3 ms·
No, that would cost more energy than we extracted from it. However, what we call “spent fuel” isn’t fully used up. It can no longer be used in a normal reactor,
by db48x 4y ago
No, that would cost more energy than we extracted from it. However, what we call “spent fuel” isn’t fully used up. It can no longer be used in a normal reactor, but reactors can be build which can continue extracting energy from it. In fact, only about 2% of the usable energy has been extracted from the fuel by the time we start calling it waste. Most of the high–level waste from today’s reactors is really just fuel for reactors that we haven’t built yet, due to over–regulation.
- smn1234 4y agothis is fascinating and unexpected. Do you have more literature on this ?
- Timshel 4y agoBreeder reactor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor Not an expert but from what I read development stopped mainly due to uranium supply being sufficient making expensive further research not worth it. But on the security part using liquid sodium certainly contributed :).