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Can fuel from nuclear power plants be recycled indefinitely so there’s no waste? How would that apply to fusion? You were mentioning that fusion generates its own fuel anyway in a sense. Kenneth, Chicago |
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Steve - With the current designs we have fusion power stations. These are conceptual. We haven’t built one yet. With the current designs we burn deuterium which we extract from sea water and we burn lithium which you get from salts. There’s millions of years-worth of this fuel. The by-product is helium which you can put in kid’s balloons if you really like. They don’t have any long-lived wastes from this. It’s really an ideal way to make energy. |
October 2008 |
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Ellingson, Kenneth L asked the Naked Scientists:
Can nuclear fuel (from power plants) be recycled indefinitely so there is no waste?
Knute Ellingson, Chicago
What do you think?
- Ellingson, Kenneth L - 19th Oct 08
Obviously not. because you cannot extract energy without creating changes. However the fissionable isotope of Uranium is only a small proprtion of natural Uranium and turning the non fissionable common isotope U238 into a fissionable isotope will increase the amount of enrgy avaiable by a large factor.
- Soul Surfer - 19th Oct 08
Sorry, What I meant is can nuclear fuel be recycled (refined and reused) until it is no longer toxic waste or harmful?
See the whole discussion | Make a comment- Knute - 21st Oct 08
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