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practical nuclear waste disposal system

uses salt water battery and evoporation
 
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nuclear waste is a big problem that bad politics and expensive science ( fast burning reactors) have not solved.

the problem is that plain disposal is expensive and 'burning' the waste in a reactor while financially attractive from the perspective of making electricity--------and from not needing the disposal technology---still suffers from the extroadinarily high construction cost of fast breeding reactors.

i propose an electricity producing system that doesn't use a reactor.

take the fuel assemblies and put them in salt water pools that are fed with ocean water.

the pools is adjacent to a fresh water pool but separated by a huge paper like membrane that actually produces a current of electricity resulting from the passive osmotic tendency of salt ions to migrate across the membrane from salt water to fresh water .

the thing is----the salty water is quite warm because of extensive heating from the slowly decaying rod assemblies.

the heat creates major evaporation of the water. the evaporating water make the water MORE salty. even as ions are leaving it to go to the fresh water thereby making the fresh water more salty.

the current from this battery results from the difference in the volatage of the waters---which results from the difference in their salinity.

as the salt water evaporates and becomes MORE salty, the fresh water is also getting more salty. so what do we do? we use a condenser to condense the very humid moisture INTO THE THE FRESH WATER POOL.

this keep the fresh water pool substanially purer than the salt water pool. and keeps the current going.

eventually a tremendous amount of extremely salty water is left in the nuclear fuel pool . some of the salt will precipitate out. and you can sell that salt so long as it is kept generally out of the direct irradation with the assemblies (you can put the assemblies in salt/rust protecting heat conducting casks)

the mostly fresh/water pool eventually reaches a point where it has too much water in it.

at the same time the the salt water pool goes beyond the point of depeletion, as too much water has evaporated,

at this point. you simply flush the excess spill over of the fresh water pool into the salt water pool. and to fill more you can just let MORE sea water into the salt water nuclear pool.

the key here is that the fresh water pool is always going to be operating actually as slightly brackish.

the sea water pool is constantly going to be concentrating the salt because of heat and evopration EVEN AS IS IT LOSING IONS ACROSS THE MEMBRANE TO MAKE ELECTRICITY.

so even as the salt water is losing ions and the fresh water is gaining them----the net loss of water in the salt water pool is always making it saltier ( possibly even creating precipitated salt ) and the brackish water pool is constantly being diluted to prevent it from becoming 'saline' water of higher salt concentration.

the salt water pool is continuously operating at a hypersaline 'brine' level of saltiness, remixing any precipitates that fall to its bottom. and adding sea water as necessary to refill the amount of water that escapes the systems recycling channels using condensors and using flood gates to let 'fresh' water flood back into the salty water area when there is overflow.

the key here is that the salt 'cycle' is driven by the heat cycle of evaporation. and recycling of water brings with it the recycling of the salt (which does not accumulate in the fresh water pond beyond the level at which the membrane stops producing a voltage).

these kinds of salt water batteries have actually been built in estuaries, harnesssing the natural hydrological cycle powered source of power bringing fresh and brackish water together in estuaries.

in our case, we are using nuclear waste assemblies to power the process.the net energy produced powers the sluice gates, powers an ACTIVE consender system and other machinery, and ultimately provides surplus power to the grid.

the only thing you need is the membranes. and they aren't complex catalysts like fuel cells. they are simpler than you think.

if the system breakdown you simply let the gates open and allow the fuel assemblies to take advantage of passive cooling as sea water simply floods into the pools to keep the assemblies cool on a continuous basis.

teslaberry, Sep 12 2014

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       I can't tell if this is complete genius or the highest idiocy.
pocmloc, Sep 12 2014
  

       Apart from the fundamental misunderstanding of the physical chemistry of osmosis (q.v.), there may be one or two other minor practical snags to overcome.   

       After reprocessing, waste does indeed emit heat; but not in significantly useful quantities relative to the mass available.   

       A facility to exploit decay energy would be vastly expensive in terms of construction compared to the available energy recovered. Massive shielding and multi-level containment would be required, and maintenance would be very difficult.   

       Have you done the math for the Watts per kilogramme thermal output of fission fragments ? We thing you should do that.
8th of 7, Sep 12 2014
  

       ^^. needs to be condensed and include cites ?
FlyingToaster, Sep 12 2014
  

       7'th of 8'th----this has already been done. with SALT WATER and FRESH WATEr   

       in fact this area of research an eningeering has attracted significant research funding in the past years .   

       it is an very active area of research.   

       as far as the radio active decay. yes of course this is not going to create extraodinary large amounts of high temperature heat.   

       but the net heat , thought low temperature can be very substnatial if you accumulate enough assemblies.   

       you are not going to have a typical power factory amount of heat in order to sell marketable quantities of electricity.   

       but you must understand--------this is at heart a STORAGE FACILITY FOR SOTRING NUCLEAR FUEL IN THE LONG TERM.   

       IF IT CAN BE EVEN MODESTLY SELF SUSTAINING/PROFITEABLE ---THEN IT CAN SCALE AND BECOME A MASSIVE SINGLE STOP SOLUTION FOR THE U.S. COLLECTION OF OPEN STORAGE POOL ASSEMBLIES THAT EXIST AT THE VAST MAJORITY OF NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS.   

       the country is litettered with open pools pumped constantly with water as a tempoerary storage solution.   

       dry casking and vitrfication are way too expensive . and finding a suitable storage location is as well. yucca moountina was a big lie from the beginning.   

       the only way to solve the problem is by taking into actual economics. and finding a way to harness whatever inherent energy the radionucleotides possess. and in fact, high level waste assemblies to possess A LOT of heat, and FOR A VERY LONG DURATION.   

       so this kind of solution could be very a steady producer of long term heat for hundreds of years, even though the quantities might not be overarchingly significant.   

       the facilities would be relatively cheap to building a reactor core. which comprises the large majority of the cost of a nuclear power plant. reactor cores are very very expensive. and take a super long time to build.   

       this system is a huge set of pools an OPEN condenser and massive membranes ( which are the crux of the technology and have sort of yet to be developed.
teslaberry, Sep 12 2014
  

       //highest idiocy// Well, it appears this kid's understanding of osmotics is about on par with his understanding of capitalization.
lurch, Sep 12 2014
  

       [-] for missing summary at top, and bottom line at bottom, and for the missing of an apology about the length of this entry.   

       Talk to Vernon.
pashute, Sep 14 2014
  
      
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