Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

Re:Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas ... by petre on Sunday April 07, 2019 @02:46AM (#19595196)

A considerable part of the waste can be reprocessed and further burned in fast breeder reactors, creating fuel for the conventional ones. The rest can be vitrified and stored. Why we don't already do this? Fear of nuclear proliferation, breeders are quite expensive, anti nuclear sentiment.

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Re:Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas ... by rocqua on Sunday April 07, 2019 @02:56AM (#19595228)

What are the radioactive properties of the end product like? E.g. does this produce waste with longer half lives? Lower initial radiation?

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Re:Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas ... by DennisP on Sunday April 07, 2019 @06:20AM (#19595924)

The waste from fast reactors is just the fission products. It's about 1% as much waste by volume as conventional reactors. Encased it in glass, and the overall mix will be back to the radioactivity of the original ore in a couple centuries.

The waste from conventional reactors is the fission products plus lots of U238, a fair amount of plutonium, some U235, and various transuranics. The transuranics and plutonium are the really long-lived radioactive waste.

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Re:Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas ... by petre on Sunday April 07, 2019 @03:29AM (#19595361)

https://youtu.be/rv-mFSoZOkE

Longer half-lives = less radioactivity.

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Re:Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas ... by pfdietz on Sunday April 07, 2019 @07:45AM (#19596198)

We don't reprocess spent fuel because it's a net economic loss to do so. The separated plutonium is sufficiently difficult to turn into fuel that, far from saving money, it costs more than just enriching fresh uranium.

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