

i found another interesting concept on ted.com

@13:20
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bill_gates.html

btw: just forget one minute about the "achievments" of his former enterprise  

[Skxe Eywaftu]

I saw this topic, and no other place to put so...
I was thinking with all the toxic waste it produces, would it be harmful if we jettisoned it into space or planet (Mercury, Venus) or would it even cause damage to our sun if we launched it towards that.
thoughts?

[Coyote]

I saw this topic, and no other place to put so...
I was thinking with all the toxic waste it produces, would it be harmful if we jettisoned it into space or planet (Mercury, Venus) or would it even cause damage to our sun if we launched it towards that.
thoughts?

No, it would be vaporized before reaching the Sun and become just another billionth of a percent of background radiation already churned out by the Sun.

There are three problems with launching nuclear waste into space:
1: It is an expensive solution.
2: There is the possibility of a launch failure/explosion, a la Challenger.
3: The Chicken Little anti-Nuclear hysteria types would go into a mass freakout, and politicians would do as they demand to garner votes.

And it's a shame, too, because we need not have so much waste at all except for... it is against the law in the US to reprocess spent fuel. Thank India for that. In the 1970's India produced a crude nuclear weapon from nuclear waste, IIRC, and in response the US pushed a nuclear non-proliferation treaty that limited reprocessing of spent fuel. Which means all that potential second-stage energy has to just sit there. I think France reprocesses; they don't have anywhere near the waste problems because they recycle it.

So now we turn to these same politicians to come up with a clean, renewable energy act.  Watch out, they'll probably come up with some gem like outlawing composting or something equally senseless.

[El Jacko]

A big problem with Fission, other than the waste, is the fuel. Uranium-235 is a VERY rare element, and the stocks of that can be considered finite in the same way as fossil fuels (albeit slightly longer lasting).

Give it about 10 years and we'll have a good idea if Fusion power will work - CERN are currently in the process of building a Tokamak which (they hope) will yield more energy than is put in, at which point they will ressurect plans to build an even bigger one which should have a yield of around 20 times input energy. Give it about 25 years and I can see E-on firing up the first commercial Tokamak.

[Coyote]

That would rock. And if we have He-3 based reactors we'd finally have a commercially viable excuse to go to the Moon and stay there. The way things are going right now, only a commercially viable outpost will be tolerated. In an era of tight budgets, space programs are seen as luxuries.

[El Jacko]

And if we have He-3 based reactors

I'm presumin you mean He-3 as the waste product; achieving the pressure and heat to fuse Helium is beyond even a fusion bomb.

But yeah, fusion is pretty awesome. Tritium-fueled reactors even create their own fuel (spare neutrons are absorbed by the lithium plates inside the Tokamak, which then decays into Tritium and a few other bits n pieces). 'Tis a pity we're limited by our magnets though - being able to fuse pure, standard Hydrogen would be REALLY cool.

['eylan na'viyä]

The research that is done for fusion technology is also essential for anti-matter production and  propulsion so it would be a double win !!!

[El Jacko]

The research that is done for fusion technology is also essential for anti-matter production and  propulsion so it would be a double win !!!

We can already produce anti-matter, quite easily. Just not in a stable form or in significant quantities.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

I wouldn't exactly call it easy, can't really go to your local wal-mart and buy a mile-long particle accelerator.

We're pretty much stuck with extremely low qualities unless we can makes more accelerators and better ones. That or find a way to scoop naturally occurring anti-matter from the Van Allen belt.

[Coyote]

I thought there was a theoretic idea for a fusion reactor that used Helium-3 as fuel?

[Roiki]

I thought there was a theoretic idea for a fusion reactor that used Helium-3 as fuel?

There is, it's possible to replace tritium in deuterium-tritium fusion reaction with Helium-3. It's main advantages are the elimination of the radioactive tritium, thus removing making reactor waste only slightly radioactive. It's main disadvantage is it's much higher coulomb barrier, reguiring higher temperatures to generate fusion reactions.

The other problem is helium-3's rarity in Earth, it only appears in trace amounts and the amounts required for sustainable power generation cannot be done from terrestrial sources, in todays uses it's manufactured by decaying tritium(takes 12 years), irradiating lithium in a nuclear reactor or salvaging it from dismantled nuclear weapons.

Currently it's said to be the second generation fuel, and we're still working with the first one.

A big problem with Fission, other than the waste, is the fuel. Uranium-235 is a VERY rare element, and the stocks of that can be considered finite in the same way as fossil fuels (albeit slightly longer lasting).

Nuclear fuel isn't entirely U-235. The three main isotopes used in nuclear fuel are U-235, U-233(thorium fuel-cycle) and PU-239. Most fuels contain some of these, and U-238 which isn't fissionable material, but fertile, allowing it by neutron capture in the reactor to transmutate into PU-239, making it into a fissionable fuel for the reactor to use. Since U-238 is the main isotope of uranium, we're not running of nuclear fuel for a long time.

[Skxe Eywaftu]

It does suck how humanity always turns a new invention or source of energy, into a big ass weapon.
all it would've taken is one scientist to say "yer, umm if you turn this into a weapon....it wont work...and you die..."

anyways Irayo for responses

[Kerame Pxel Nume]

Nuclear fuel isn't entirely U-235. The three main isotopes used in nuclear fuel are U-235, U-233(thorium fuel-cycle) and PU-239. Most fuels contain some of these, and U-238 which isn't fissionable material, but fertile, allowing it by neutron capture in the reactor to transmutate into PU-239, making it into a fissionable fuel for the reactor to use. Since U-238 is the main isotope of uranium, we're not running of nuclear fuel for a long time.

However even that is very limited. Breeding of Pu-239 from U-238, or U-233 from Th-232 by neutron capture only works with slow/cold neutrons. The neutrons emitted by Pu-239 fission are very fast/hot, so you can't use a pure Pu-239 reactor for breeding. You always need some U-235 as exotherm source of slow neutrons. You also can't moderate neutrons down the breeding temperature, because then they'd be too slow for fission of Pu-239.

So your typical breeding reactor looks like this: A Pu-239 core for warm neutron fission, a U-235 mantle, heavy water moderator and a breeding shell with U-238 or Th-232.

[Hufwe ta'em]

nuclear power could be a very good energy source but the problem is how to dispose the wasted battery.
only solution we have is to keep it in bunker.

[El Jacko]

I thought there was a theoretic idea for a fusion reactor that used Helium-3 as fuel?

Helium-3 COULD be used as a fuel, but the most efficient in terms of energy output is the current H-2 + H-3 => He + n, as this has the highest change in binding energy of just about any reaction other than the one that powers stars. He-3 has a binding energy on a par with H-3, so fusing 2 of these together won't actually yield as much energy.

nuclear power could be a very good energy source but the problem is how to dispose the wasted battery.
only solution we have is to keep it in bunker.

Well, thats only a problem with Fission. The only radioactive waste from Fusion is the reactor itself, which will be very neutron-rich and therefore a powerful beta emitter.

[Technowraith]

Fusion is a power source that is still being chased and developed. Turns out Fusion generates the same amount or more power than Fission. And it generates less waste. This technology is very limited in the fact that the conditions to replicate ideal Fusion are not easily reproduced, either due to safety reasons, power requirements, or a state of matter that can't be replicated on earth. But furthering developments in Fusion technology are making Fusion a more viable consideration.

Though it isn't nuclear, hydrogen fuel cells are becoming a common technology, but to scale the technology to support the output of a typical nuclear power plant may prove impossible.

[guest6785]

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that has 3 protons. It is used in glowing watch dials.

I am going to start a Nuclear fission/fusion thread and move this conversation there...

so you could say that my watch is a nuclear bomb/device?

[bommel]

so you could say that my watch is a nuclear bomb/device?
[/quote]
No. You are exposed to radiatione every day (ever heard of C14 dating?) and most of it is rather harmless. For building a bomb you need certain types of radioactive materials, usually nothing you would find in your watch xD

[guest6785]

when you mentioned 'mostly harmless',what is the harm*full*?