h a l f b a k e r yNot just a think tank. An entire army of think.
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This is the second half of the idea.
The first half would be research into how much energy is
typically emitted from the radiation of a certain amount (per
weight or volume) of nuclear waste, could it be retrieved via
PV
or similar technology and turned into electricity and if so at
what
cost and for how long can we expect a return on this.
So back to the second half of this NUE idea, assuming the first
half results in amazingly high amounts of energy at an
amazingly low cost: Special robots immune to the heat and
radiation take the nuclear waste and before encasing it for
the
dump location, they create small slabs of the material,
covered
in the PV (or PV like) material and then wired up and out so
that each waste crate turns into a giant battery supplying
power
for years to come.
The only problem now is how to get a long enough wire to the
bottom of the Mariana trench and how to fix the contacts
when
an octopus accidentally pulls the wire. (Above ground that
would be considered "a bug", but down there its not
considered
as a fish either).
[link]
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I suspect that the available power won't be very much.
Consider the fact that the "hottest" waste is stored in
pools of water until it has decayed somewhat. These
pools do get warm, but we're not talking about hundreds
of litres of boiling water. That means that the power
available from even the hottest waste is on the order of
kilowatts (?), not megawatts. And this only lasts for ?
months? or so, until the short-halflife isotopes have
decayed. |
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Nuclear batteries are used for spacecraft, where modest
amounts of power must be produced for long periods of
time. I think there are thermal modules (that use the
heat of decay to generate power thermoelectrically) and
also beta-capture devices (that use the electrons from
beta decay directly). |
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A lot of nuclear waste is in advantageous oxidation states...
could burn it...? |
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Is an electiricy the sort of government they had on Naboo? |
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This idea is basically about a type of fluorescence. Find a
substance that absorbs gamma rays and radiates visible
light, and then use photovoltiacs to convert that light to
electricity. (Note most fluorescent materials absorb
ultraviolet light and radiate visible light.) |
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I suspect it might be necessary to accomplish this in stages.
Substance 1 absorbs gammas and radiates X-rays; Substance
2 absorbs X-rays and radiates ultraviolet; Substance 3 is an
ordinary fluorescent substance. |
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But, [Vernon], there are already more efficient ways to
generate electricity from radiation. |
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[MaxwellBuchanan], how could you possibly forget that this
is the HalfBakery? |
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Thanks [Rayford]. I fixed that. [xen], its so that when I find
out how bad this idea is, I could blame it on the 2nd Bush
administration. But wait! Didn't [max] just kill the idea. Why
are we still discussing it? |
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BetaVotaics and similar energy-capture technologies are Baked and WKTE. |
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Your puny human science has not yet developed the hardened semiconductor systems capable of that sort of energy conversion, but it's merely a matter of time, effort, resources, heartache, and paying us huge amounts of money to get there. |
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