You will remember from chapter 21 that we have two neutrons, on average, emitted whenever a U235 atom undergoes fission - or "splitting." One of these is necessary to fission another atom to keep the chain reaction going. But what happens to all of those second neutrons? Some of them, as mentioned, are absorbed by the structure of the reactor or by the control rods, which slide in and out of the reactor to keep the reaction at - or just very slightly above - the critical point. But others smash into, and are captured by, the plentiful U238 atoms that make up from 95% to 96.5% of the fuel rod contents. When this happens, a truly miraculous thing takes place: This practically worthless material is transformed into one of the most concentrated sources of energy on Earth - or in the universe for that matter - plutonium 239, and element so evil that it was named for the god of the underworld. (Not really, but that's what some would have you believe.) [Plutonium was named in honor of the discovery of the planet Pluto, just as neptunium and uranium were named for Neptune and Uranus.]
This happens in every one of the world's 500 power reactors, plus thousands of research reactors, every day they are in operation. In fact, a sizable fraction (up to about 30%) of electrical energy generated by a power plant comes from this plutonium, which arises as a natural consequence of the uranium fission reaction - without any effort on our part - and supplements the scarce U235 fuel.
Some reactors, however, are designed to intentionally make plutonium. If it is to be used in bombs, it is normally made in a reactor with another modulator - such as the carbon-modulated reactor at Chernobyl. A reactor designed specifically to make only fuel-grade plutonium is called a breeder reactor, since new fuel is "bred" from an almost worthless byproduct of the refining cycle. [Breeder technology seems to be on hold for a couple of reasons: (1) in the prevailing anti-nuclear climate, few entrepreneurs or speculators are willing to make investments in nuclear power for fear of laws that can make their investment instantly worthless; and (2) at the present time there is a glut of plutonium available from the dismantlement of nuclear weapons.]
Are we speculating here on new technology like "fusion" power? Hardly.
The first reactor ever to produce electric power from nuclear energy was a "liquid metal fast breeder reactor" known as the EBR-I. (By the way, liquid metal means that the coolant was not our old friend water, but liquid sodium; fast means that it used "fast neutrons," not the slowed-down, moderated variety.) Designed by physicist Walter Zinn in 1944, his brainchild went critical at 11 am, December 20, 1951 - producing the first steam in history produced by man-made nuclear heat. Like the Manhattan reactor in Chicago and the SLOWPOKE reactor in Canada, EBR-I was not designed to produce electrical power but to prove the concept of fuel breeding (which it did along with its successor, EBR-II). [Declared a national landmark in 1966, the EBR-I is open to the public from mid June to mid September. Located eighteen miles southeast of Arco, Idaho, on Highway 26, visitors must be at least sixteen years old (too much neutron violence?) and U.S. citizens (fear of spies who might steal this technology?).]
The EBR-II had "on the spot reprocessing," which reprocessed 35,000 fuel elements between 1965 and 1969. But the facility was not without problems: the fence around it kept out the coyotes, causing the rabbit population to outbreed the reactor.
Does the ERB-II sound a little familiar? It should since it has another name we used in chapter 21 - the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR).
While many U.S. politicians have never heard of breeder technology, Europeans have. Sadly, "Green" activists there have been successful in shutting them down or keeping them from ever starting up.
Showing posts with label breeder reactor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breeder reactor. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Lois, Call Clark!
All of this makes one continue to wonder: where are the journalists and the investigative reporters? They may not have taken biology and physics in college, but are they unable to grasp the ramifications of changing the way radiation is viewed by major scientific organizations? Or do they think that their "environmentalist" buddies will get upset if they are involved in jerking a major plank out of the platform of those who want us to fear and distrust all technology? (What would the anti-nukes do if they couldn't scare Maude and Harry with stories of radioactive clouds and plutonium mega-deaths?)
Whatever the reason, a major discovery - that is inspiring a worldwide movement - has been totally ignored by the popular media. How important is the story? Myron Pollycove, M.D., Visiting Medical Fellow on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, calls hormesis "the issue of the decade." As you will see, the evidence is incontrovertible. It is no challenged. It is ignored for whatever reason: ignorance, ideology, or indolence.
We have touched on what the taxpayers might save if the government policymakers were to understand that low-level radiation is harmless; but there are positive effects that those who have studied hormesis believe are even more compelling.
The potential benefits to health and vitality are phenomenal. As we shall see, a random dosage of radiation reduced cancer mortality by forty percent in 15,000 nuclear workers, compared with their fellow workers who were not exposed. While cancer is the disease commonly associated with radiation - and consequently there are more data in this area of study - there was also a reduction of 26% in deaths from all causes in 28,542 exposed nuclear shipyard workers when weighed against co-workers with only normal background exposures. The latter investigation, which we will look at in some detail in chapter 19, indicates that there is a beneficial effect to the entire immune system, which, if properly understood and maximized, could lead to the reduction of infectious diseases and possibly prevention of immune-system dysfunctions.
Since the 1950s, uses of nuclear technology outside of medicine and industrial instrumentation have been stifled because of the fear of radiation. (Smoke detectors are about the only consumer good that have escaped demonization by anti-nuclear activists because, in my opinion, they realized they could get annihilated by risk statistics on this one.) [I recently found that Ralph Nader proved me wrong on this. He actually came out against smoke detectors because of the tiny speck of americium that has saved thousands of "real lives."]
What about community or even residential power plants taking advantage of the technology advances that have occurred over the past forty years? What about nuclear vehicles that would be fueled at the factory for twenty years?
The science for many nuclear miracles is either already available or within reach of technological development. But the pervasive fear of low levels of radiation keeps these advances from being used for the benefit of humanity.
For more than thirty years, the "energy crisis" has been a convenient excuse for those who want more government control over energy resources, but the "crisis" is phony as a three-dollar bill. There is, and has been, readily available energy which is denied us solely because of the manufactured fear of low-level radiation.
This resource is not the promise of fusion, which seems to get further away every year, but the available-with-today's-technology breeder reactors that turn "wastes" into incredibly valuable fuel. Where, pray tell, do the advocates of environmentally pristine electric-powered vehicles think they are going to get the electricity to run those cute little things? A recent newspaper article warns that it would take at least a dozen full-scale (1,000 megawatt) power plants to replace the energy from gasoline and diesel engines in the transportation industry for the city of Los Angeles alone.
Available fuel from power plant "wastes" (which still have more than 95% of their original energy in a readily available form) and thousands of tons of "depleted" uranium currently choking our enrichment facilities could power the United States for many decades using available breeder reactor technology. Other uranium resources could fuel our country for centuries. But, as Edward Teller points out, the "breeding" of thorium - a source as common as dirt (actually it is dirt) - into a usable fuel (Uranium 233) could easily provide energy for 100,000 years.
[Each square mile of the earth's surface averages 2.5 tons of thorium in the first food of depth.]
* * *
Radiation hormesis - just as in the case of nuclear power - will be opposed by radical "environmentalist" leaders who oppose all technological progress and the transfer of its benefits to the multitudes, whom they consider to be unwelcome intrusions on the "Green" concept of nature. But both hormesis therapy and nuclear energy will ultimately become commonplace in our world, because they are based on scientific truths that the doomsayers and propagandists can mask only for so long. The question is: "How much unnecessary human misery will occur before truth and reason prevail?"
So let's take a look at how we developed this fear of radiation.
Whatever the reason, a major discovery - that is inspiring a worldwide movement - has been totally ignored by the popular media. How important is the story? Myron Pollycove, M.D., Visiting Medical Fellow on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, calls hormesis "the issue of the decade." As you will see, the evidence is incontrovertible. It is no challenged. It is ignored for whatever reason: ignorance, ideology, or indolence.
We have touched on what the taxpayers might save if the government policymakers were to understand that low-level radiation is harmless; but there are positive effects that those who have studied hormesis believe are even more compelling.
The potential benefits to health and vitality are phenomenal. As we shall see, a random dosage of radiation reduced cancer mortality by forty percent in 15,000 nuclear workers, compared with their fellow workers who were not exposed. While cancer is the disease commonly associated with radiation - and consequently there are more data in this area of study - there was also a reduction of 26% in deaths from all causes in 28,542 exposed nuclear shipyard workers when weighed against co-workers with only normal background exposures. The latter investigation, which we will look at in some detail in chapter 19, indicates that there is a beneficial effect to the entire immune system, which, if properly understood and maximized, could lead to the reduction of infectious diseases and possibly prevention of immune-system dysfunctions.
Since the 1950s, uses of nuclear technology outside of medicine and industrial instrumentation have been stifled because of the fear of radiation. (Smoke detectors are about the only consumer good that have escaped demonization by anti-nuclear activists because, in my opinion, they realized they could get annihilated by risk statistics on this one.) [I recently found that Ralph Nader proved me wrong on this. He actually came out against smoke detectors because of the tiny speck of americium that has saved thousands of "real lives."]
What about community or even residential power plants taking advantage of the technology advances that have occurred over the past forty years? What about nuclear vehicles that would be fueled at the factory for twenty years?
The science for many nuclear miracles is either already available or within reach of technological development. But the pervasive fear of low levels of radiation keeps these advances from being used for the benefit of humanity.
For more than thirty years, the "energy crisis" has been a convenient excuse for those who want more government control over energy resources, but the "crisis" is phony as a three-dollar bill. There is, and has been, readily available energy which is denied us solely because of the manufactured fear of low-level radiation.
This resource is not the promise of fusion, which seems to get further away every year, but the available-with-today's-technology breeder reactors that turn "wastes" into incredibly valuable fuel. Where, pray tell, do the advocates of environmentally pristine electric-powered vehicles think they are going to get the electricity to run those cute little things? A recent newspaper article warns that it would take at least a dozen full-scale (1,000 megawatt) power plants to replace the energy from gasoline and diesel engines in the transportation industry for the city of Los Angeles alone.
Available fuel from power plant "wastes" (which still have more than 95% of their original energy in a readily available form) and thousands of tons of "depleted" uranium currently choking our enrichment facilities could power the United States for many decades using available breeder reactor technology. Other uranium resources could fuel our country for centuries. But, as Edward Teller points out, the "breeding" of thorium - a source as common as dirt (actually it is dirt) - into a usable fuel (Uranium 233) could easily provide energy for 100,000 years.
[Each square mile of the earth's surface averages 2.5 tons of thorium in the first food of depth.]
* * *
Radiation hormesis - just as in the case of nuclear power - will be opposed by radical "environmentalist" leaders who oppose all technological progress and the transfer of its benefits to the multitudes, whom they consider to be unwelcome intrusions on the "Green" concept of nature. But both hormesis therapy and nuclear energy will ultimately become commonplace in our world, because they are based on scientific truths that the doomsayers and propagandists can mask only for so long. The question is: "How much unnecessary human misery will occur before truth and reason prevail?"
So let's take a look at how we developed this fear of radiation.
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