One of the biggest problems associated with nuclear power is what to do with the waste - the radioactive leftovers like plutonium that live on posing health and weapons risks.
But amid today's broad social zeitgeist of sustainability and recycling, shouldn't there be a use for the stuff?
Yes there should, says one small Tokyo-based company. If you build entirely different and better nuclear reactors than those that operate today, you can burn waste as fuel.
The company, Thorium Tech Solution (TTS), wants to combine the plutonium and other "actinides" from Japan's 50-some reactors into liquid that would also contain thorium, the alternative to today's uranium fuel that many people believe offers safety, cost, efficiency and anti-weapons advantages.
TTS' design is called a liquid molten salt reactor (MSR), and is based on U.S. government work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Oak Ridge built an MSR in the 1960s before President Richard Nixon cancelled the project in favor of solid fuel reactors that leave waste such as plutonium - desirable for weapons in the Cold War.
MSR fuel circulates at much higher temperatures than the levels at which uranium burns in conventional solid fuel reactors. That increases the efficiency of the generating process. The liquid design also underpins many safety features. Among them: The reactor cannot melt down.
, which shut down all but two of its 50-some reactors following meltdowns at its Fukushima Daiichi power plant two years ago. Nuclear had provided 30 percent of the country's electricity. Japan is paying high economic and environmental costs to compensate.
TTS' reactor will compete against solid fuel challenges including funding. With the right backing, this idea should flow.. And the company faces
Photo by Mark Halper
A few stops along SmartPlanet's alternative nuclear trail:
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com