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Using nuclear waste, PRISM reactor could power UK for 500 years

Maybe I am missing something here but wouldn't you think if this idea was even close to reality, it would be cause for the whole world to celebrate not just the UK. I think it's just someones wishful thinking. I also think sending waste into space or burying it are not what I would call creative ideas.

If you think this is wishful thinking, think again. This is well-proven technology, otherwise GE wouldn't be willing to build a first-of-a-kind power plant on their own dime. And yes, it is cause for the whole world to celebrate, because these reactors can produce all the energy humanity needs for hundreds of years with fuel that's already out of the ground.

Spent nuclear fuel still gives off heat, so is this how they intend to use it? Sellafield nuclear power station had a fuel reprocessing facility, which has now been closed down, I understand.
There is no mention in this article about the use of thorium, a safer alternative to uranium. However, due to man's incompetence, or unpredictable Nature, nuclear power is still a highly dangerous activity, whatever type is finally utilised.
Fusion power is probably still 30 years in the future. It has been in this situation for the last 50 years. An absolute fortune has been spent by various governments during this time, to try and achieve fusion: a so-called over-unity device! No wonder it hasn't happened.

In one paragraph you link to Public Citizen's criticisms of nuclear energy and say that PRISM deflates those concerns, but in the very next paragraph you admit (while using the odd construction "defray") that PRISM has yet to prove that it can address precisely those concerns.

In the future you might want to edit your articles before you publish them.

Editing is important. That's why I used the word "many" in the first paragraph. Glad you have such an attentive eye though!

In the past, there were concerns about breeder reactors because they transformed uranium into plutonium - the stuff bombs are made of. Although the plutonium is consumed as fuel, plant security would be an even bigger issue than it normally is. Does PRISM get around that? Or is security already as big an issue as it possibly can be, post 9/11?

The PRISM reactors are intended to be used with a small fuel recycling facility on-site to service every cluster of PRISMs. Once uranium or plutonium enters the site, it would never come out, but would all be fissioned to create electricity. At no point in the entire fuel cycle is plutonium ever isolated. All materials with even the remote potential of being used in fission weaponry is always contaminated with sufficient highly radioactive material as to be not only useless for weapons but also too radioactive to handle except with remote handling equipment. Proliferation resistance is built in to the PRISM's design. You can read all about it in my book, Prescription for the Planet.

Nice to see someone actually trying it for a change.

I think the idea is a valid one and would like to see at least a working prototype. If it does work, then that could be the answer to a number of nuclear waste problems. I always did wonder why reactors didn't continue to use the rods until they're simply non-radioactive. That's a lot of energy going to waste in those storage pools.

The water-moderated reactors used today are incapable of fissioning all the long-half-life elements. PRISMs, though, can do that handily, enabling them to extract all the energy in uranium rather than the 0.6% now recovered in today's reactors (or 0.8% with the sort of reprocessing done in France, which is NOT a solution). But even with fast reactors there will be nuclear waste, because some of the elements you get from fission reactions are radioactive but not fissionable. Their half-lives, though, are far shorter. So the waste you'll get from a PRISM will only be radioactive beyond the levels of natural uranium ore for a few hundred years, and entombed in non-leaching glass or ceramic, thus solving the "million-year problem".

Several countries are working on this type of reactor and its all-important metal fuel system. The question is which country will be the first to demonstrate it. GE is making it easy for the UK to say yes with their risk-free proposal. Let's hope the country recognizes and grasps the opportunity to take the lead in this truly transformative technology.

60 to 80 % of all energy used on Earth is rejected or thrown away in effect. Gas coal electric utility nuclear depend for the most part on thermal cycles. The limiting factor is temperature and materials of construction. Check this out from Breeder reactor wiki "Breeder reactors could in principle extract almost all of the energy contained in uranium or thorium, decreasing fuel requirements by a factor of 100 compared to traditional once-through light water reactors. Conventional Light Water Reactors extract less than 1% of the energy in the uranium mined from the earth.[3] The high fuel efficiency of breeder reactors could greatly dampen concerns about fuel supply or energy used in mining. In fact, with seawater uranium extraction, there would be enough fuel for breeder reactors to satisfy our energy needs for as long as the current relationship between the sun and Earth persists, about 5 billion years at the current energy consumption rate (thus making nuclear energy as sustainable in fuel availability terms as solar or wind renewable energy)."

Since Japan has had an experimental breeder reactor that has been in operation since the 1970s (Joyo), to say nothing about its troubled fast breeder reactor (Monju), this article seems more than a bit ethnocentric, especially since GE-Hitachi is the bidding entity.

That's a rather bizarre charge to fling. Whatever Japan's experience with breeders, the PRISM is a different animal. Its use of metal fuel makes it unique among fast reactors built elsewhere, and is a crucial factor in its safety, fuel cycle simplicity, etc. No need to be PC here. Metal fuel has tremendous advantages over oxide fuel, making the PRISM superior to other breeders--including Japan's. That's not ethnocentric, it's just the way it is.

you used "many" when you meant "two", and one of those (cost) was not clearly addressed in the article; also, to be more blunt this time, "defray" is simply the wrong word to use in that sentence. Otherwise a nice restatement of the Guardian article.

Tony Blair eventually closed down the UK's successful Fast Breeder Reactor programme at the Dounreay Research Facility in Scotland.

20 years of engineering excellence and know-how has been wasted, all to appease environmentalists, and pursue a 'dash for gas' power stations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

Interestingly the environmentalist involvement is not consistent coal an oil are worse environmental problems.

Is this not what is going on around the world for some time now? Read wiki on breeder reactors.

The US had a functioning thorium reactor at the Oak Ridge facility in 1968. This was shut down by the Nixon administration shortly after he took office.. What a shame. We had a 50 year lead on the future and blew it for political reasons, not for the good of our national energy interests.

Not just thorium but breeder reactors as well and the coal liquefaction plant was disassembled and its components sold by Regan. There is a clear bias in government about needed things the short answer could be energy interests but the possibility exists that it could be other like before WWII.