http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Visions-of-a-nuclear-future-tp519491p521243.html
> Reading this morning's paper, I stumbled across yet another
> discussion of nuclear power and the conflict between clean, efficient
> power it provides and the fear of its dangers. I recalled an article
> Belinda sent out a while back and thought it worth forwarding,
> below. (The original URL was no longer valid but
http://tinyurl.com/> 7kxj5 points to one that works .. and I've attached Belinda's
> original)
>
> I'm curious if we have more recent information within the group. For
> example, do we know any of the presenters at the
> Second Annual Workshop on Accelerator-Driven Subcritical System
>
http://iac.isu.edu/workshops/ADSS2004_3.html> Or do we know if the initial ADS research has been found flawed?
>
> This sub-critical reactor technology seems almost impossibly sweet --
> even consuming existing nuclear wastes and potentially having fewer
> and shorter lived waste.
>
http://www.nupecc.org/iai2001/pdf/ADS.pdf>
http://j-parc.jp/Transmutation/ja/asiaadspdf/06-zhao.pdf>
http://j-parc.jp/Transmutation/ws/pdfen/4-1_Oigawa.pdf>
> I find it depressing that the US has blown decades of research
> because of the unfortunate reaction to Political Correctness.
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore
>
http://backspaces.net -
http://redfish.com -
http://friam.org>
>
> Visions of a nuclear future
>
> Financial Times, 16 July 2004 - How do you turn a Green bright red?
> Just mention nuclear power, judging by the response of
> environmentalists to the growing use of the N-word in debates about
> future energy sources.
>
> Last week, Tony Blair told a committee of senior parliamentarians
> that America was pressing Britain to re-examine the case for building
> a new generation of nuclear power stations and that nuclear power
> could not be removed from the agenda.
>
> Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, South Africa's minerals and energy minister,
> last month incurred the wrath of environmental campaigners for
> suggesting that nuclear power might give her nation greater energy
> diversity and security of supply.
>
> A few weeks earlier, Professor James Lovelock, the British
> environmental guru, had provoked outrage with his apparent apostasy
> in calling for huge investment in nuclear power to help combat global
> warming.
>
> Sir Crispin Tickell, a leading British environmentalist, has even
> managed to annoy both eco-activists and ministers by accusing the UK
> government of failing to make the case for nuclear power in tackling
> global warming.
>
> At first sight, it is hard not to share the frustration of
> environmentalists at being presented with a bleak choice between
> climatic disaster or reliance on the technology that gave us Three
> Mile Island, the Chernobyl disaster and thousands of tonnes of
> radioactive waste.
>
> Yet it is a false dichotomy, based on a view of nuclear technology as
> outdated as the cold war. Whisper it quietly, but experiments are
> about to begin on a new form of nuclear power that even eco-warriors
> might tolerate, if not welcome.
>
> It is radically different from the traditional reactor designs that
> prompt fear and loathing: for one thing, its safety is underwritten
> by the laws of physics, rather than human ingenuity.
>
> Better still, it can use a range of different fuels - including some
> that would minimise the risk of weapons production by "rogue"
> nations. But best of all, this new form of reactor can incinerate
> waste from other reactors, turning today's noxious stockpiles into
> energy.
>
> Such are the prospects held out by the new reactor, the Accelerator-
> Driven Subcritical (ADS) system. First proposed in the 1990s by
> scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and
> Carlo Rubbia, the Italian Nobel prize-winning physicist, the idea
> behind ADS is more elegant than its name.
>
> Conventional nuclear power exploits the energy released by the
> splitting - "fission" - of uranium atoms. Along with energy, this
> fission process releases neutrons capable of splitting further
> uranium atoms, triggering a chain reaction.
>
> If the numbers of neutrons are just sufficient to keep the reaction
> in balance, the result is a "critical" reactor - and a steady flow of
> power that today provides about 17 per cent of the world's
> electricity demand.
>
> But if the chain reaction runs out of control, the reactor could
> explode as an atomic bomb does. This has compelled designers to
> devise measures to prevent a disaster - yet these are no guarantee of
> safety. The ADS system adopts a different approach to nuclear safety
> - one that even Homer Simpson could not undermine.
>
> As its name implies, the ADS reactor is "sub-critical" - that is, its
> fuel simply does not generate enough neutrons to sustain a chain
> reaction. Instead, the reactor is fed with neutrons created by a
> particle accelerator.
>
> Cut off this supply of neutrons - deliberately or accidentally - and
> the reactor reverts to its natural, somnolent state. An explosive
> chain reaction is not just unlikely: it is prevented by the laws of
> physics.
>
> Moreover, as chain reaction stability no longer depends on the type
> of fuel used, the ADS system is a nuclear omnivore, able to work with
> fuels that are wholly unsuited to weapons production. To cap it all,
> an ADS reactor can even consume radioactive waste from conventional
> reactors.
>
> This holy trinity of advantages has made the ADS the subject of
> intense theoretical research for more than a decade. Now the theory
> is to be tested in experiments by an international team of scientists
> at Italy's Casaccia Research Centre, near Rome.
>
> A small research reactor at the centre has been modified to make it
> sub-critical, and a particle accelerator is to be built to feed the
> reactor with neutrons knocked out of a tantalum target.
>
> The first experiments, expected to start within two years, will focus
> simply on gaining experience in the art of feeding neutrons to a
> reactor.
>
> Once these are completed, the team plans to use a more powerful
> reactor and accelerator system to create an ADS system capable of
> waste incineration. A pilot plant could be completed within five
> years.
>
> That is the plan. In reality, the ADS approach may still harbour an
> unexpected problem that stops it realising its potential. Most
> concern surrounds the creation of the neutrons needed to feed the
> reactor.
>
> A commercial power station consuming substantial amounts of waste
> will require an accelerator substantially more powerful than any now
> available.
>
> However, the biggest cloud hanging over the project is the same one
> that has dogged nuclear power for decades: economics. No matter what
> its benefits, if the electricity ADS generates costs too much, it
> will have no role to play in future energy policy.
>
> With the public rightly chary of the return of old-style nuclear
> power, but a growing belief even among some environmentalists that
> renewables alone are not enough, a lot is riding on the success of
> those experiments near Rome.
>
> Copyright 2004 The Financial Times Limited
> Financial Times (London, England)
>
> Copyright ? 2004 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
> rights reserved.
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>
>
>
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore
>
http://backspaces.net -
http://redfish.com -
http://friam.org>
>
>
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