Managing Nuclear Waste thru Transmutation and More . . .

Neutron Captures... Wikipedia

A first-of-a-kind reactor system has been set up in Belgium by coupling a subcritical assembly with a particle accelerator. The work is a major step in a program to research advanced waste management.

The equipment, known as Guinevere, is a demonstration model that supports the project for a larger version that will be called Myrrha (Multipurpose Hybrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications). It was assembled by France's National Centre for Scientific Research and is managed by the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK-CEN) at Mol, about 50 kilometres east of Antwerp. The overall project is supported by 12 other European laboratories and the European Commission.

Nuclear terminology classifies an item of equipment as in a critical state if the chain fission reaction is self-sustaining and each reaction leads on average to one more. The term supercritical means the number of fissions is increasing, while subcritical means it is decreasing and will therefore dwindle to nothing. _World Nuclear News

Symmetry Magazine: Myrrha Reference Scheme
Dangerous radioactive isotopes with long half-lives can be transmuted to elements with much shorter half-lives, using spallation neutrons. Spallation neutrons are generated when a beam of protons is accelerated into a spallation target. Neutrons, lacking a charge, do not have to overcome the "coulomb barrier", and can be much more readily incorporated into atomic nuclei to transmute one isotope into another.

It should be noted that the initial neutron source will be Deuterium - Tritium collisions. As the project builds steam, it will incorporate the proton beam - spallation target approach to generating neutrons.

Myrrha will be able to produce radioisotopes and doped silicon, but its research functions would be particularly well suited to investigating transmutation. This is when certain radioactive isotopes with long half lives are made to 'catch' a neutron and thereby change into a different isotope that will decay more quickly to a stable form with no radioactivity. If achievable on an industrial scale, transmutation could greatly simplify the permanent geologic disposal of radioactive waste. Myrrha can also be used to test the feasibility of lead fast reactor technology and is seen as complimentary to the Jules Horowitz Reactor, a thermal spectrum reactor under construction in Cadarache, France.

The total cost of Myrrha has been put at €960 million ($1.2 billion), with 40% of this coming from the Belgian government. SCK-CEN is looking to set up an international consortium to ensure additional financing and has completed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Academy of Sciences focusing on Myrrha. _World Nuclear News

DLR BLogs: Myrrha CutawayMore details on Myrrha from Science Insider

Several kinds of nuclear fuel cycles are implemented today: most countries chose the so-called once-through cycle which basically considers spent nuclear fuel as waste, whereas others like France, UK, Japan and soon China reprocess their spent fuel to recover the energetically-valuable material Pu (and partially U) to produce Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) to be irradiated in a second cycle (a twice-through cycle). None of them allow a complete use of the natural resource; when discharged from reactor, 96% of spent nuclear fuel is still composed of U and Pu which can produce electricity and could be recycled.

Fast reactors

Although U-238 represents 99.2% of natural uranium, it is not fissile. It could be fertilised by neutron capture in order to produce Pu-239 which is fissile, and work with an implementation of Pu multi-recycling. This is however not possible in LWRs since neutron capture of U-238 is not efficient enough and the neutron capture of uneven isotopes of plutonium is high, leading to the formation of minor actinides. On the other hand, fast neutron spectra relatively increase the capture of neutrons by U-238, leading to the formation of plutonium isotopes which are all fissile in such conditions. For example, the ratio of the capture to fission cross sections of Pu-238, Pu-240 and Pu-242 are increased in fast spectra compared to thermal spectra by a factor of 22, 250 and 36 respectively. In conclusion, fast neutron spectra allow the effective consumption of U-238 to produce fissile plutonium isotopes which are subsequently fissioned to produce energy and electricity. Reactors using fast neutrons are hence potentially able to use more than 80% of the natural resources instead of < 1% for LWR. _ Much more including a look at transmutation nuclear waste management at WasteManagementWorld

Fuel recycling and nuclear waste management should be seen as integral to each other. Rather than wasting up to 99% of the energy in nuclear fuel as current LWRs can do, future generations of advanced reactors should be designed to utilise at least 80% of the energy -- thus extending the nuclear fuel supply of the planet by a factor of 80 or more.

Parenthetically, transmutation by the addition of a neutron is supposed to be behind the "cold fusion" or low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) efforts of a number of startup energy companies -- including Andrea Rossi's Leonardo Corporation, Defkalion of Greece, and Brillouin Energy. The methods being used by these startups for converting protons into neutrons is far from clear at this point.

In addition, sub-critical accelerator driven nuclear reactor designs have also been proposed for the use of thorium 232, an abundant fuel which is fertile rather than fissile -- it must be fed neutrons for conversion to fissile U 233, which spontaneously splits into smaller nuclei and more neutrons.

Parts of the above article were taken from an earlier article at Al Fin blog

Fusion Researcher Dr. George Miley Appears to Support Rossi's LENR Approach

Video streaming by Ustream
Cold Fusion video via Boots and Oil
Dr. George Miley, cold fusion researcher and affiliate professor at the University of Illinois, is one of the participants in the ACS conference symposium on cold fusion video above. Dr. Miley is one of the latest scientists to suggest that Andrea Rossi may be on the right track with his E-Cat LENR device.

Miley gave a presentation at a recent Green Energy Symposium in Philadelphia on cold fusion. The ecatsite blog is featuring Dr. Miley's slideshow and slideset, which provides some documentation of his own research with a similar Ni - H2O setup as Rossi is using. Here is a small subset of Miley's slides (via ecatsite). The full set is available at ecatsite.

As you can see from the last slide, the isotope concentrations before and after running the cold fusion device are significantly different, suggesting that a transmutation process has occurred. More information on Dr. Miley's experimental setup for detecting and measuring isotopes

PDF Survey of observed excess energy in LANR reactions. The author, Mitchell Swartz, presents an interesting mechanism for production of this excess heat. Notice that author Swartz of the PDF survey prefers the term "Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions" (LANR) over the term "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" (LENR), although he seems to be referring to the same phenomenon.

Brian Wang has also been covering these developments in LENR and E-Cat

BW has more news about Rossi's near and intermediate-term plans for selling 1 MW LENR devices and eventually progressing to selling home - scale devices for individual households.

No one actually knows what nuclear reaction is taking place, if any, to explain the excess heat which has been so widely observed by a very broad range of experimental scientists. Some scientists suggest that more than one type of reaction may be involved, depending upon the experimental setup.

A New Approach to "Cold Fusion" / LENR from the Ukraine

From out of the Ukraine in Eastern Europe comes Professor Boris Bolotov and his engineer Waldemar Mordkovitch with a very different approach to fusion. Its still table top in size, runs at low, for fusion standards to date, quite cool temperatures and is reported to make electricity directly skipping over the heat step for power generation. The new fusion candidate uses the transmutation of zirconium, in zirconium oxide form on to other elements to produce energy.

For the demonstration the table top sized cold fusion reactor was pulsed with a nanosecond pulse generator. The pulses of electricity went into the cell filled with a “liquid metal.” This produced a kind of electrical arc in the liquid metal. During the demonstration reports have it that one hundred watts of power input produced three hundred watts of pure electrical output plus excess heat. _NewEnergyandFuel

Bolotov's work appears to be based on earlier Russian research which documented methods to transmute various elements. The Bolotov transmutation method apparently releases some potentially dangerous radiation, which the team is working to quench. Another way in which the zirconium transmutation of Bolotov differs from the nickel transmutation of Rossi, is that the Bolotov approach produces electricity directly -- without the need to produce heat energy as an intermediary.

More at PESN (via New Energy and Fuel)

In other fusion news, Brian Wang looks at research indicating that proton-Boron aneutronic fusion may be more feasible than previously thought.

Traveling Wave Reactor Works Well -- In Models

Recent developments in supercomputing have enabled the TerraPower scientists to simulate the traveling wave concept and establish its feasibility, they say.

Machiels agrees. "The modeling capability that John Gilleland's team has achieved has allowed a lot of progress. They have fantastic computing capabilities," he said. The team's supercomputer cluster has more than 1,000 times the computational strength of a desktop computer, TerraPower says.

The team draws on support from MIT, DOE's Argonne National Laboratory and other scientific centers, and future testing will require more DOE support. But at this point, the project is a private research venture.

It recalls the famous Tuxedo Park laboratory established by the millionaire investor and amateur scientist Alfred Lee Loomis at his mansion outside New York City in 1926. Its scientists went on to provide critical research in the development of radar and the atomic bomb in World War II.

"This is a type of work that requires a deep, deep pocket," said Machiels. "The fact that this is being funded now by a private firm is good, but very unusual." TerraPower is backed by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's former chief technology officer, who now is CEO of Intellectual Ventures. _NYT

Ultra-sophisticated computer modeling supports the theory behind TerraPower's traveling wave reactor approach to use nuclear waste as fuel. Of course, TerraPower's main backer -- Nathan Myhrvold -- was formerly the chief technology officer for Microsoft, so he should know something about computers and computer modeling.  It is good to remember that computer modeling has been an extremely potent tool for many areas of science and engineering.  We should not allow the perversion of modeling by alarmist climatologists to taint the entire enterprise.

This reactor (pdf) works something like a cigarette. A chain reaction is launched in one end of a closed cylinder of spent uranium fuel, creating a slow-moving "deflagration," a wave of nuclear fission reactions that keeps breeding neutrons as it makes way through the container, keeping the self-sustaining reaction going.

And it goes and goes, perhaps for 100 years, said former Bechtel Corp. physicist John Gilleland. He heads TerraPower LLC, a private research team based outside Seattle that is pursuing the traveling wave reactor design.

"We believe we've developed a new type of nuclear reactor that can represent a nearly infinite supply of low-cost energy, carbon-free energy for the world," Gilleland said in a presentation.

...In the traveling wave reactor, the fuel, initially, is likely to be the vast U.S. stores of depleted uranium, which don't themselves pose a proliferation risk. Plutonium is formed in the reaction process but undergoes transmutation into other elements and is essentially consumed. Depleted uranium is a heavy, lead-like residue from making or enriching uranium fuel. Lacking the volatile isotope U-235 that is used in conventional nuclear power plant fuel and nuclear weapons, depleted uranium is currently used for conventional anti-tank ammunition and in the keels of sailboats. _NYT

When computer modeling works, it is because the researchers involved are honest enough to test the models against physical observations -- rather than the other way around, as in the climate science of carbon hysteria.

Transmuting Waste to Fuels With Neutrons

Ancient and medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead to gold. But modern alchemists can use neutron transmutation to turn nuclear waste into useful energy -- a far more useful transmutation. Recently, both Brian Wang and Brian Westenhaus have discussed a new approach to nuclear transmutation from the University of Texas, Austin.

The Texas group plans to use a combination of a tokamak fusion neutron source along with a "Super X Neutron Divertor" to transform a blanket of nuclear waste into productive nuclear fuel -- producing heat from fission to make steam and generate electrical power.

Is the Tokamak fusor the best source of neutrons for this project? Perhaps, perhaps not. I suspect not. But until Focus Fusion or the Polywell group can begin generating neutrons in the quantities required for converting nuclear waste into fissile fuel, we may be stuck with the Tokamak.

Nuclear fission has been growing safer and more reliable over the past few decades, and the fission power industry has been planning a significant expansion worldwide. An injection of new fuel supplies from this hybrid fusion:fission approach would be an important boost to the long-term sustainability and safety of fission power.

No need to store nuclear waste, just keep re-using it until it is no longer dangerous (or potential fuel). Environmentalist Luddites hate the idea of nuclear energy, and since they dominate the Obama administration, it is unlikely that this important development will receive much support from Luddite DC.

But science continues, even when the dominant reich is made up of fools and nihilists. University labs, National Labs, and private labs have an amazing amount of research momentum going. It will take some time for the Luddites in DC to gain total control. By that time, we can always hope that voters will come to their senses.