Sentences with phrase «as reactor fuel»

France and Japan, on the other hand, routinely extract and reprocess plutonium for reuse as reactor fuel, but the dual - use potential of this process has led Holdren and his coauthors to recommend a «once - through fuel cycle» in which the spent fuel is not reprocessed, but instead goes directly into a storage repository.

Reprocessing and the use of plutonium as reactor fuel are also far more expensive than using uranium fuel and disposing of the spent fuel directly.

Not exact matches

Thus mini-nuclear reactors, algae - based fuels, and various other exciting schemes are routinely trotted out as the «source of unlimited energy in the near future,» always with the implicit faith that the process can be scaled up from the laboratory to a global scale with only modest difficulties.

No U.S. civilian reactor had ever used MOX as fuel.

In 2009, Casa Herradura installed a waste - to - energy process that fuels a steam boiler with biogas generated by a biological anaerobic reactor, as part of the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).

Indian Point's nuclear power is neither clean nor green, and the process needed to create fuel from uranium for its reactors is energy - intensive and creates greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

As ProPublica reported earlier, fire safety is a continuing concern at the country's 104 commercial reactors, as is the volume of spent fuel piling up at plantAs ProPublica reported earlier, fire safety is a continuing concern at the country's 104 commercial reactors, as is the volume of spent fuel piling up at plantas is the volume of spent fuel piling up at plants.

Much as what unfolded during the crisis in Japan, the computer modeling suggested that fuel in one of the two reactors on the Peach Bottom site would begin to melt as soon as nine hours after a loss of cooling water flow.

The explosions tore open reactor buildings, damaging the 12 - meter - deep pools where used nuclear fuel is kept cool, potentially setting off another meltdown in the fuel there as the surrounding water drained away or boiled off.

As NRC staff noted during the Fukushima emergency, when there was concern that the spent - fuel pool at Unit 4 may have lost its cooling water as well as been damaged by the reactor building explosion, adding cold water to already hot fuel can create a problem in its own righAs NRC staff noted during the Fukushima emergency, when there was concern that the spent - fuel pool at Unit 4 may have lost its cooling water as well as been damaged by the reactor building explosion, adding cold water to already hot fuel can create a problem in its own righas well as been damaged by the reactor building explosion, adding cold water to already hot fuel can create a problem in its own righas been damaged by the reactor building explosion, adding cold water to already hot fuel can create a problem in its own right.

This concentrated atomic assault allows the reactor to extract 100 times as much energy from uranium fuel as do current thermal reactors, which use less than 1 percent of the fuel's potential energy.

By harnessing energy from the sun — «this handy fusion reactor in the sky,» he called it last night — getting enough renewable energy on the power grid and smoothing out energy generation and use between peak and off - peak hours, the nation and planet can shift away from fossil fuels» dominance as a power source, he told the crowd.

Chandrayaan - 2 will collect data on the moon's thin envelope of plasma, as well as isotopes such as helium - 3, a potential fuel for future fusion energy reactors.

The shape of the crystals, together with their increased reactivity, enables the consolidation of homogeneous nanostructured mixed oxides as intermediates towards very dense nuclear fuels for advanced reactors.

Reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi station runs on so - called mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, in which uranium is mixed with other fissile materials such as plutonium from spent reactor fuel or from decommissioned nuclear weapons.

It could be stashed away for future use as fast - reactor fuel.

If the fuel rods are no longer being cooled — as has happened at all three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant operating at the time of the earthquake — then the zirconium cladding will swell and crack, releasing the uranium fuel pellets and fission byproducts, such as radioactive cesium and iodine, among others.

A second major issue at Fukushima is how to handle the fuel 3/4 the melted uranium cores as well as spent and unused fuel rods stored at the reactors.

Water is being deliberately circulated through each reactor every day to cool the fuel within — but the plant lies on a slope, and water from precipitation keeps flowing into the buildings as well.

Sam Bell, played by Sam Rockwell, toils alone in a stark - white base, working as a glorified handyman for Lunar Industries, an ominously glossy corporation that extracts helium - 3 from the lunar surface to fuel fusion reactors back on Earth.

The reactor is designed to run for 40 years or more without refueling as it steadily consumes most of its original fuel supply.

During a nuclear meltdown, uranium dioxide fuel, fuel rod components and even the reactor become superheated — as much as 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit — and melt together to form corium, which can eat through containment systems.

There is almost no work going on in the United Kingdom on future alternative reactor designs, such as Generation IV reactors and small modular reactors and their associated fuel cycles, so Beddington's ad hoc board says the government should actively foster research in these areas.

But finding enough fuel for existing and new reactors may prove a challenge, as will preventing the health and environmental impacts that have plagued uranium mining.

As of 10 P.M. local time on Thursday, the JAIF listed the following status of the six Fukushima Daiichi reactors: • Buildings around reactor Nos. 1, 3 and 4 were «severely damaged»; the building housing reactor No. 2 was «slightly damaged»; • Cooling was not working for reactor Nos. 1, or 3; • Water levels were covering more than half of the fuel in reactor No. 2; reactor Nos. 1 and 3 water levels were covering only about half of the fuel.

As of midday Thursday, the country's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesperson Yoshitaka Nagayama, noted that «because we have been unable to go to the scene, we can not confirm whether there is water left or not in the spent fuel pool at reactor No. 4,» The New York Times reported.

«The fats or lipids appear to facilitate the conversion of other materials in the wastewater such as toilet paper, keep the sludge moving through the reactor, and produce a very high quality biocrude that, when refined, yields fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.»

The Japanese plant has endured partial meltdowns in at least three of its six reactors, as well as two of its seven pools for storing spent fuel.

These reactors could face extraordinary challenges, such as the recent twin blows of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which knocked out connections to the local power grid, followed by a wall of water that destroyed the fuel tanks for backup diesel generators and flooded critical electrical equipment, crippling the boiling - water reactors at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan.

That hydrogen buildup was the result of hot steam coming into contact with overheated nuclear fuel rods covered by a cladding of zirconium alloy, or «zircaloy» — the material used as fuel - rod cladding in all water - cooled nuclear reactors, which constitute more than 90 percent of the world's power reactors.

For the first time in decades a new uranium rod fabrication plant is operating in New Mexico and it may soon be joined by as many as three others in the U.S.. That's because 2013 will see the expiration of an agreement with Russia that allows the U.S. to blend down the highly enriched uranium from decommissioned Russian nuclear warheads into the lower level enriched fuel used in U.S. nuclear reactors — a program known as «Megatons to Megawatts» that currently provides as much as 50 percent of U.S. nuclear fuel.

Therefore, either reprocessing or recycling spent nuclear fuel, as the French and Japanese do, is likely to be a waste of money better spent on improving the light - water reactors presently in use.

But those reactors» spent fuel pools are benefiting from a diesel generator that is still working to keep cooling water in place, according to World Nuclear News, though temperatures are beginning to rise in these pools as well.

Rather than the pellets of uranium oxide used in other fast reactors and conventional reactors as fuel, GE would fabricate metal alloy fuels, with the plutonium or uranium mixed with zirconium metal.

One solution under consideration is to recycle the plutonium yet further — by using it as fuel in a pair of new, so - called «fast» reactors.

Heavy, silvery - white, toxic, metallic, naturally radioactive, pyrophoric, and teratogenic uranium belongs to the actinide series and its isotope 235U is used as the fuel for nuclear reactors and the explosive material for nuclear weapons.

High - tech metal alloys are widely used in important materials such as the cladding that protects the fuel inside a nuclear reactor.

Hydrogen can also be split from water in high - temperature nuclear reactors or generated from fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas, with the resulting carbon dioxide captured and sequestered rather than released into the atmosphere.

That compatibility with metals is also why GE has chosen to make an alternative nuclear fuel as well, as part of its «Advanced Recycling Center» concept that includes PRISM reactors.

In this agreement, both states committed to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of excess weapons grade plutonium, primarily as MOX fuel for light water reactors (LWR).

Light water - cooled graphite - moderated reactors Fuelled by low - enriched uranium oxide, these reactors use graphite as a moderator and water to cool the core.

More exotic designs remain on the horizon, such as reactors powered by thorium fuel, but the AP1000 and other more conventional designs are important for one simple reason: they are being built.

WATCHMAN can indicate whether a reactor is active and where it is but not the precise mix of fuel, such as highly enriched plutonium and uranium.

Crucially, the relative amounts of the four fissionable isotopes change as a reactor consumes its fuel.

As we speak, one of the most serious problems happening in Fukushima Daiichi is the spent fuel pool - fire at the fourth reactor.

While the material used for testing was aluminum, the team plans to run similar tests with zirconium, a metal widely used for high - temperature reactor applications such as the cladding of nuclear fuel pellets.

Research reactor fuel, transuranic waste and sterilization capsules such as the Cesium Chloride capsules stored at the Hanford site.

That amount increases by about 2,000 metric tons each year as fuel is unloaded from operating reactors.

RIAR's reactors provide a full range of capabilities to test fuel and materials of all types of existing power reactors as well as advanced and innovative ones: water - cooled thermal reactors, including those with boiling and pressurized water, gas - cooled, fast and other types of reactors.

So your nuclear reactor get more valuable as you use it, by piling up that treasure of reusable fuel behind it.