William Gaatjes
Lifer
I make this post in hope to start a valuable discussion about the progress that has been made over the years with respect to nuclear research in physics. Wherepossum, i will try to copy your style of writing because i find it to be excellent. :thumbsup:
Here goes...
We have all these fancy accelerators and from a technological point of view this is indeed wonderful. But i am interested in the practical application as well. I fully agree that there must always be research done that is not immediately profitable because it allows to explore the philosophical borders and boundaries of our universe. Many mathematical models exist how matter functions and most mathematical models even if not perfect have brought us much wealth and reduction in suffering if applied with wisdom. Understand here that knowledge can be used for good or bad. It has no philosophical view about how life should function, it just is effectively another tool for humanity or any other sentient being able to grasp it.
Politics and nuclear research, a bit of history
Most people will ask and have asked recently : Why, if there are so much safer designs of nuclear reactors are they not used ?
I will try to explain why. In the free world, you need grants and funds to do research. These grants and funds come for example from wealthy people who do donations for mainly 2 reasons : Reason 1 is strictly economical and practical because they see it as an investment and they want to see profit return. Reason 2 is more philosophical, they have earned so much money that they are in a position to change the world into a place with less suffering, thus they donate to research where they think people will benefit from.
Another option is that the government will hand out grants and funds because it is in the nations or countries interest(meaning for the people).
Since money is limited, it has to be allocated to what is important for the people. Although many people think that politicians do what they want, it is a coin with 2 sides. Politicians are human too and as such they have their own personal agenda and the agenda of the people they represent. But to win votes, they need the public opinion and a part of that public are rich individuals who have again their own agenda.
Three mile Island, 1979
In the US, the Three mile island accident during 1979 was another serious issue where the people where extremely lucky (luck was here created by extremely skilled people, who had full knowledge of what can be done and what can not be done during a crisis at a nuclear driven electrical power plant) to avoid a serious disaster.
Chernobyl disaster, 1986
Since the Awful disaster at Chernobyl with the faulty (high positive void coefficient) RMBK reactor designs. Public and political consensus had changed about nuclear driven generation of electricity.
WW2 , 1945
The suffering of the people near Chernobyl is horrible indeed. But not as worse of the suffering of the people at Nagasaki and Hiroshima during WW2 in 1945 when the 2 atombombs where dropped. Let me clarify that although i may seem very insensitive now that without this horrible deed of using these bombs, WW2 would not have ended that abruptly. Although a lot of people(soldiers, engineers, politicians and civilians) in the US felt that they should have died along with the people in the two cities in Japan because of the action they performed...
Kennedy ,1962
We where once very close to a nuclear war between USSR and the USA because of the interest of both USSR and the US in Cuba.
Back to current year.
Japan, March 11 2011.
A large earthquake with magnitude 9.0 on the richter scale hit Japan.
The reactors where shutdown because of Japan's experience with earthquakes. However, the following Tsunami destroyed a large part of the Island and it's infrastructure was largely destroyed because of the earthquake and the tsunami and the aftershocks. The chaos was and still is enormous...
Cause and effect
In my opinion, these first four major events(excluding the Japan event for a second, although it will have of course a major effect) in history had politicians and civilians over the world convinced that nuclear energy is too dangerous. Thus nuclear energy became very unpopular. And now we are full circle back to why the research in nuclear energy is limited. There is not much research done because nobody wants to burn themselves to the dangers of fission reactors. Besides that, the promise of the tokamak fusion reactor would no longer require fission reactors. Unfortunately, the tokamak seems to be in my opinion a dead end. With the ITER project it is claimed that all issues have been solved but i seriously doubt that. But i have still hope in the other fusion designs. This all is a short explanation of why new research is done but only on small experimental scale. Investors will not invest into research for a technology where the public opinion and thus the political opinion is against with. Thus when people read about the current accident and that there is claimed by proponents that there are better nuclear alternatives, it is logical that people blame nuclear driven electricity proponents from being biased in every way.
Other economic reasons
Every day life continuous and years pass by. There are crisis and instable regions every where, and the lifeblood of current civilization (OIL) is precious. The world has created a web of political intrigues that are not always easy to see and cause confusing situations and confusing political agendas.
Why can radioactive materials be dangerous ?
In the large Fukushima reactor post in P&N, i was thinking if it is possible to control the neutron moderation to a full extent and preventing neutron capture. The problem is that we have neutron radiation creating dangerous isotopes in our bodies that destroy our dna and vital processes in our cells. For example because the isotopes behave chemically different. I know that with most isotopes it is stated that chemical behavior does not chance when compared to other isotopes of the same element but i seriously doubt that that is the case in all scenario's. Why ? Well, when an isotope has a short half life, you can understand that when the isotope starts to emit radiation at the same time that a chemical reaction must take place, it will cause some influence. I mean that makes sense to me. IIRC, We know that life is based on chemical behaviour which itself is based on the electrons and protons. But the electrons need to be at a certain energy level and it makes sense that when you have ionizing EM radiation that an electron might become a little more energetic and for example a protein may start to fold differently. This ionizing EM radiation comes from radioactive isotopes. If there are any better explanations, i would love to read them and add these in this thread.
Possible solution ?
Besides the fact that there are designs ready to be used for passively cooled fission reactors there is still that nasty problem of neutron radiation and ionizing EM radiation.
For what i have read, there are only 2 options. Neutron capture creating isotopes where only a few are not radioactive (Deuterium for example). Thus i was thinking that a better way would be to do neutron decay. But that would mean to capture neutrons in a material that would not form isotopes but to allow these neutrons to undergo neutron decay within 15 minutes and then beta decay(That is what i understand of it).
I wonder how much research is done about scintillation and neutron moderation. For example which materials can withstand such energetic beating for a very long period of time ?
Light water seems to be good at it, perhaps best at 4 degrees celcius and that will pose a challenge itself. An option would be to have 2 water flow systems. One that is used to transfer heat from the core and drive the generators. Another flow system that is used to moderate the free neutrons that much that these can undergo beta decay. Of course these neutrons are emitted and do not perform any function inside the radioactive fuel.
When making an comparison with martial arts and some forms of Asian philosophy : The way i see it is that with radiation you do not want the impact of the energy to dissipate away in various forms of energy as for example heat or random re-emission. You want to guide it and control it.
And that is where research should focus on. What we want is to capture neutrons but not form isotopes, we use the energy of the neutrons to indirectly create EM radiation and use the EM radiation to generate electricity. I know without any calculation that the efficiency will be lower. But i think that it is important that we have some means to prevent neutrons from forming radioactive isotopes even at a bad scenario.
How much research is actually being done in these fields ?
We have new designs for reactors, true.
But i would like to know, is how can we build a shielding (possibly made from water ) that actually allows neutrons to decay and then use the EM radiation only. I envision a system where we could artificially for example change the radiation to high frequency rf waves at the tuned frequency of 2.45 GHz microwaves. This way we can heat pressurized water by use of dielectric heating and then produce electricity the old fashion way. But it does not end there. Because the nuclear fission core itself also produces a lot of heat. Thus then we would have 2 systems to heat up water. We have the primary system, the core itself. And we have the secondary system that changes neutrons into gamma rays and then use a form of scintillation to lower the wavelength of the captured Em radiation to microwaves at around 2.45 GHz. Then we have the issue solved of nuclear reactors releasing radiation. Instead of using brute force and strength, we use an elegant method. As analogy, it is all about kinetic energy and potential energy. Just as in martial arts.
The ideal way would be to use some form of photoelectricity. But i wonder if that is possible at usable efficiencies...
Here goes...
We have all these fancy accelerators and from a technological point of view this is indeed wonderful. But i am interested in the practical application as well. I fully agree that there must always be research done that is not immediately profitable because it allows to explore the philosophical borders and boundaries of our universe. Many mathematical models exist how matter functions and most mathematical models even if not perfect have brought us much wealth and reduction in suffering if applied with wisdom. Understand here that knowledge can be used for good or bad. It has no philosophical view about how life should function, it just is effectively another tool for humanity or any other sentient being able to grasp it.
Politics and nuclear research, a bit of history
Most people will ask and have asked recently : Why, if there are so much safer designs of nuclear reactors are they not used ?
I will try to explain why. In the free world, you need grants and funds to do research. These grants and funds come for example from wealthy people who do donations for mainly 2 reasons : Reason 1 is strictly economical and practical because they see it as an investment and they want to see profit return. Reason 2 is more philosophical, they have earned so much money that they are in a position to change the world into a place with less suffering, thus they donate to research where they think people will benefit from.
Another option is that the government will hand out grants and funds because it is in the nations or countries interest(meaning for the people).
Since money is limited, it has to be allocated to what is important for the people. Although many people think that politicians do what they want, it is a coin with 2 sides. Politicians are human too and as such they have their own personal agenda and the agenda of the people they represent. But to win votes, they need the public opinion and a part of that public are rich individuals who have again their own agenda.
Three mile Island, 1979
In the US, the Three mile island accident during 1979 was another serious issue where the people where extremely lucky (luck was here created by extremely skilled people, who had full knowledge of what can be done and what can not be done during a crisis at a nuclear driven electrical power plant) to avoid a serious disaster.
Chernobyl disaster, 1986
Since the Awful disaster at Chernobyl with the faulty (high positive void coefficient) RMBK reactor designs. Public and political consensus had changed about nuclear driven generation of electricity.
WW2 , 1945
The suffering of the people near Chernobyl is horrible indeed. But not as worse of the suffering of the people at Nagasaki and Hiroshima during WW2 in 1945 when the 2 atombombs where dropped. Let me clarify that although i may seem very insensitive now that without this horrible deed of using these bombs, WW2 would not have ended that abruptly. Although a lot of people(soldiers, engineers, politicians and civilians) in the US felt that they should have died along with the people in the two cities in Japan because of the action they performed...
Kennedy ,1962
We where once very close to a nuclear war between USSR and the USA because of the interest of both USSR and the US in Cuba.
Back to current year.
Japan, March 11 2011.
A large earthquake with magnitude 9.0 on the richter scale hit Japan.
The reactors where shutdown because of Japan's experience with earthquakes. However, the following Tsunami destroyed a large part of the Island and it's infrastructure was largely destroyed because of the earthquake and the tsunami and the aftershocks. The chaos was and still is enormous...
Cause and effect
In my opinion, these first four major events(excluding the Japan event for a second, although it will have of course a major effect) in history had politicians and civilians over the world convinced that nuclear energy is too dangerous. Thus nuclear energy became very unpopular. And now we are full circle back to why the research in nuclear energy is limited. There is not much research done because nobody wants to burn themselves to the dangers of fission reactors. Besides that, the promise of the tokamak fusion reactor would no longer require fission reactors. Unfortunately, the tokamak seems to be in my opinion a dead end. With the ITER project it is claimed that all issues have been solved but i seriously doubt that. But i have still hope in the other fusion designs. This all is a short explanation of why new research is done but only on small experimental scale. Investors will not invest into research for a technology where the public opinion and thus the political opinion is against with. Thus when people read about the current accident and that there is claimed by proponents that there are better nuclear alternatives, it is logical that people blame nuclear driven electricity proponents from being biased in every way.
Other economic reasons
Every day life continuous and years pass by. There are crisis and instable regions every where, and the lifeblood of current civilization (OIL) is precious. The world has created a web of political intrigues that are not always easy to see and cause confusing situations and confusing political agendas.
Why can radioactive materials be dangerous ?
In the large Fukushima reactor post in P&N, i was thinking if it is possible to control the neutron moderation to a full extent and preventing neutron capture. The problem is that we have neutron radiation creating dangerous isotopes in our bodies that destroy our dna and vital processes in our cells. For example because the isotopes behave chemically different. I know that with most isotopes it is stated that chemical behavior does not chance when compared to other isotopes of the same element but i seriously doubt that that is the case in all scenario's. Why ? Well, when an isotope has a short half life, you can understand that when the isotope starts to emit radiation at the same time that a chemical reaction must take place, it will cause some influence. I mean that makes sense to me. IIRC, We know that life is based on chemical behaviour which itself is based on the electrons and protons. But the electrons need to be at a certain energy level and it makes sense that when you have ionizing EM radiation that an electron might become a little more energetic and for example a protein may start to fold differently. This ionizing EM radiation comes from radioactive isotopes. If there are any better explanations, i would love to read them and add these in this thread.
Possible solution ?
Besides the fact that there are designs ready to be used for passively cooled fission reactors there is still that nasty problem of neutron radiation and ionizing EM radiation.
For what i have read, there are only 2 options. Neutron capture creating isotopes where only a few are not radioactive (Deuterium for example). Thus i was thinking that a better way would be to do neutron decay. But that would mean to capture neutrons in a material that would not form isotopes but to allow these neutrons to undergo neutron decay within 15 minutes and then beta decay(That is what i understand of it).
I wonder how much research is done about scintillation and neutron moderation. For example which materials can withstand such energetic beating for a very long period of time ?
Light water seems to be good at it, perhaps best at 4 degrees celcius and that will pose a challenge itself. An option would be to have 2 water flow systems. One that is used to transfer heat from the core and drive the generators. Another flow system that is used to moderate the free neutrons that much that these can undergo beta decay. Of course these neutrons are emitted and do not perform any function inside the radioactive fuel.
When making an comparison with martial arts and some forms of Asian philosophy : The way i see it is that with radiation you do not want the impact of the energy to dissipate away in various forms of energy as for example heat or random re-emission. You want to guide it and control it.
And that is where research should focus on. What we want is to capture neutrons but not form isotopes, we use the energy of the neutrons to indirectly create EM radiation and use the EM radiation to generate electricity. I know without any calculation that the efficiency will be lower. But i think that it is important that we have some means to prevent neutrons from forming radioactive isotopes even at a bad scenario.
How much research is actually being done in these fields ?
We have new designs for reactors, true.
But i would like to know, is how can we build a shielding (possibly made from water ) that actually allows neutrons to decay and then use the EM radiation only. I envision a system where we could artificially for example change the radiation to high frequency rf waves at the tuned frequency of 2.45 GHz microwaves. This way we can heat pressurized water by use of dielectric heating and then produce electricity the old fashion way. But it does not end there. Because the nuclear fission core itself also produces a lot of heat. Thus then we would have 2 systems to heat up water. We have the primary system, the core itself. And we have the secondary system that changes neutrons into gamma rays and then use a form of scintillation to lower the wavelength of the captured Em radiation to microwaves at around 2.45 GHz. Then we have the issue solved of nuclear reactors releasing radiation. Instead of using brute force and strength, we use an elegant method. As analogy, it is all about kinetic energy and potential energy. Just as in martial arts.
The ideal way would be to use some form of photoelectricity. But i wonder if that is possible at usable efficiencies...
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