OT: Half of France's nuclear reactors out of commission for repair and maintenance

[Tim Streater]

Hardly necessary if it's been vitrified.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If its long lived, it isn't radioactive in any marked sense. Perhaps you would like to scoop up the million tonnes or so of radioactive 'waste' that comprises Dartmoor and Exmoor?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Sell it to the people and the gummint will follow.

[Tim Streater]

Billyuns of tons I would have thought.

[Chris Hogg]

Um...er...Dartmoor, yes, and all the moors in Cornwall (it's all one massive lump of granite down below anyway, aka a batholith), but Exmoor? I think not, or to put it another way, if you're going to dig up Exmoor for uranium you might as well dig up the whole country!

[Paul]

We've done a bit of tiny reactors here.

I got to use one of those in uni, for a chem lab. Namely, to assay things like heavy metals in a hair sample.

You can go right into the reactor room. Ours didn't have a "pretty cover" on top. And had cement slabs with gaps so you could see the pool water between the slabs. No, I didn't stick my hand in the water, to see how warm it was.

The operator console was about the size of a Startrek console, and had a few meters on it. One meter which measured the flux. The flux could vary by about a factor of 10^3, depending on how the controls were set.

If that baby was cranked, it was maybe 10kW to 20kW of heat. But the reason we had the reactor, was a pneumatic system would run sample vials near to the reactor core, for irradiation. When they came back up from the pool, the sample vial would sit in the output tray for 10 minutes to "cool off". That's to allow the short-lived isotopes created, to go through a few half-lives and attenuate. Then you'd take your sample vial over to the gamma spectrometer (a chunk of germanium as the detector), and have the energy peaks recorded. There would be a sodium line (so many MeV kind of thing), and the height of the line would indicate the sodium level in the hair sample. And how many days it's been since you washed your hair.

So you can have fun with small reactors :-)

Now, the local kooks, they thought our little reactor was capable of "the China Syndrome", it would melt and go all the way to China. The reactor was decommissioned at some point, and is no longer there.

I wasn't there to see it decommissioned, but I'm sure they made a giant fuss about nothing, when taking it apart. I'm sure all the concrete pieces have big radioactive stickers on them at the dump.

It's that core bit that would require careful handling. Maybe a steamer trunk and send it on a long cruise.

I think you could fit one of those in the average back yard. And put the Startrek console in your bedroom overlooking the back yard.

As far as I know, you could stand on the top of the reactor, without becoming sterile.

Yes, it is possible to make 10kW-20kW of heat. Maybe if you put the unit right underneath the house, your heating needs would be solved, just like that :-)

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. I think worldwide there is about 4 billion tonnes in the sea and 10 billion in the crust.

Lots more deep down keeping the planet warm, of course.

However currently economically viable mines access only about 5 million tonnes of known reserves.

[Tim Streater]

Ah sorry. I thought you were referring to the mass of all the granite (the 'waste') rather than its useful radioactive content.

[4587Joey]

But it isnt a great idea what some kid might get up to with it.

Not going to be allowed.