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The general topic of this message is Energy:
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Subject:
Nuclear Energy
To:
Rep. Henry Waxman
October 26, 2009
Dear Congressman Waxman:
A process, pioneered by a small California company, will safely convert about 95% of the nuclear waste into a high energy density fuel (20,000kWh/g vs. oil's 0.01kWh/g or solar flux 0.2kW/m2). There is no need for long-lived radioactive materials to leave the reactor site. The process would avoid keeping the charged and mobile fission fragments restrained in the fuel elements, which is an innovative strategy used to monitor and control the reactor. The control systems that included some aspects of this design were tested in the mid 1980s and demonstrated that uses of thermoelectric properties of uranium dioxide could essentially lead to significant improvement of current reactors. The design could be initiated in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as was previously discussed among several MIT researchers.
Modification of current reactors into effective nuclear waste burners is limited mainly by political, non-technical reasons. After nearly fifty years of multi-billion dollar hot plasma and fast reactor research without any significant commercial outcome, 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. The depleted uranium, which could be a major resource of energy, is now being managed as waste. The temporary-fix mindset is typical for the scientific elite who, with no accountability, control the allocation of scientific resources. We are living in a world powered by fossil fuel, unsafe nuclear reactors and time/memory consuming operating systems - a major factor in the increase of hazardous electronic waste and cyber-terrorism vulnerability.
A century ago, instead of careful analysis of the systematic errors in the Michelson experiments, scientists chose to postulate constancy of the light velocity. Since any one algebraic expression such as the Lorentz transformation equally applies to any numbers, the true anisotropic values of the velocity of light or sound are used in all calculations, including Einstein's original manuscript. This eventually led to inaccuracies in the mathematical formulation of modern electrodynamics that greatly weakened the foundation of energy research. This example illustrates that ambitious humanitarians even the likes of A. Einstein, could be led to make errors with a lack of solid educational and professional background.
Perhaps you may be able to refer the proposal to the DOE so that a good-faith effort could be undertaken to recycle nuclear waste. The inherent risks of spent fuel storing are of such magnitude that it is important to include effective nuclear waste utilization into next year's plans for nuclear activities at MIT. Theoretically, non-transportable sources of energy such as wind and solar alone could not put us on a path to energy independence because their energy content is both very low and costly to store. Also, it requires 2-10 years to produce the energy to compensate for the amount used to extract them.
Anatoly Blanovsky, Los Angeles, 323-650-7739, www.wetc.us, ablanovsky@yahoo.com.
Los Angeles , CA
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