Planned Nuclear Reactors Will Destroy Atomic Waste 344
separsons writes "A group of French scientists are developing a nuclear reactor that burns up actinides — highly radioactive uranium isotopes. They estimate that 'the volume of high-level nuclear waste produced by all of France’s 58 reactors over the past 40 years could fit in one Olympic-size swimming pool.' And they're not the only ones trying to eliminate atomic waste: Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin are working on a fusion-fission reactor. The reactor destroys waste by firing streams of neutrons at it, reducing atomic waste by up to 99 percent!"
Converts to energy? Burns? Or fissions? (Score:4, Funny)
Destroy as in convert matter to energy?
Wait, so it's a chemical reaction (rapid oxidation)?
Or is this fission, where they convert the actinides into other less-dangerous elements via fission?
Too early for April fools (Score:5, Funny)
French Scientists?
A university in Texas?
I think you tried a little too hard on that one. Less is more.
Re:Converts to energy? Burns? Or fissions? (Score:4, Funny)
Destroy as in convert matter to energy?
That is, broadly speaking, the way that nuclear fission works. Got it in one.
Re:Too early for April fools (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)
Come up with something that uses solar, ponies, or solar ponies and they might bite.
Your solar ponies are an affront to God, a crime against Nature, and completely Awesome. Please make more!
And for the record, they definitely bite.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)
Solar *is* nuclear power. The reactor is just rather... large.
Re:See? (Score:4, Funny)
The current view of "spent" fuel is akin to refining crude oil to make gasoline and then having to store all the waste diesel, fuel oil and other petroleum byproducts until the end of time.
So to make sure I have this car analogy right... you're saying that these new reactors are like a Volkswagen Jetta?
Re:Yeah, sure, for about a millisecond... (Score:2, Funny)
No, it wouldn't. However, well done for acting as a perfect example of the idiotic "OH GOD WONT SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN WE CAN'T HAVE TEH NUCULAR!" response. I hope that was your intention?
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)
And unlicensed, we must shut it down ASAP!
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:1, Funny)
Sun: "Unlicensed? Shut me down? Ha! Love to see you try"
"By the way, I'm sending shitloads of free energy your way every day...why the fuck are you wasting it?"
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)
"By the way, I'm sending shitloads of free energy your way every day...why the fuck are you wasting it?"
You think the sun's trying to help us? Ha! The sun's been trying to murder us for as long as we've been around, but the stupid ozone layer and magnetosphere keep getting in the way!
You realize you're basically teasing it right? It's like you're wearing a bulletproof vest that turns impacts into electricity for your iphone, and you're telling the guy in the machinegun turret "Hey thanks for the free kinetic energy!"
Re:Yeah, sure, for about a millisecond... (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, yes, it would all fit into an Olympic swimming pool. For about a millisecond. Then it would go critical, and your swimming pool would be an area the size of texas covered in a very thin layer of radioactive waste, plus a big glass pit in the middle.
But for that millisecond, you'd have the most awesomely radical Olympic swim meet in the history of mankind.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:3, Funny)
Scientific discussions in Texas?!? (Score:3, Funny)
Pardon me if I wait for a few non-Texas sources on scientific topics.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:2, Funny)
completely different thing, this is charging the survivor, and not for the bullet, but for the kinetic energy, in fact, you could just license them the bullet.... and then sue anyone for picking up the bullet, and using it without a license.. maybe call them pirates...
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:3, Funny)
X is dangerous. Y is more dangerous than X. Therefore X is not dangerous.
That's a logical fallacy known formally as "stupidity."