Thanks Vince Ferrer.
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Posted on 04/25/2016 10:02:42 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
That will also help to keep the seas from rising and inundating the world's coastal regions due to Global Warming.
/sarc
With all the radioactive waste flowing into the environment on a daily basis from Fukushima, I hope someone in nuke power is at least toying with the idea of removing a tiny part of the nuke industry pollution from the ocean.
I wonder what kind of energy potential the element Thorium has in the long run?
Great post!
I specified Generation 4 reactors. Look them up.
Even worse is the fact that ex Soviets who were around for Chernobyl are astounded by the fact that Japan has declared contaminated regions around Fukushima “safe” when in the old Soviet regime, those levels of radiation were deemed unlivable. Japan, the Soviet Union....they could not afford the cost of relocating entire regions and they didn’t have the land to do it so they declared contaminated areas “safe.”
In Japan that means the Government won’t compensate those whose homes and livelihood they have destroyed. Those wishing to leave contaminated regions must do so by leaving everything behind except the contaminated clothes on their backs and whatever health impacts they may have incurred.
Mercury is also used to capture gold from riverbeds.
Had me a ‘66 Chevelle with a 396/375 beefed up to 400 hp, big Holly double pumper, Muncie Rock Crusher 4 speed, 456 rear gears, big 50’s on the rear and glass packs.
Yeah, I understand.
Prius sucks donkey phallus.
“The rest of the world simply reprocesses nuclear materials “
As I recall our gigantic breeder reactor was stopped because it might kill some tiny fish. (Snail darter?) Of course, that was just an excuse. The suit winners bragged that if the smelt or darter or whatever approach failed they had a half dozen other “endangered” species to sue for.
The problem with all of our Congressionally approved large projects is that Congress makes them HUGE! They do that not because the project requires size to succeed; they do that because the bigger it is the more money they can send to supporters.
Take the average nuclear reactor. To get approval it requires gigantic size. Now shift gears, pull up your view to the upper atmosphere. The Earth is spread blue an azure below you. Now drift over to the Pacific where a storm has destroyed some Island’s power supply. The Navy rushes over a nuclear submarine or ship, connects a few cables and powers the Island. Now, drift into that sub or carrier and examine the nuclear reactor. It and all the support structure are relatively tiny when compared to the Congressionally approved land version. Why? Money. Graft. Payola.
Oh it would work, but the sewers might back up...
Sad really since Jimmy had some background in nuclear power as a bubblehead.
If gold can be extracted from the ocean economically, the supply will be unlimited and the value will diminish accordingly. Uranium at $500/kg is about $15 per ounce. Artificial controls, such as those on diamonds, would be needed to keep the price high.
The reactor on a sub runs on pure U-235. That’s both much more expensive and much more dangerous than unenriched or mildly enriched uranium a civilian nuclear plant burns.
“Can analogous techniques be used to get thorium from the water?”
Yes it can. The use of biological materials to adsorb materials is called Biosorption and I worked on this process as a new hire at a Corporate Research lab >30 years ago. I was testing the ability of bacteria, chitin and other bio-materials to remove U238 from seawater. It was very effective and very rapid. The literature at the time indicated that the process worked best with higher Atomic weight elements, including thorium. I predict the researchers will run into the same problems I did. The absorption is not very specific, the material doesn’t just bind Uranium, but a wide variety of other elements reducing the effectiveness of the absorbent. They will also find that putting the absorbent into non-sterile water will result in rapid bio-fouling of the membrane that will destroy its effectiveness.
FUKUSHIMA
just dont let GE participate
Thanks Vince Ferrer.
Solvable most likely by the West. And would require scientific and moral “standards” in it’s development, therefore automatically to be rejected by the left.
Forget it. Won’t happen.
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