Fuel 'pins' that last 5 years!

[Rennhack]

Read this, and try not to punch your screen.

Each of the nation's 104 reactors is fueled with about 90 tons of enriched uranium fuel, packaged in sealed metal tubes called fuel pins. As the uranium fissions, the byproducts are trapped inside these pins, where they accumulate and begin to take on neutrons that would otherwise be driving the continuing fission process. The ongoing build-up, which includes the heavier transuranic elements, renders the reactor non-operational after about five years once the fission process stops.  At this point, the pins are replaced with a new set, and the spent fuel typically is stored in a pool of water at the reactor site.

http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Texas-AM-Physicist-Sees-Energy-Solutions-In-Green-Nuclear-Power-Technology-205389221.html

[Laundry Man]

No wonder people are having such problems getting outages.  Things sure have changed since I left commercial power, every five years?
LM

[RDTroja]

That's what I like about this industry. Even after more than 39 years, I still learn something new every day. 

[Rennhack]

And... A typical nuclear power plant in a year generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel (not 90). The nuclear industry generates a total of about 2,000 - 2,300 metric tons of used fuel per year.

[Chimera]

A little knowledge is such a useless thing.

[roadhp]

If you think about it, though, some of it makes some sense.  The typical fuel goes through 3 passes, which one could say lasts from 4.5 to 6 years, depending on your cycle.  The biggest problem I have with the entire spent fuel issue is that we are getting rid of the Pu instead of using it to power reactors, all because of some non-proliferation treaty from Carter.  We should be reprocessing the fuel.  What the story also doesn't tell you is what they do with all of the real waste, i.e. Sr-90 et al.

[RDTroja]

If you think about it, though, some of it makes some sense.  The typical fuel goes through 3 passes, which one could say lasts from 4.5 to 6 years, depending on your cycle.  The biggest problem I have with the entire spent fuel issue is that we are getting rid of the Pu instead of using it to power reactors, all because of some non-proliferation treaty from Carter.  We should be reprocessing the fuel.  What the story also doesn't tell you is what they do with all of the real waste, i.e. Sr-90 et al.

It makes a very small amount of sense when you consider the 'renders the reactor non-operational after about five years once the fission process stops' part. That definitely makes it sound like the author has no clue about the actual way it works and is drawing assumptions from a limited store of knowledge.

As far as reprocessing fuel, I can't think of any organization that I would trust to do that safely and with the proper amount of controls... certainly not the US Government. Maybe I am too much of a cynic, but I come by it honestly.

[Contract SRO]

http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Texas-AM-Physicist-Sees-Energy-Solutions-In-Green-Nuclear-Power-Technology-205389221.html


[/quote]

Just because there are phrases in the quote that are true does not make the quote true.  I remember an old rule of test taking with respect to true/false questions, if any part of a question is false the the answer is "false".

[Chimera]

If you think about it, though, some of it makes some sense.  The typical fuel goes through 3 passes, which one could say lasts from 4.5 to 6 years, depending on your cycle.  The biggest problem I have with the entire spent fuel issue is that we are getting rid of the Pu instead of using it to power reactors, all because of some non-proliferation treaty from Carter.  We should be reprocessing the fuel.  What the story also doesn't tell you is what they do with all of the real waste, i.e. Sr-90 et al.

If you do the ball-park math, the amount of Pu produced in the fuel bundles is on par with the amount of U-235 burned - based on the old 7x7 array, one-year cycle fuel (yeah, I know, the real math shows a slightly different story but that's for another day).  I've never seen any numbers as to the efficiency of the reprocessing process and its ability to remove the poisons from the spent fuel, but . . .

I often suspected that the whole civilian nuclear power program was conceived as a way to produce Pu for the government's weapons programs.  Apparently some rather smart people also thought that way back in the early 1950's - thus the binding agreements to not use materials from the civilian programs for the government's programs.  That may be part of the reason why reprocessing was killed under the guise of the nuclear non-proliferation agreements.

[twinturbo427]

Looks like a fairly smart chap.

http://physics.tamu.edu/directory/showpeople.php?name=Peter%20McIntyre&userid=mcintyre

[cheme09]

If you do the ball-park math, the amount of Pu produced in the fuel bundles is on par with the amount of U-235 burned - based on the old 7x7 array, one-year cycle fuel (yeah, I know, the real math shows a slightly different story but that's for another day).  I've never seen any numbers as to the efficiency of the reprocessing process and its ability to remove the poisons from the spent fuel, but . . .

The reference LWR generally has a conversion ratio around 60%.  At least that's what some of my old books say.  So it's quite a bit away from break-even.

Personally, I don't think that reprocessing, by itself, would be the ideal solution.  An ideal waste solution would be reprocessing in addition to fast reactor technology.  That way reprocessing would have to be minimal, if any, and the fast reactor can burn the rest of the U-238, Pu, and TRU's.  At the end of the cycle, you'd be left with "real" waste.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

If you do the ball-park math, the amount of Pu produced in the fuel bundles is on par with the amount of U-235 burned - based on the old 7x7 array, one-year cycle fuel (yeah, I know, the real math shows a slightly different story but that's for another day).  I've never seen any numbers as to the efficiency of the reprocessing process and its ability to remove the poisons from the spent fuel, but . . .

I often suspected that the whole civilian nuclear power program was conceived as a way to produce Pu for the government's weapons programs.  Apparently some rather smart people also thought that way back in the early 1950's - thus the binding agreements to not use materials from the civilian programs for the government's programs.  That may be part of the reason why reprocessing was killed under the guise of the nuclear non-proliferation agreements.

That could be true, but it's a pretty crappy way to produce plutonium if your goal is weapons grade Pu. Civil nuclear power was just an offshoot of submarine technology after Rickover proved the concept. Civil used pressurized water reactors because the Navy did most of the R&D. At least, this is what I got from reading Alvin Weinberg's book (Weinberg holds part of the patent for the original LWR tech). It is really an interesting book about the history of nuclear power, I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested (http://www.amazon.com/First-Nuclear-Era-Times-Technological/dp/1563963582).

But really, if your goal is plute and want thermal reactor tech, a CANDU variant does much better. It has a higher U-238 content in the fuel and can do online refueling which is crucial for high grade Pu-239. Carter was just an anti-nuclear politician who was more interested in a solar panel utopia than realistic power production. Him outlawing reprocessing has set back that technology decades. Even if it never panned out in the current class of thermal reactors, I'm sure a lot of the R&D that could have been generated would be directly or indirectly applied to reprocessing technology for fast reactors.

I always wonder what state is going to make the smart decision to build a spent fuel repository. It seems like, economic wise, it would be an endless cash cow. Utilities from all over the country will be paying to store fuel there and once we reach the point of fast reactor tech, that spent fuel becomes mighty valuable.

[Ksheed]

I always wonder what state is going to make the smart decision to build a spent fuel repository. It seems like, economic wise, it would be an endless cash cow. Utilities from all over the country will be paying to store fuel there and once we reach the point of fast reactor tech, that spent fuel becomes mighty valuable.

My guess would be New Mexico or West Texas. They seem to be the only states showing any interest in storing Rad Waste.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/273551-sen-wyden-take-on-nuclear-waste-storage-raises-hopes-next-congress

http://news.yahoo.com/radioactive-waste-approved-near-andrews-texas-221200396.html