Posted on 03/04/2019 1:26:10 PM PST by yesthatjallen
What if I told you that we have at least 10,000 years of power available to us at this very moment and we just aren’t using it. Instead it sits in fields aging away doing nothing.
I am not joking! What we call Nuclear Waste is really a lie. Here is it really is: Fuel or the building block of fuel. The legacy plants used in the US use Uranium 235 at around 3% enrichment as a fuel source. After the Uranium 235 fuel is consumed the rest is considered waste.
What is left of the 97% is 96% Uranium 238 and 1% Plutonium 239. Plutonium 239 is really just a form nuclear fuel that was created when Uranium 238 absorbed excess neutrons from the reactor operating.
We can design (these plants have existed in the past and still do today) and build a plant that uses this Plutonium as fuel. It can also use the excess neutrons from fission to generate more plutonium from the leftover Uranium 238.
The average fission yield is 2.88 neutrons per fission of Plutonium 239. A critical reactor will consume 1 of the 2.88 neutrons. The remaining can be used to convert Uranium 238 into Plutonium 239. This is the principle behind a breeder reactor.
Literally breeder reactors generate power at the same time they generate fuel for future use. The power plants can literally consume what is incorrectly referred to Nuclear Waste. It is literally fuel.
If we built a Breeder reactor at 40 year old power plant that is the same size as the existing legacy plant it would take 1300 years to consume the spent Nuclear fuel from the legacy plant.
All over the US we have inactive and decommissioned legacy plants with spent fuel sitting idly by that we could consume as well. The leftover Uranium 238 from enrichment is literally wasted in the form of ammunition for high caliber rounds.
Plutonium is used as the primary stage for our nuclear weapons program. We use Plutonium in an uncontrolled fission reaction with tritium to cause a fusion explosion.
Instead I propose that we use these weapons from all over the world to power the world in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. Imagine this:
Chairman Kim sits down with President Trump and President Moon to use his nuclear stockpile to create power for North Korea instead of fear of weapons. He has not only used his nuclear weapons program to get access to world leaders but...
...He literally could use his stockpile to power his nation for rest of his life and his great great great grandchildren’s lives. This could be the realization of the video Trump sent to Kim watch at 2:20 after reading this.
Breeder reactors.
Build them.
Now.........................
Follow the money. Preparing new fuel earns somebody a fee for the processing; storing the “spent” fuel earns someone a storage fee. IIUC, France reprocesses its spent fuel for reuse. If the worthless French can do it, why can’t we?
With the rate at which they’ll selling electric cars, I think they will eventually have NO CHOICE but to do this..
I sure wish Dr. Bill Wattenburg were still alive to chime in on this.
I feel certain he would confirm everything that guy wrote.
The Earth is ending in 12 years.
Thorium Molten Salt Reactors.
We have been blending old nuclear weapons into our power plants for decades.
I knew that reactors that ate nuclear waste were a thing that we weren’t doing because of the Democrats aversion to all things nuclear. I hadn’t thought about the North Korea angle, but yeah, if he could use what he has to provide his country with energy to power a brilliant future, that would certainly go a long way toward putting the past behind them.
If there is even a hint of this getting legs the screaming of “THREE MILE ISLAND” will be begin.
God will end the world very soon.
That’s the one I’ve heard of, the molten salt reactor.
Didn’t Hillary sell it all to the Russians?
As I recall, Jimmy Carter set this up, and was hugely applauded for it.
Because Jimmy Carter is an anti-American asshole, and every President since has been (at best) a wimp.
Jane Fonda ... The China Syndrome ... 3 mile island ... melted Greenies ... freaked out ultra-left environmental wackos ... raging Millennial fear ... lack of sufficient petting puppies and warm milk ...
How soon?
Be specific.
Breeder reactors are not new and have been around since the dawn of nuclear power. The problem is the technology to take spent nuke waste/bombs to make power can also be reversed to take spent nuke waste/bombs to produce HIGHLY ENRICHED fuel for BOMBS. This is why breeder reactors have been banned by every civilian nuke agency around the planet outside the original nuke countries. Once you understand and master the enrichment cycle process needed for breeder reactors, you are on the path to unlimited nuke resources to make bombs...lots of bombs. Yes, it’s much better for the environment because you don’t have tons of spent nuke fuel all over the country (Fukushima anyone?), but the trade off is nuke arms race all across the 3rd world.
Then go the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor route. These cannot be used to produce weapons grade Uranium and Plutonium.
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