Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

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bunnyboy
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by bunnyboy »

Tip: Use moon for orbital sling.
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Iskander
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by Iskander »

That wouldn't help very much, actually. Trust me. (It would, but only by one or two km/s, at most...)

See, the Moon isn't all that big or fast, all things considered.

At any rate, you're better off reprocessing the spent fuel here on Earth. Lots of useful stuff left in it.

discord
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by discord »

aye, reprocessing ftw.

Fotiadis_110
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

... the ultimite goal is to shift the oribital path of your radioactive to a trajectory that isn't going to hit the earth nor the moon, using the least energy required.

If we slow the projectiles enough, could they not enter near circular orbits and simply orbit as the glowing ring of rocks between earth and Venus? It would be a rather spectacular way to mark the existence of our species for future sentient's to find,
The fact they are made of radioactive waste might indicate the manner by which our society was destroyed, and help explain the whole issue of why a certain layer of rocks hold an unusually large quantity of radioactive isotopes :p

And if it becomes profitable to harness the waste we cannot use now, they are just a radioactive toss away from the planet in the first place :p

discord
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by discord »

footsie: long term storage is quite viable on the planet, as long as we keep the amount down, fourth gen reactors will do just that, my guess is that further reprocessing will find use for THAT "waste" as well.
the problem really is reprocessing and the legality of it(oh noes nuclear proliferation!) where you get pure materials of different kinds, you just need to find a USE for it.

Fotiadis_110
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

The basic problem with radioactive decay is it is never as easy or simple as we desire.

For instance, Alpha decay, which turns large elements into smaller ones, is common, and can hit ANY of the other atoms in the reaction mixture, including those which transmuted into Lead.
Lead is very stable as a molecule, thus tending itself to be the final product of many radioactive decay paths, however when hit by a Alpha particle it becomes something else and is once again radioactive.
Such radioactivity can have VERY long half-lives, and thus undesirable from many angles, particually if they decay into something which emits dangerous beta or similar radiation.

As a side note alpha radiation typically causes skin burns and little more due to it's inability to penetrate so technically it isn't all that dangerous (at least in low amounts, you can get anything from first to third degree burns, just like from touching something hot)... but if you eat it, it will burn your insides quite happily but most things stay in your digestive tract (also beware radioactive dust in your lungs). Then again if it's something your body utilises like calcium undergoing alpha decay, then it will burn EVERYTHING WHERE-EVER IT GOES, from your bloodstream to your brain!

These are reasons why 're-using' 'stable' radioactive waste is never as people friendly as using non-radioactive sources in the first place :p

discord
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by discord »

footsie: hey, i am no nuclear scientist, but i know you can(with varying amount of work) separate the materials into(relatively) pure piles, at which points as far as i can see it, you got resources not waste, the question is just resources for WHAT exactly?

Fotiadis_110
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

I'm no Nuclear scientist, however I have been taught enough about nuclear physics to understand that there are differing forms of radiation, and some of them are made up of subatomic particles, and high energy subatomic particles (which ARE what this kind of radiation is) can be used to bombard other molecules and say make gold from platinum, turn Oxygen into a radioactive path that decays into Carbon 14 (which later decays into Nitrogen), and other elemental defying book changing effects.

And as for 'purifying' substances.

Some splits are easy, say removing Calcium from limestone by removing the carbonate.
Some splits are HARD particularly separating metals, such as gold from silver, or the reverse.
The biggest commonality is that ALL OF THEM require more resources to preform than you are left with at the end, the remainder turns into waste which must be disposed of.
Only occasionally is the remaining waste capable of being put back in at the start of the process and thus the 'waste' can be reprocessed 'to exhaustion' (which means that the continued waste production goes back in time and again, the waste remaining of which is also added and it cycles through to infinity (in theory) till all the waste no longer exists as the waste stream stops increasing in size, hereby they can claim it is being 'consumed'), often the process of separating metals of very similar properties is so difficult, it isn't even bothered.


Another point to make is Carbon Steel. Everyone knows Iron is an element, used to make Steel. The thing is that the method used to produce Iron from Iron sand or Iron ore utilises great amounts of carbon.
This carbon is almost impossible to remove from the final product, and typically this is not an issue as the carbon trapped within can be manipulated various ways (through forging processes and such) to change the structure and state of the iron, which of course changes the PROPERTIES of the iron, including things like spring steel and ultra-hard Steel which is vulnerable to shattering (apparently the Katana was a low carbon outer blade wrapped around a soft iron (high carbon) core to provide it with strength and shock absorption, I've since read differently, specifically every katana was the product of it's maker, with varying designs and methods), these varying properties are normal and harnessed by various designers and engineers for various tasks.

And a final point: People want to make a buck from whatever they can, and I do mean ANYTHING, including human corpses if they can, so what is to stop people taking 'not approved to be used around people' materials from your splitting process (due to latent radioactivity risks) and say, making baby prams out of it?
Laws?
Can you really find a way to test EVERYTHING that enters the consumer production chain, even when people don't want you to discover the issue?
The easiest way to to prevention is to remove the temptation by simply never giving them the opportunity.

Absalom
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by Absalom »

The most reliable way to prevent murder is to prevent anyone from being born, but such paranoid actions aren't justified by the result (a.k.a. better to have murder forever).

At the end of the day, we're constantly being exposed to radiation, there just isn't a lot of it. 'Non-radioactives' are mostly harmless (though I certainly don't agree with using 'contaminated nickle' for silverware! reasonable amounts in coins would be fine, though), and by paying attention to what's going to be in proximity with the radioactives, you can control the types of non-direct wastes that you have to deal with. Furthermore, both the direct wastes & the indirect wastes are going to be inherently restricted in amount, because for the most part nothing comes into direct contact with radioactives (certainly the amount of reprocessing equipment should be small enough that it can be disposed of in companion vaults, if the material isn't itself valuable enough to process).

And for your final point: how much contaminated material do you think there is? This is NOT a primary source for almost anything, I'm not even confidant that you can build a skyscraper out of all this stuff (I assume that you can, but skyscrapers use quite a lot of material...), there's just not very much of it. Further, all of this material traces back to a few already regulated locations. Tracking & controlling this stuff isn't all that hard, the worst that you'll get is likely in the medical field & smoke-detectors, neither of which is likely to have large exposures for the indirect wastes in question. Quite honestly, old already-existing stockpiles of nuclear materials from the Soviet Union are more problematic than anything that became dangerous because of transmutation, because not all of those are confidently under control yet (some have apparently even been robbed). At the end of the day, the particular opportunity that you're telling us to worry about isn't a realistic opportunity, AND things that have ALREADY happened pose more of a risk than that.

Iskander
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Re: Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

Post by Iskander »

If you're worried about keeping track of radioactive substances and similar items, it's actually fairly simple - they very politely announce their presence to all and sundry. Why? Well - they're radioactive, and modern instruments are damn sensitive. Who knows - maybe you could tag certain objects with low-level sources to make finding them easier if it became necessary.

Hm - speaking of which, perhaps I should get one of those self-luminous tritium keychains.

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