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Nuclear Waste |
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by Ida Ayu Mas Amelia Kusumaningtyas | 21-05-2017 01:24
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Nuclear waste is the material that nuclear fuel becomes after it is used in a reactor. Even though the appearance of nuclear waste looks the same as nuclear fuel, the contents aren't quite the same. Nuclear waste, or used fuel, is dangerously radioactive, and remains so for a thousand of years. It is so toxic that when it first come out of the reactor whilst standing close to it unshielded, you would die within a few days because of acute radiation sickness caused by receiving lethal radioactive dose within a few seconds.
Used fuel is never unshielded, since water is an excellent shield, nuclear waste is kept underwater for a few years until the radiation decays to levels that can b shielded by concrete in large storage casks. Option for final disposal includes deep geologic storage and recycling. Since 90% of nuclear wastes contain uranium, it also means that there is still 90% of useable fuel. Nuclear waste can be chemically processed and placed in advanced fast reactors to close the fuel cycle. A closed fuel cycle means much less nuclear waste and much more energy extracted from the raw one. Although this is so, advanced fast reactors have not been deployed on any major scale yet. The longest living nuclides in nuclear waste are the ones that can be used as fuel: plutonium and the minor actinides. If these materials are burnt in fuel through recycling, nuclear waste would only remain radioactive for a few hundred years, as opposed to a few hundred thousand. This significantly reduces concerns with long-term storage. Resource : https://whatisnuclear.com/articles/waste.html
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5 Comments
thanks for sharing
Posted 06-02-2018 22:05
good report
Posted 06-02-2018 22:04
Cheonghan and Daon, I will explore more about it..
Posted 27-05-2017 01:47
Hi Ida! Thanks for sharing great report on nuclear energy.
Closed fuel cycle sounds really efficeint, but i wonder why they aren't deplyoed yet. Are there any environmental or feasibility issues?
It will be interesting if you do further research and write more about closed fuel cycle. Thanks for sharing again!
Posted 22-05-2017 17:46
Ida, thank you for your report. The last part of your report was interesting, which says that if plunotium and the minor actinides are burnt 'through recycling', nuclear waste lasts much shorter than usual. I belive it would be great if you could tell us more about how these could be recycled or burnt through recycling.
Posted 21-05-2017 01:40