Re: nuclear "waste" (was The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout)

On 11/06/2025 5:51 pm, David Brown wrote:

On 10/06/2025 20:27, Glen Walpert wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:32:16 +0200, David Brown wrote:
>

We all know that, I believe.  There are two ways to handle the waste -

bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the worst
of the waste.  (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced nuclear
reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)

>
The best possible use for the spent fuel from our first generation thermal
neutron reactors is to use it as fuel for "advanced" fast nuclear
reactors.
>
https://gain.inl.gov/resources/nuclear-technologies/fast-reactors/
>

 Yes, that's the reprocessing/recycling I mentioned.
 

While thermal neutron reactors can only extract about 2% of the available
energy in the fuel, fast reactors can extract approx 80% and once started
require no fuel enrichment (can be fueled entirely with U238 and/or
thorium) and are compatible with fuel reprocessing which removes lower
atomic weight neutron absorbing reactor poisons only, returning everything
else as usable fuel (method is incapable of producing weapon grade
material).
>
We let this technology languish for 50 years, but China and India have
taken up where we left off, and they have the industrial manufacturing
base and government support needed to pull it off.

 Indeed.
 We (the western world in particular, but the whole world in general) have prioritised making bomb-grade isotopes and cheap nuclear reactors over making them efficient, low-waste or as safe as they should be. (Though even with the accidents that have occurred, current nuclear reactors are very safe compared to coal power.)
 It's nice to see that some countries are trying to take a responsibility for the future.

A more realistic attitude is to recognise that nuclear reactors are expensive power generators, and anybody who builds them is doing it to get the fissile material to make atomic bombs. The U-233 from thorium reactors makes the same kind of bombs that you can make with U-235 and Pu-239, though thorium reactors don't make as much U-233 as uranium reactors make plutonium.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney