fission – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "fission"

DailyDirt: How Will Anyone Get To Mars?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Traveling to mars is going to be a really, really long term project. We had some fun on the moon and drove around up there in a nifty moon buggy, but we didn’t have a commitment to stay there for very long — or even plans to keep going there once we knew it could be done. Getting astronauts to mars requires a completely different level of planning than going to the moon. Current technology won’t get us there (well, at least not alive and healthy), but maybe we’re still making some progress with a few untested propulsion systems.

• Russia’s national nuclear company Rosatom could build a nuclear-powered engine to get to mars in 90 days — if it had the funding. The technology was first developed in the 1960s, but no one has really continued to work on various kinds of nuclear-powered propulsion for manned spacecraft (hmm, wonder why..?). Launching radioactive materials on a ship that might not make it into outer space could end in a spectacular disaster, but maybe if someone could build it in space from several small payloads of fissionable material? (Or better yet, build it from fissionable materials already in space….) [url]
• It’s possible to send something to mars in just 30 minutes with a (proposed) laser propulsion system. Chemical rockets to mars will take months, but using photonic propulsion could accelerate a small (lightweight, perhaps wafer-thing) object to very high speeds. One catch would be that there wouldn’t really be a way to slow it down, unless there was a decelerating laser on the other side. [url]
• It’s not beyond the imagination to think that people might someday be able to move asteroids around at will. Getting more water to mars by sending an icy asteroid there might be possible someday, and if we’re able to do that we might as well hitch a ride on it. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: astronauts, fission, laser propulsion, lightsail, manned missions, mars, nuclear energy, propulsion, rockets, space, space exploration, spacecraft
Companies: nasa, rosatom

DailyDirt: Nuclear Power Making Progress?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The problems with nuclear power via fission have obviously not been overcome by technology (or politics). European countries have started to back off nuclear power, and the US isn’t expanding its nuclear power capacity in the near future. However, nuclear power isn’t dead yet. Maybe some people think it should be, but what if someone figures out how to prevent meltdowns and burn nuclear waste as fuel?

• China is expected to have an operational Generation IV nuclear fission power plant within the next few years, not sometime in 2030 or 2040. High temperature pebble-bed reactors that use helium instead of water to transfer heat are designed to avoid meltdowns with passive systems. China is looking to sell their nuclear power plants to countries like Saudi Arabia, and it also has some molten-salt reactors using thorium on the way, too. [url]
• Bill Gates has invested in TerraPower, a company that is developing nuclear energy technology called a travelling wave reactor. This kind of reactor doesn’t require enriched fuels, so it avoids proliferation problems and can even consume some depleted uranium waste as fuel. But these reactors aren’t fully operational just yet. [url]
• Tens of thousands of metric tons of nuclear waste is currently in “temporary” storage, above ground in power plants across the US. A few geologically stable sites have been considered for nuclear waste storage, but shale deposits have only recently been investigated. A handful of European countries, as well as Canada and Japan, have already been looking into shale deposits to store radioactive waste, but the NIMBY factor for nuclear waste makes it tough to commit to any long-term storage plans. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: energy, fission, nuclear energy, nuclear meltdown, nuclear power, nuclear waste, pebble bed reactor, shale deposits, traveling wave reactor
Companies: terrapower

DailyDirt: Harnessing A Lot Of Energy Ain't Easy

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We’ve mentioned some advances in fusion energy research not too long ago, and it looks like Germany is ready to take a few more baby steps towards figuring out how to control insanely hot plasma. Still, we’re a long way from plentiful fusion-generated electricity (not counting solar), but if we want to stop burning fossil fuels, we’re going to need to do some more research.

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel flipped the switch on the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator to start testing its experimental plasma conditions that could lead to a fusion generator someday. Germany has spent over a billion euros and two decades building this experimental device which will never actually generate more energy than it consumes. Let’s hope they learn a lot from this facility — and maybe we’ll have a new source of clean, convenient energy in a few more decades. [url]
• Nuclear reactors using fission (not fusion) are relatively expensive compared to other sources of energy. The history of small or modular nuclear reactors also suggests that there’s not much advantage in small scale nuclear power plants. Dealing with radioactive waste also just scares people away from fission, too. [url]
• If Back To The Future taught us anything, it’s that a lightning strike has enough energy to send a car through time itself — if you only knew where lightning was going to strike. Unfortunately, 1.21 gigawatts isn’t as useful as you might think, and capturing the energy of a lightning bolt doesn’t get you all that much energy (unless you could do it continuously somehow). [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: angela merkel, energy, fission, fusion, lightning, nuclear energy, stellarator, wendelstein 7-x

DailyDirt: With Great Fission Power Comes Great Responsibility…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Renewable energy sources like solar and hydroelectric are great, but they generally can’t provide enough baseload power. Sure, maybe we need to upgrade our electrical grid to handle more distributed power plants and circumvent traditional baseload power requirements, but in the short term, the only carbon-free power source comes from nuclear reactors. However, after the Fukushima accident, there seems to be growing distaste for nuclear energy — with Germany closing about half of its nuclear power plants and pledging to close all of them by 2022, and more plants around the world have been closing rather than opening since 2011.

• The US will probably maintain about 100 gigawatts of nuclear energy capacity for the next 10 years, despite closing some reactors. A few new reactors should replace the old ones, but the pipeline of operational reactors looks a bit empty in 20 years or so — unless licenses are renewed quickly and new reactors aren’t delayed so much. [url]
• After just 19 years and almost 4.5 billion dollars, a “new” nuclear power plant (a first since 1996) in Tennessee could be generating power before the start of 2016. This is a Generation II nuclear plant design, even though there are Gen III plants being built. Gen IV designs are planned to exist in the 2030s, but by then, we’ll all have Mr. Fusion reactors in our cars, right? [url]
• The US and China are collaborating on developing molten salt nuclear reactors that could be commercially ready by 2030. China currently relies heavily on coal power plants, but in the not too distant future, the country could be producing much cleaner energy with more nuclear reactors. [url]
• The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission hasn’t approved a new nuclear reactor in decades — and offers a highly bureaucratic process for regulating any new reactor designs. Nuclear energy startups are targeting China to avoid the regulatory barriers in the US, but the current low price of natural gas is also making the economics of nuclear power a bit difficult to justify. [url]

Hold on. If you’re still reading this, head over to our Daily Deals to save an additional 10% on any item in our Black Friday collection — using the code: ‘EARLY10’ — just through this Sunday, November 22nd.

Filed Under: energy, fission, fukushima, molten salt nuclear reactors, nuclear energy, nuclear reactor, us nuclear regulatory commission

DailyDirt: Next-Generation Fission Energy?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Petroleum prices are relatively low right now, but there are no guarantees that the price of oil will remain low for very long. Progress on biofuels and fusion aren’t great bets for the impatient, but there’s an existing energy source with some serious growth potential: nuclear fission. Okay, we’ve been talking about advances in nuclear energy for a while, too, but the barriers are mostly economic/regulatory, not in the engineering or science.

• Molten-salt nuclear reactors have been on the cusp of creating a much safer next-generation path for nuclear energy. Molten-salt reactors have passive safety features and can even get rid of some nuclear waste while generating energy. However, cheap petroleum and the high cost of getting a building permit for a new nuclear power plant… have delayed these fission energy developments. [url]
• The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is the only underground nuclear waste repository in the US — located outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in a salt mine. There was an accident involving the “wrong kind” of kitty litter that caused some radioactive material to be released and for the facility to shut down temporarily. Currently, some progress is being made to keep WIPP operational and continue storing long-lived radioactive waste. [url]
• A bunch of companies are developing smaller nuclear reactors for commercial use — generating only a few megawatts or a few dozen megawatts of electricity using reactors about the size of a shipping container (or smaller). It might be easier/cheaper to get these smaller reactors into operation, but the real question is whether or not these designs prove to be significantly safer. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: energy, fission, molten salt reactor, nuclear, nuclear energy, radioactive waste, waste isolation pilot plant, wipp

DailyDirt: Nuclear Power In Space

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Nuclear energy usually has a significant NIMBY problem (Not In My Back Yard!) that prevents nuclear power plants from being constructed. There’s no simple solution to this obstacle, and even when the reactor is going to be thousands (or millions) of miles away from any people in a spacecraft, the danger of launching a nuclear reactor on a rocket is still too risky for some folks. There haven’t been any nuclear disasters in space, but as more and more nuclear powered spacecraft are built, the anti-nuclear groups may grow increasingly loud. Here are just a few nuclear spacecraft projects that could travel beyond our planet.

• NASA and DOE researchers have tested a new nuclear reactor design for spacecraft called the Demonstration Using Flattop Fissions (DUFF) experiment. This reactor relies on the heat from uranium fission to power a Stirling engine and can generate 24 watts of electricity. [url]
• Plutonium is the fissile material of choice for a lot of NASA spacecraft, but the US hasn’t produced much plutonium-238 since the 1980s. NASA could get a fresh supply, though, if the DOE continues its experiments for producing plutonium-238 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee — which could produce about 3.3 pounds per year. [url]
• NASA has extensively tested its nuclear battery designs by smashing them and detonating them to assess their safety. If a nuclear-powered probe were to explode on the launchpad (or at any stage of getting into orbit or beyond), it’s unlikely that the radioactive material would cause much destruction. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: duff, energy, fission, nimby, nuclear, plutonium, radioactive materials, space, spacecraft, stirling engine, uranium
Companies: doe, nasa

DailyDirt: The Future Of Nuclear Energy

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The nuclear power industry is currently dominated by light-water reactor designs from the 1940-50s. These reactors use ordinary water (aka light water) as the fluid for transferring thermal energy to turbines that generate electricity, but there are other nuclear reactor designs that could be safer and produce less problematic radioactive waste. Fusion reactors aren’t ready to generate any energy yet, but they’re getting closer (just another 30 years, promise). If you’re interested in atomic energy, check out the links below.

• The National Ignition Facility (NIF) has achieved the breakthrough milestone of creating more energy from a fusion reaction than was used to start the reaction, but it’s not quite the break-even point yet due to energy losses in the 192 lasers used to zap the hydrogen isotopes. Still, this is the closest that a fusion reactor of any design has ever come to the point of generating energy. [url]
• Alternative nuclear fission technologies may be getting a second chance as more people realize that nuclear energy is a viable option for replacing energy generated from fossil fuels. Molten salt reactors, fast reactors, high-temperature reactors, small modular reactors and other alternatives to conventional light-water reactors still have plenty of regulatory hurdles to overcome, but next generation nuclear power plants could become a significant source of energy in the coming decades. [url]
• France is well-known for its significant investments in nuclear energy and relying on nuclear power for about 75% of its energy needs. However, the French could be leaning away from nuclear energy and moving more towards solar and wind, possibly shifting some nuclear technology leadership to China and South Korea. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: atomic energy, breeder reactor, energy, fission, fusion, ignition, molten salt, nif, nuclear, reactor, renewable energy

DailyDirt: Taking Another Look At Nuclear Energy…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Nuclear energy has been around for decades, but its safety and the safety of its radioactive waste have always been a political nightmare. Still, some researchers have been redesigning nuclear reactors to make them safer in many ways, but these newer designs have yet to be scaled up and used commercially. Maybe someday nuclear technology will be ubiquitous, but it’ll likely take a long time before anyone is willing to embrace fission/fusion energy that doesn’t come from the Sun.

• A European research reactor called Guinevere demonstrates the safety and benefits of a hybrid reactor-accelerator design. This nuclear reactor design is an accelerator-driven system (ADS) and uses a particle accelerator so that its nuclear reactor can run without enough fissile material to generate a nuclear chain reaction (so all the nuclear reactions stop when the external particle accelerator stops). A bonus feature is that its radioactive waste material can be transmuted via the particle accelerator into elements with lower half-lives that may be more convenient to handle and store. [url]
• Teenager Taylor Wilson has been building nuclear reactors for a few years already, and his current project is to build small, modular nuclear reactors capable of generating just 50-100 megawatts of electricity. Wilson’s reactors would create a more decentralized network of electricity generation, but that’s a lot of NIMBY to overcome…. [url]
• Italian scientists have halted research on piezonuclear fission. Low Energy Nuclear Reactions have been associated with Cold Fusion, so if there’s any kind of non-classical fission/fusion going on, it may take extraordinary evidence to convince anyone of it. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cold fusion, electricity, energy, fission, lenr, nimby, nuclear, particle accelerator, peizonuclear, power, reactor