back to article Hybrid fusion-fission reactors to run on nuclear 'sludge'

Texas-based boffins say they have figured out a cunning new method of dealing with America's nuclear waste, using fusion technology - which at the moment can't produce power - to turn 99 per cent of fission reactors' waste into useful energy. "Most people cite nuclear waste as the main reason they oppose nuclear fission as a …

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  1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Flame

    re: Anonymous Coward Posted 16:59 GMT

    I also believe stupidity is also very easy to obtain.

    Helium by product... well we let that go into the atmosphere and by magic it migrates to the top of the atmosphere(it being 13 times less dense than air) where it gets blown away by the solar wind(which also explains why theres so little of the stuff in the air)

    Water is a finite resource of earth? well yes it is. if you are after fresh water.. but we can get the hydrogen from sea water and theres rather a lot of that

    As for breaking apart water into hydrogen and oxygen, well you have a fusion plant setup especially for that, 1 days running should generate enough fuel to keep it going for about 100 yrs.

    Fusion puts out a lot of energy for every kilogram of fuel used so you only need a very small amount of fuel to start with

    But everyone prefers windmills for power and sitting in the dark when the wind stops blowing

  2. Anomalous Cowherd Silver badge

    @ AC 16:59 - Fusion is most definitely the answer!

    You are correct about most hydrogen being gaseous and out of the earths atmosphere, but otherwise you are being a bit of a tit.

    1. Getting hydrogen from water requires energy, but the whole point of a self sustaining fusion reaction is it's able to provide this energy. Getting oil from the ground, building windmills or solar panels, it all requires energy too.

    2. Helium waste? It's inert, floats to the top of the atmosphere and incredibly rare. What's not to like? We can make Zeppelins. I love Zeppelins.

    3. Water a finite resource? Take a biscuit sir, you've earned it. When we've chugged through the 1.4 billion cubic km of it on the planet you have my permission to say I told you so.

    Hmm, rough back of the envelope, E=mc2, 1.4bkm3, carry the one... there's a good 12,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000,000 joules locked up there, a good night out by anyones standards (yes I'm aware that's not how fusion works, I'm being sarcastic for effect).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    I object to nuclear power.

    I object to nuclear power.

    Why? It's simple: People.

    People make mistakes, all of us do, it's a simple fact of life; even the best of us gets tired occasionally. Now that private companies are running the reactors, there's a reasonable chance that we're looking at minimum wage people. Minimum wage people with minimum training, operating a nuclear power station. Are you getting a warm fuzzy feeling yet?

    Before anyone suggests computer control, may I remind you that we also design computer systems, so computer control could well have similar fallibilities. That's assuming the functional specification was any good to begin with. Did I mention that developement is probably going to be outsourced to a ghetto in a country no-one's heard of? Where they don't really care if *we* get blown up or not; since they're several thousand miles away.

    Then there's the slight matter of who's building these reactors. Again, these are being built for profit; so this means it's likely someone will be cutting corners when no-one's looking. Regulators you say? Well bribery's cheap compared to doing it properly, and then there's good old fashioned oversight.

    Even when there was no particular emphasis on cost, and trained scientists were involved bad things have happened. When cost becomes the key motivating factor; do the odds improve or get worse?

    Then there's decommissioning. When private companies are responsible for operation and clean up I have a guarantee for you. When the reactor is operating at a profit, those profits will go to the shareholders. When the reactor becomes loss making; during decommissioning, or after an accident; I'm prepared to bet that the company operating the reactor will file for bankruptcy. So, who gets to pay the bills then? That'll be us, the taxpayer.

    So, what we have is something that'll be a potential hazard throughout it's lifecycle; and then will cost us billions to tidy up. Those billions will come from our taxes.

    Still sounding like a great idea? Ahh, you're a shareholder; sorry ;)

  4. Alex Rose

    @G R Goslin

    What an insightful comment. Could you let me know when you're putting it forward for peer-review?

  5. Steve
    Boffin

    @Pad

    When hydrogen is used in a car, either burned in an engine or used in a fuel cell, it's a purely chemical reaction. The energy you get out is the same as the energy you put in to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen in the first place. In that sense hydroigen is merely an energy carrier, you need a lot of it, and you need some other energy source to obtain it. Its only real advantage is that it burns more cleanly than oil, so we have less air pollution (no CO2).

    When it comes to using hydrogen in a fusion reactor things are completely different; It's a nuclear reaction, not a chemical one. You get way more energy out of fusing two H atoms than you do from simply burning them in air to create H2O, far more energy than you needed to get the hydrogen from the water in the first place. In that sense hydrogen used in fusion is an energy source, not a carrier.

  6. Lottie
    Thumb Up

    Cool

    I like the fact that they have a new take on stuff and HAVEN'T hailed it as a cure all. They admit it's a bridge and IMHO, if the future is (as it seems to be) based on nuclear energy power stations, I wholeheartedly welcome any system that can help reduce the impact of the waste. It sounds a little more friendly than dumping it somewhere.

  7. Dave
    Alert

    @"I object to nuclear power."

    I object to 'conventional power'. Take the other day: a train got slightly derailed, in the wrong place, took out a bridge and the load burst into flames: 500 tonnes of diesel up in smoke. That's what you get when you have no alternative to transporting fuel all over the place, carried by the lowest bidder, etc. I would much rather we were able to rely on a handful of slightly dangerous Nuclear plants, than millions of slightly dangerous windmills, solar cells, and fuel-burning power stations. You do know that the latter blow up fairly regularly, don't you?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @ I object to nuclear power.

    I object to my descendants having to live like fucking cavemen! The Human Race will only get one shot at moving beyond fossil fuels, and nuclear is the only game in town. It takes energy to build a nuclear industry, if we wait until the fossil fuels run out we may not then have enough energy to build a nuclear industry. There won't be a second chance (unless you want to wait a few hundred million years for a new source of hydrocarbons). The current state of renewables shows that even if we put windmills everywhere we'll hardly have enough energy to live in temperate regions (with our current population anyway), let alone maintain anything like the standard of living we currently enjoy. Windmills barely produce enough energy to cover the energy used in making them!

    Energy is a survival issue; try to imagine what the world will be like when it starts to run out...

    Paris, 'cos the French have got the right policies for energy and ecotards!

  9. elderlybloke
    Linux

    About the French

    Few mention the way the French get on with producing 80% of their power from Nuclear Fission...

    It appears that Britain, USA , and Germany oppose the Nuclear fuel as highly dangerous.

    Have the thousands of lives lost in coal mining and the pollution when burned been considered.

    The pollution from the crap brown coal the Germans use is impressive.

  10. Mark

    Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 29th January 2009 14:36 GMT

    WHAT???? YOU CAN SEE THE FUTURE?!!?!?!?!

    How do you know that your descendants will live like cavemen?

    Just recently the US became the #1 produced of wind power. 25GW power, enough for 5million homes.

    Which is 5kW/home.

    Which is odd because in Scotland (hardly a caveman in sight), 7.2MW of wind power is enough for 9000 homes. 800W/home.

    So your children could live like Scotsmen and reduce the need for 80% of the power station output if you are American.

    You really HAD to go all Rita Hayworth on this, didn't you.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mark Posted Tuesday 3rd February 2009 19:23 GMT

    "How do you know that your descendants will live like cavemen?"

    They will if our politicians listen to eco loonies like you.

    Mark is almost notorious as a Man From Mars on these threads. He works for a climate institute and posts 50 times a story.

    No life - very sad. But low wattage, though.

  12. Mark
    Paris Hilton

    Well, there's nothing like a well thought out argument

    Anonymous Coward Posted Wednesday 4th February 2009 00:23 GMT

    "How do you know that your descendants will live like cavemen?"

    They will if our politicians listen to eco loonies like you.

    And that is nothing like a well thought out argument. Well done.

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