[srp] RE: [ RadSafe ] There's nothing you can do to hurry radioactive decay, the textbooks will tell you, but New Scientist meets a physicist who begs to differ
parthasarathy k s
ksparth at yahoo.co.uk
Wed Oct 25 23:58:51 CDT 2006
Dear Mr Stewart farber,
The current thread in our news group reminds me of an interesting paper titled " Uranium: don't leave it in the ground" written 16 years ago by by Nigel Holloway in the "ATOM" magazine. He has worked out the effect of the fuel cycle on total environmental radioactivity.
Regards
K.S.Parthasarathy
Ph.D
(formerly,
Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board)
Raja
Ramanna Fellow
Strategic
Planning Group,
Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences
Department
of Atomic Energy
Vikram
Sarabhai Bhavan
Mumbai
400094
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25555327 (O)
91+22
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----- Original Message ----
From: stewart farber <radproject at sbcglobal.net>
To: Nick Priest <N.Priest at mdx.ac.uk>; srp-uk at yahoogroups.com; radsafe at radlab.nl; Fred Dawson <fred-dawson at blueyonder.co.uk>
Cc: Jean-Claude Dehmel <j_cfd at msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 25 October, 2006 7:59:33 PM
Subject: Re: [srp] RE: [ RadSafe ] There's nothing you can do to hurry radioactive decay, the textbooks will tell you, but New Scientist meets a physicist who begs to differ
Dr. Priest makes a good point in mentioning the U-233 fuel cycle which also
takes primordial nuclides and ultimately results in fission products. The
key point is that whether the U or Th fuel cycles, there are long-lived
fission products remaining [some with half-lives of a million years or so,
eg: I-129] after a given fuel load and power cycle. However, all the
resulting fission products have half lives which are essentially trivial vs.
the half life of the U-235 [703 million years] or U-238 [4.5 billion years]
or Th-233 [14 billion years] in low-enrichment LWR fuel
The key point of my post was that thermal power reactors can and should be
considered transmutation reactors where very long-lived primordial isotopes
entering the power cycle were converted to fission products with half lifes
which are relatively trivial by any comparison..
Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Consulting Scientist
The Prometheus Group, LLC
1285 Wood Ave.
Bridgeport, CT 06604
[203] 367-0791 [office]
[203] 522-2817 [cell]
email: radproject at sbcglobal.net
radproject at aol.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Priest" <N.Priest at mdx.ac.uk>
To: <srp-uk at yahoogroups.com>; "stewart farber" <radproject at sbcglobal.net>;
<radsafe at radlab.nl>; "Fred Dawson" <fred-dawson at blueyonder.co.uk>
Cc: "Jean-Claude Dehmel" <j_cfd at msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 6:44 AM
Subject: RE: [srp] RE: [ RadSafe ] There's nothing you can do to hurry
radioactive decay,the textbooks will tell you,but New Scientist meets a
physicist who begs to differ
> Alternatively use could use Th fuels (where U-233 is the fuel and Th-232
> the breeding material). The only long-lived actinoids produced by this
> cycle are thorium and uranium isotopes and protactinium-231 which can be
> recycled (with the Th and U) as a breeding material. The only
> radionuclides entering the waste stream are fission products - but
> remember some of these have very long half lives (e.g. Tc-99 - 200000y).
>
> Prof. Nick Priest, School of Health and Social Sciences, Middlesex
> University, Queensway, Enfield, EN3 4SA, UK
> or home address:
> Sandacres, Gainfield, Buckland, Oxon., SN7 8QQ, UK
> Tel: +44 (0)1367 870 300 (Home)
> Tel: +44 (0)77900 24914 (Cell)
> Tel: +44 (0)20 8411 5229 (Work)
> Fax: +44 (0)1367 870 586 (Home)
> Fax: +44 (0)20 8411 6580 (Work)
> Alternative Email: prof.nick.priest at gmail.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: srp-uk at yahoogroups.com [mailto:srp-uk at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of John R Johnson
> Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 7:34 PM
> To: stewart farber; radsafe at radlab.nl; srp-uk at yahoogroups.com; Fred
> Dawson
> Cc: Jean-Claude Dehmel
> Subject: [srp] RE: [ RadSafe ] There's nothing you can do to hurry
> radioactive decay,the textbooks will tell you, but New Scientist meets a
> physicist who begs to differ
>
>
> Stewart et al
>
> The term "long-term nuclear waste" is Technically Enhanced Naturally
> Occurring Radioactive Material, and is discussed in detail in the soon
> (hopefully) to be published ANSI Standard N13.53.
>
> Jean-Claude may be able to update us.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
> Behalf Of stewart farber
> Sent: October 24, 2006 10:08 AM
> To: radsafe at radlab.nl; srp-uk at yahoogroups.com; Fred Dawson
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] There's nothing you can do to hurry radioactive
> decay,the textbooks will tell you, but New Scientist meets a physicist
> who begs to differ
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> The posting by Fred Dawson [see below] with the link to New Scientist
> magazine brings up a rather obvious and basic way in which radioactive
> decay [for the longest lived nuclides residual from a first pass thru a
> nuclear reactor] can be "hurried" which is completly non-debatable. It's
> just a matter of perspective.
>
> Namely, if the spent fuel from the first cycle of power generation is
> reprocessed and the residual long-lived U-235 [and U-238] and Pu-239 is
> removed from the spent fuel, and passed thru subsequent power generation
> cycles, the longest lived radionuclides in nuclear waste will be
> transmuted into much shorter-lived breakdown products, mainly Sr-90 and
> Cs-137.
>
> So one can certainly view the second, and subsequent power generation
> cycles in conventional reactors as simply the operation of nuclear
> reactors we can reasonably term "transmutation reactors" vs. power
> reactors, which happen to use reprocessed fuel derived fissile material.
> The not insignificant amount of electricity from these "transmutation
> reactors" is merely a modest side-benefit :-) of huge ecomonic benefit
> to society, while reducing the issue of long-term nuclear waste storage
> dramatically in terms of the time span of concern, and volume of the
> waste, in managing the nuclear waste products.
>
> The "transmutation reactor" approach requires no "New Science" and
> saves cooling nuclear waste to absolute zero as suggested should the
> claimed technique work in some unexpected way to speed up nuclear decay.
> I'd hate to see the energy bill for cooling thousands of tons of spent
> nuclear fuel to absolute zero!!!
>
> Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
> [203] 367-0791 [office]
>
>
> ============================================
> From: "Fred Dawson" <fd003f0606 at blueyonder.co.uk>
> writes [in part]:
>
> To: <srp-uk at yahoogroups.com>; <radsafe at radlab.nl>
> Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 1:13 PM
>
>
>
>> There's nothing you can do to hurry radioactive decay, the textbooks
>> will tell you, but New Scientist meets a physicist who begs to differ
>>
> http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19225741.100-halflife
> -her
> esy-accelerating-radioactive-decay.html
>>
> ............... And there's little we can do about radioactive waste
>> from nuclear reactors that will be a health hazard for generations to
>> come. Radioactivity cannot be tamed; all we can do is bundle the waste
>
>> somewhere safe and wait for it to decay away. So it takes some nerve
>> to say otherwise, and suggest that there are, after all, ways to speed
>
>> up radioactive decay.
>>
>
>
>
> --
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