Is spent nuclear fuel being stored at the power station?

[salinen]

I'm hopelessly ignorant but I hope I'm wrong because if nuclear spent fuel is being stored at the power stations, then we are hopelessly and willfully screwed. I cannot imagine a worse place to store nuclear fuel. Tell me I'm mistaken goddammit.

[FreakinDJ]

1. Actually it is common

Shame considering Dr Moses of the LLIP says he could have a commercially viable fision reactor that turns spent plutonium into harmless photons in 10-15 yrs

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x194586

[Paradoxical]

5. You can't turn plutonium into nothing but photons.

Fusions reactors have harmful waste products.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Paradoxical]

8. You realize fusion does not turn matter into nothing but photons, right?

On edit: This knowledge does not require a PhD in physics. It doesn't even require a BS in physics.

[FreakinDJ]

10. Read the article I linked about Fission then get back to me

I see no sense in arguing with you

[Paradoxical]

12. Nowhere in that article does it say that plutonium can be turned into nothing but photons.

The product of fusion is electro-magnetic radiation and material byproducts.

The product of fission is electro-magnetic radiation and material byproducts.

Granted, there are more efficient ways to produce nuclear energy. But none of them will involve turning matter into nothing but photons.

[Yo_Mama]

11. Ah - my brother is a PhD in physics

As a matter of fact in plasma physics. And he did his graduate work and thesis on fusion.

And he laughed when I sent him that claim. Just sayin'.

[FreakinDJ]

14. your brother have a job - No one is laughing about Dr Moses's work

Especially not DOE or DOD

your brother would be so lucky as to work at Laurence Livermoore Labs

[Yo_Mama]

16. What he does is classified

And yes, he is paid for it.

[Paradoxical]

15. Plasma is not made up purely of photons.

It's a state where material is heated to such a temperature that it first breaks the bonds between atoms, then strips the atoms of electrons.

[Yo_Mama]

20. I don't even have a BS in physics

And even I knew that.

People seem to think that fusion magically avoids all the problems of nuclear energy, and it doesn't. Of course, to date, no one has ever managed to get more power out of a fusion reaction than is put in, so it is still a moot point.

Whether a fusion/fission hybrid would be safer than a fission reactor is highly questionable. Of course this is an experimental concept. I am not saying that we should not investigate it. But since it does involve fission, and since you are a combining a notoriously hard to control process with a very volatile process, you'd have to be extraordinarily careful about it. And we certainly will not end up with a pile of photons.

What I initially found so funny was that 1) I thought this was derived from a fusion bomb scheme, and it is:
https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2010/nnsa/NR-NNSA-10-10-02.html
That is a test of a fusion bomb ignition system.

Earlier fusion bomb design:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb6.htm

Now, there are a great deal of "ifs" involved in the LIFE concept. That doesn't mean it can't work. But it will be over a decade before we could possibly find out whether it does. As to safety....

Big Funny 2) Here is something from the LIFE blurb up at the site that will explain why my brother and I were so entertained by the theory that this thing would be a good way to solve the problem of highly radioactive nuclear waste stored at reactor plants:
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/how_life_works.php

At the end of the engine's lifetime, 39.6 MT of fission products are left. This remaining waste has such a low actinide content that it falls into DOE's lowest attractiveness category for nuclear proliferation.

In addition, because of the very high fission product content, the waste is self-protecting for decades: its radiation flux is so great that any attempt at stealing it would be suicidal.

Following the initial interim storage and cooling at the reactor site, a geological repository similar to Yucca Mountain could be used for long-term storage or disposal.

Have a good day, Paradoxical. I think you are trying to explain something to someone who doesn't understand what a plasma is and does not have the basic science to understand what LIFE is projected to do. We'll just have to call this a tragic misunderstanding and leave it at that.

Believe me, this stuff would nothing that you would want to haul around!!! Not only wouldn't you remove it from the site, you couldn't!!!!! And it will take a VERY long while to cool enough to be transported.

If you had not been responded to with such rudeness, I probably would not take the liberty of pointing all this out. But someone is demonstrating an acute lack of understanding combined with complete certainty, and other people are very sincerely trying to figure out how we could control the risks of nuclear power. They deserve accurate information.

[Paradoxical]

21. Yeah I apologize. I misinterpreted your post.

Sometimes I get a little jumpy. It's really easy to get defensive on here when so many people have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to physics.

All of my classes where on astrophysics and geophysics. And I studied heavily the process of stellar evolution. Which involved studying electromagnetic radiation.

Stars are basically giant fast fusion reactors.

[Yo_Mama]

22. But Fortunately

Stars are basically giant fast fusion reactors.
Very far away.

I applaud you for trying to explain things. It is very necessary now. The situation is bad enough without adding confusion.

[Paradoxical]

19. Oh, also, photons are not harmless.

I don't know why I didn't catch that first time. But that's a BIG oversight on your part.

[Junkdrawer]

2. Details:

http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/4008511524/more-on-spent-fuel-pools-at-fukushima#

[Ozymanithrax]

3. At lest some of the stations store highly radioactive spent fuel rods...

in separate pools at the stations.

They do so for at least two reasons:

(1) They are highly radioactive and must be kept cool, so it is a convenience ot store them in a separate area on the grounds of nuclear plants where they can be cooled constantly. After several years, they are either sent for reprocessing or surrounded by concrete for storage elsewhere.

(2) At least here in the U.S., there is no permanent storage facility. None. Zero. Nada. So thee is literally no other place to store them.

Thee are worse places to store them. Anyplace without constant cooling water that is kept segregated from the regular water supply. To separate them from the plants, you would have to design a second, highly secure, well cooled storage place. You would have to transport them to those facilities.

I've no comment on whether we are screwed.

[salinen]

6. Thanks for the info

but I think there are other potential sites where they could be cooled constantly, and in addition, are not anywhere near a place that could become hot enough to really become catastrophic. These other sites can also be highly secure, well cooled, and I'm sure could be transported there safely.

What do you think?

[bananas]

13. They are extremely hot, both in temperature and radioactivity, extremely dangerous to transport

so they are put in cooling ponds on-site.
Moving them farther would be extremely dangerous.
Eventually they cool enough to be put in dry casks,
but those are also hot both in temperature and radioactivity,
and there are many concerns about dry cask transportation,
so the dry casks are usually stored on-site as well.
The dry casks are so hot, they can't just stack them up next to each other,
they have to keep them seperated so they can air cool.

[bananas]

17. AFAIK, every nuke plant uses on-site spent fuel cooling pools

and almost all of them use on-site dry cask storage after the waste has cooled sufficiently.
There really isn't any place to move the dry casks to.
Even if Yucca opened, it would take decades to move all the dry casks there.

[Ozymanithrax]

18. Safety is relative.

Every time you move one of these rods there is a chance of an accident. Imagine an automobile accident where one or more of these rods were scattered across a highway. The facility you take them to has to be close to a nuclear reactor in construction. The cost of building separate facilities is prohibitive.

I think the answer is a permanent storage system. Even if the US decides to scrap its power plants, they will have to be put somewhere for thousands of years.

[Paradoxical]

4. About 600 tons of fuel is currently being stored inside the reactor buildings.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. Yeah. One of the mind-numbingly stupid aspects of this particular design.

I don't know whose bright idea that was. Sort of makes the concept of "containment" moot.