The 2010 Eilat Eilot Renewable Energy Conference Looks To Carbon-Free Energy

Regardless of the response to answering society’s need for sustainable energy, the problem of nuclear waste is one that will not go away. Presently, hundreds of temporary storages hold spent fuel at densities that approach those in reactor cores, creating a high potential for radioactive leakage and terrorist attack. About 500,000 tons of the depleted uranium, which could be a major resource of nuclear energy, is now being managed as waste. A process to safely convert the most hazardous waste products of industrial society (carbon dioxide, plutonium and depleted uranium) into high energy density fuel (20,000kWh/g vs. oil’s 0.01kWh/g or solar flux 0.2kW/m2), pioneered by a small California company, will significantly reduce global warming and the threat of nuclear terrorism. In addition, a test facility that employs no fissionable material could be used to analyze the key design parameters. The process, involving a sub-critical reactor and a proliferation-resistant fuel cycle without uranium enrichment or separation actinides from rare earths, will avoid keeping the mobile fission fragments restrained in the fuel elements, which is an innovative strategy used to monitor and control the reactor. Control systems that included some aspects of this design were tested in the mid 1980s and demonstrated that uses of electrical properties of actinide dioxide could lead to essential improvement of current reactors. Since the Seebeck coefficient for uranium oxide is three times greater than the best thermoelectric material, actinide oxides could be used as a part of the fission electrical fuel element from which either a direct or alternating current may be obtained.

Regardless of the response to answering society’s need for sustainable energy, the problem of nuclear waste is one that will not go away. Presently, hundreds of temporary storages hold spent fuel at densities that approach those in reactor cores, creating a high potential for radioactive leakage and terrorist attack. About 500,000 tons of the depleted uranium, which could be a major resource of nuclear energy, is now being managed as waste. A process to safely convert the most hazardous waste products of industrial society (carbon dioxide, plutonium and depleted uranium) into high energy density fuel (20,000kWh/g vs. oil’s 0.01kWh/g or solar flux 0.2kW/m2), pioneered by a small California company, will significantly reduce global warming and the threat of nuclear terrorism. In addition, a test facility that employs no fissionable material could be used to analyze the key design parameters. The process, involving a sub-critical reactor and a proliferation-resistant fuel cycle without uranium enrichment or separation actinides from rare earths, will avoid keeping the mobile fission fragments restrained in the fuel elements, which is an innovative strategy used to monitor and control the reactor. Control systems that included some aspects of this design were tested in the mid 1980s and demonstrated that uses of electrical properties of actinide dioxide could lead to essential improvement of current reactors. Since the Seebeck coefficient for uranium oxide is three times greater than the best thermoelectric material, actinide oxides could be used as a part of the fission electrical fuel element from which either a direct or alternating current may be obtained.

Regardless of the response to answering society’s need for sustainable energy, the problem of nuclear waste is one that will not go away. Presently, hundreds of temporary storages hold spent fuel at densities that approach those in reactor cores, creating a high potential for radioactive leakage and terrorist attack. About 500,000 tons of the depleted uranium, which could be a major resource of nuclear energy, is now being managed as waste. A process to safely convert the most hazardous waste products of industrial society (carbon dioxide, plutonium and depleted uranium) into high energy density fuel (20,000kWh/g vs. oil’s 0.01kWh/g or solar flux 0.2kW/m2), pioneered by a small California company, will significantly reduce global warming and the threat of nuclear terrorism. In addition, a test facility that employs no fissionable material could be used to analyze the key design parameters. The process, involving a sub-critical reactor and a proliferation-resistant fuel cycle without uranium enrichment or separation actinides from rare earths, will avoid keeping the mobile fission fragments restrained in the fuel elements, which is an innovative strategy used to monitor and control the reactor. Control systems that included some aspects of this design were tested in the mid 1980s and demonstrated that uses of electrical properties of actinide dioxide could lead to essential improvement of current reactors. Since the Seebeck coefficient for uranium oxide is three times greater than the best thermoelectric material, actinide oxides could be used as a part of the fission electrical fuel element from which either a direct or alternating current may be obtained.