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I still don't get why we can't use the waste, it gives off heat and radiation, so why can't we turn that into electricity? Is it not potable enough? What is the
by tiku 4y ago
I still don't get why we can't use the waste, it gives off heat and radiation, so why can't we turn that into electricity? Is it not potable enough? What is the problem?
- _ph_ 4y agoBy far, not enough heat and radiation. With some luck you could drive the lights around the storage depots.
- tlb 4y agoMost waste doesn't give off very much heat unless you get enough of it close together to get a chain reaction going. A lump of stuff radioactive enough to kill you in minutes barely produces enough heat to get warm. So you have to get a chain reaction going if you want to drive a steam turbine with it. But if you get it a little too close together, it goes boom. So for all the reasons that nuclear reactors are expensive, a waste heat generator would be larger and at least as complex.
- diamondlovesyou 4y ago> But if you get it a little too close together, it goes boom. It won't go boom. One of the difficulties (of many) of the Manhattan project was that it was really really difficult to get fissile material together fast enough to cause a significant explosion. Those conditions are impossible in reactors. What does happen is that gaseous hydrogen is generated and that subsequently explodes.
- ncmncm 4y agoChernobyl made an entirely big enough boom for any practical purpose.
- ratdragon 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor is supposed to be the solution. A company called TerraPower is planning to build a test reactor soon.
- ncmncm 4y agoYet, it is not, and cannot ever be competitive.
- s1artibartfast 4y agolow efficiency and high cost.