Treatment transmutation of nuclear waste

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Treatment transmutation of nuclear waste




by Philippe Schutt » 01/02/07, 09:18

If that leads, we can at least assign a cost to the management of nuclear waste ...

MEGAPIE is a pioneering international experience carried out at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen, Switzerland, in which CEA and CNRS participate. Its goal is to produce neutrons from a liquid metal target hit by a proton beam of one megawatt power. The high energy neutrons thus produced could theoretically be used to incinerate nuclear waste. The first phase of the experiment has just ended with results beyond expectations.


Cattenom nuclear power plant in France
MEGAPIE: a first step towards the transmutation of nuclear waste?

Obtained from the nuclei of atoms, neutrons are essential particles for research on the atomic structures of matter. In a subcritical nuclear reactor coupled to an accelerator - ADS system for 'Accelerator Driven System', currently under study -, the intense flux of neutrons can theoretically be used to transmute large quantities of very radioactive elements into short-lived or even stable elements. This research targets in particular neptunium, americium and curium, which are present in the long-lived nuclear waste from power plants.

The 'Spallation Neutron Source' ("SINQ"), located at the PSI, has been tested on this principle: a beam of high energy protons is directed at a metallic target and strikes the neutrons of the target, thus achieving their ejection. or "spallation". Until now, the source has been solid metal, but theoretical calculations have shown that a liquid metal target could produce a more intense flux of neutrons.

The MEGAPIE experiment (Megawatt Pilot Experiment) was therefore carried out to obtain this demonstration, with operation over several months from a quantity of 920 kg of liquid bismuth lead. The proton beam used, the most powerful in the world with a power of 1 megawatt, was provided by the cyclotron of PSI.

The operation of MEGAPIE between August and December 2006 indicates that the neutron flux obtained is 80% higher than that of a solid target. Examination of the target, now solidified, will begin, with the aim of compiling information on the composition and behavior of the materials used. These results will be used to design new targets. More generally, they will benefit from studies on reactors driven by accelerators, and possible industrial projects for the transmutation of nuclear waste.


About MEGAPIE

At a cost of 50 million euros, the MEGAPIE project brings together many partners, notably the European Commission. Since 2000, a multidisciplinary team has been actively working on the experience and has carried out numerous tests. This team consists of 170 researchers, engineers and technicians from European research organizations (CEA, CNRS, ENEA, FZK, PSI, SCK • CEN), Japanese (JAEA), Korean (KAERI) and American (DOE).

CEA was the technical co-manager of the project with PSI, and in particular developed the specific heat exchanger system and miniature neutron sensors. The CNRS, via its SubaTech laboratory in Nantes, supervised the design of the target which was then largely manufactured by the French company ATEA-REEL.

Source: ECA


http://www.cea.fr/le_cea/actualites/experience_megapie
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by Woodcutter » 02/02/07, 01:16

Interesting!
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by jonule » 02/02/07, 10:12

sources: CEA

apparently it only relates to certain elements, of which depleted uranium is not part? yet its lifespan is 4.5 million years ...

"in theory it still works ..."

what is uranium? we all produce it, by consuming electricity ...

*******************************

The other industrial plague powder.


Among the many deadly pollutants produced by scientists on Earth, we find metallic uranium resulting from the denaturation of natural uranium rocks. Uranium is indeed an element which is found in the form of ore everywhere in the earth's layer but in no case in the form of metal. There is on average less than 1 kg of uranium per tonne of earth and rock and the richest mines contain from 1,5 kg to 5 kg of uranium ore per tonne.

This uranium ore is formed of 3 isotopes intimately mixed and gathered in tiny samples which we find scattered in nature in the following stable proportions: U234: 0,0054%, U235: 0,7110%, U238: 99,2830%. Of these three isotopes only U235 is both fissile and capable of supporting a chain reaction. (The fission of a single atom of U235, namely its division into at least two “smaller” atoms, via the 2 released neutrons stimulates the fission of 2 other atoms of U235 which in turn cause fission of 4 other atoms and so on.) These two prized features of the U235 are used in the fuel of nuclear power plants and in the explosives of atomic bombs.
Natural ore, too diluted and insufficiently radioactive, is however unsuitable for maintaining this chain reaction. To do this, it must be "enriched" by bringing it to the desired radioactive density. A first partial "enrichment" produces the "Yellow cake" by artificial concentration of the radioactive atoms dispersed in the ore. Uranium grain after uranium grain, uranium is separated by chemical aggression from the lands and rocks with which nature had intermingled it.


A second and more delicate subsequent “enrichment”, by centrifugation or gas diffusion, will then increase the U235 content before making it an artificial uranium metal. This second enrichment will bring uranium 235 to at least 1,5% of the mass of uranium to make fuel or to at least 90% to make an explosive. The final enrichment therefore consists in enriching the uranium 235 content of a mass by taking a part of the uranium 238 from it.

The part removed and unusable as fuel or explosive is called "depleted uranium" in the sense that it will now contain a smaller proportion of uranium 235 atoms (there will always be a portion left) than it had at the start . “Depleted” uranium is also recovered by reprocessing atomic fuel waste. There the U238 will be partially depleted not only of the not consumed U235, but also of the various activation by-products, including plutonium and uranium 236, and fission products created during the energy production cycle. .


"Depleted" uranium is an artificial, heavy, toxic and radioactive metal that contains a smaller proportion of uranium 235 than there is in uranium ores but a greater amount of uranium per gram than have the minerals!
This common term for "depleted" uranium is one of the most misleading there is. He suggests that he is not dangerous. Despite the crazy expenses caused by its delicate civil and military storage, despite the severe regulations which concern it, despite the ban which strikes citizens to dispose of it at their will, despite the irrefutable scientific evidence, despite the large cemeteries of young soldiers fallen well after the battle and the gigantic contingents sick more than half1, despite the meteoric growth of diseases in the countries martyred with uranium and in the world, in spite of the innumerable genetic monsters put in the world in these accursed lands2, we dare still proclaim it safe. In order to convince ourselves of this, we compare it to uranium ores to declare it less aggressive than them; mixing there a truth of proportion, the least content of U235 of the AU, with a confusing lie of density, while bringing back the AU, in fact not with ores, but with another uranium industry l "not depleted" that l 'we decree "natural". This is a pure and simple scam. First of all, whether metallic uranium is "depleted" or not changes little in its danger. It is an Alpha transmitter and it remains whole and deadly in the event of internal contamination even if it is free of uranium 235. With a few Becquerel “235” less it still has artificially condensed a few Becquerel “238” too many. “Depleted” uranium is also induced radiological cancer. Then that if the AU certainly contains a lower proportion of uranium




235 than that found in nature, its density of uranium 238 per gram is, on the other hand, decidedly higher. Nature does not concentrate uranium atoms, the nuclear industry does. In a gram of uranium, depleted or not, there is indeed 98% of uranium while in a gram of ore there is at best only 0,5%. (It will also be noted that uranium 235 represents, at most, 0,00356% of 1 tonne of ore but, at least, 0,0142% of 1 tonne of “depleted” uranium. There is therefore 4 times more of uranium-235 in “depleted” uranium only in an equivalent mass of ore.) In nature one never finds a gram of pure uranium, which is more metallic, in one piece. The simple fact that it is a prefabricated concentrate makes artificial uranium more radioactive than the natural element from which it was obtained. Even if 100% depleted, 1 gram of uranium is still more radioactive than a gram of uranium ore. Let them pass a detector over them! He's crackling more with the AU! Strange, is it not, for an element that is less aggressive than life?

Yet it is this uranium 238 "depleted in uranium 235 but more radioactive than life" that the nuclear industries sold to the military and introduced into various projectiles as a pyrophore armor-piercing device. Notwithstanding international conventions which prohibit its use, since the fall of the Berlin Wall already more than 8000 tonnes of "depleted" uranium have "burned" in the various theaters of operation and the various ranges. Uranium 238 is a recognized toxic and radiological fish3 which has a radioactive half-life of 4,5 billion


years and a half-life of 5 years in metallic form (which is an insoluble form) whereas it is only 3 days in mineral form (which is a soluble form). It is an isotope which expels at each shot an electromagnetic gamma ray of 48 KeV at the speed of 300.000 km / s and a heavy Alpha particle of 4,268 MeV at the speed of 20.000 km / s comprising 2 protons and 2 neutrons joined together. Metallourd and pyrophore, the density of 18,95 Kg per liter makes uranium an armor-piercing perforator without rival and an incomparable radiological polluter of biosphere and lungs.
More than 70% of the uranium metal of projectiles is pulverized in a colossal number of particles, burning during the perforation of the target that it literally melts as the temperature is high (3000 °).











Each gram of uranium that burns produces indeed at least a hundred billion ultra-fine dust (from 0,1 nanometer to 100 micron for an average size of 0,5 micron4). 60% of this dust measures less than 2 microns and, like gases, can thus cross all the protective barriers to penetrate directly into the lungs before passing into the blood which will transport them here and there in the tissues.
The internal biological effects of uranium: depleted uranium, cheap tumor.
Pulled in contact with the tissues, the Alpha particles can each penetrate them over 1/20 of a millimeter (50 microns) by crossing about five biological cells. These alpha particles emitted by various radio-elements including uranium, so harmless when emitted from outside the body become lethal when drawn from inside the body. (A bit like arsenic which is harmless in its vial but deadly in the stomach.) All the ionizing energy will be absorbed by a mass of tissue reduced to the extreme.


It is the effect of internal proximity demonstrated and calculated in 1978 by Maurice Eugène André5 and later even photographed6. It is this effect of internal proximity that the nuclear industries obscure so much that they know how criminals are ultimately the inodore radioactive effluents that they release and that we all breathe. These Alpha particles are sub-atomic "radio-biological" projectiles that attack living targets of atomic size. They disrupt the functioning of “life atoms” by undermining the physical and chemical bases of cell life7. They ionize the molecules.

Radioactive dust is therefore all the more dangerous when it becomes small. Tiny they penetrate the organism without obstacle; stand still for years near cells, even invade them, putting them within reach of their short but powerful ionizing radius of action. Installed in the tissues, these insoluble metals reduced to micrometric or even nanometric dust then repeatedly bombard the cells, ionize them chronically without allowing them to restore themselves. This harmful action of the Alpha is all the more devious as it operates histologically in an invisible and insensitive manner. Our senses, as much as the dosimeters, are indeed incapable of detecting the intromission of such small radioactive particles within the tissues, they are incapable of capturing the pain which the few ionized cells feel. It will take them years, once the pain has spread and the pain is noticeable, for them to sound their belated alarm. “Alpha” radioactive dust is therefore a veritable microscopic atomic weapon which secretly contaminates each organism which breathes or ingests it.
The dispersion of undetectable radioactive aerosols by thousands of tonnes during the last wars puts humanity and life at risk. Each cubic meter of air is poisoned. Nanoparticles fly further and far and many will remain in the air forever. The biosphere is transformed into a slow and eternal radiological gas chamber8 in a general indifference supported by the imperceptibility of the danger and the mutism complicit in science.


Particles fly, tumors grow, 9 the law of silence reigns. Inhale Exhale. Business must go on until the end of the terminal solution.

***************

Nuclear waste photo album:

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/DU-Baby2003.htm

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Hot-Parti ... ue1997.htm

http://www.cea.fr/fr/Publications/clefs2.asp?id=43

http://www.llrc.org/aldermastrept.pdf
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by paotop » 03/02/07, 16:00

Bah ........ the nuclear is like the games .................. it is not worth the candle : Cheesy:
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by Christophe » 03/02/07, 16:16

jonule wrote:Nuclear waste photo album:


It's awful we agree but only here we tend to forget that: gas, coal and oil do infinitely more damage (human and animal and environmental) EVERY day and in general indifference (or almost)... that nuclear ... especially since 99% of the anti nuclear arguments are based on Chernobyl which is certainly a major disaster but whose the reasons are undoubtedly as much political as technological!

It is not for nothing that it happened 3 years before the fall of the wall (and maybe the catastrophe even accelerated the fall of communism ...)

If you want we can look for photos of the exactions of the current oil wars ... I would find you equally horrible photos and probably in much larger quantity ...
:|

Start by looking at Chechnya ... Religion is the political argument of war but the real economic cause is oil ...
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by Christophe » 03/02/07, 16:17

If not to answer this subject I find it very interesting ... and sorry but I have confidence in the improvement of nuclear treatment technology for future generations.

The climate bomb seems to me much more dangerous ...
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by Woodcutter » 03/02/07, 23:19

Christophe wrote:If not to answer this subject I find it very interesting ... and sorry but I have confidence in the improvement of nuclear treatment technology for future generations.

The climate bomb seems to me much more dangerous ...
Not better !

I would add that exhibiting "monster galleries" is very easy and it brings nothing ...
Ah yes, it shocks ... :|
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by jonule » 10/09/08, 13:36

wish it starts to move around!

INVITATION: Wednesday September 10, 2008 at 20 p.m.
Union House 5 Bd Clémenceau in Bourges

Meeting * open to all
Bourges: Depleted Uranium Weapons Test Center
What dangers for the population?


Agenda:

- European Parliament resolution of 22 May 2008 on weapons containing (depleted) uranium and their effects on human health and the environment.
Towards a global ban on the use of these weapons (see attachments)

- Actions to obtain in Bourges the implementation of the measures recommended by this resolution:

- the steps taken (General Council) and in progress (Prefect, parliamentarians) (see attachment)

- the other actions to be organized: information, local press, conference,….

- Creation of a collective

* meeting on the initiative of the Bourges committee of the Peace Movement and of worried and rebellious people following the NR article of May 27, 2008: "Does depleted uranium have health effects?" "

Some preliminary information:

Dear friends,

Uranium, a hard, dense and pyrophoric metal, is used in the manufacture of ammunition. It is also doubly toxic: chemical toxicity and radiological toxicity.

In “depleted” form, military and civilian nuclear waste (enrichment of uranium for bombs and for nuclear power plants) it is inexpensive.

The studies and the development of these weapons were carried out in Bourges (EFAB and shooting range). Since these weapons equip the French army, the batches of this ammunition have been tested on the Bourges range by the Bourges ETBS.

Both locally and nationally, the Peace Movement is campaigning for a ban on these weapons and providing support to the victims (Avigolfe: association for victims of the Gulf War)

On these weapons, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on May 22, 2008 calling for efforts to ban them worldwide as well as for a moratorium and scientific studies on their use.

This resolution was the subject of an article in the New Republic of May 27, 2008. Following this article, worried and rebellious residents of the Cher contacted our association.

A meeting with a collaborator of the CG Pdt has already taken place, others are requested for September (Prefect, Parliamentarians).

This question does not concern only the pacifists. So we very much hope that associations and people who are concerned with environmental and health issues are involved in the actions that we have started to implement. This is the objective of the meeting that we are proposing to you.

Joël FRISON (Peace Movement)

02 48 20 30


polluter pays !

When will an epidemiological study begin?
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by Bibiphoque » 10/09/08, 13:58

Hello,
I had read something about it, the "flash conversion"

The impoverished U, we do not know what to do with it, to the point that it sometimes serves as ballast for the keels of a ship, it is a very heavy metal.
# @ +
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This is not because we always said that it is impossible that we should not try :)
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by Woodcutter » 10/09/08, 14:45

Bibiphoque wrote:Hello,
I had read something about it, the "flash conversion"

The impoverished U, we do not know what to do with it, to the point that it sometimes serves as ballast for the keels of a ship, it is a very heavy metal.
# @ +
Yes, and on moving parts of airliners too, I believe.
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