It has been said that a golf ball size chunk of thorium has enough energy for a person's lifetime. How much matter is in this golf ball sized chunk? It looks like it displaces about 50 ml of water. That measurement is by volume. How about by mass? Looking up the density on the Wikipedia yields a mass of a little over a pound. About 1.2 lbs. Or 585 grams. A pretty small mass for such a prodigious amount of energy.
Now, if an average person lives for 80 years, each year would require 50 ml divided by 80 years. This yields only .625 ml or 7.3125 grams per year. A trifling amount. For reference, about 30 gm equals an ounce. As you can see, it isn't much.
Most of the waste has a short half life and will decay to stability in 10 years or so. Maybe an eighth of the original volume will require long term storage of about 300 years. ( I'm relying on memory and I'm guessing on some of this, so it may be off just a little --- in any case, it can't be more than what you start with, which isn't much) So, one eighth of this already small number yields less than 1 gram per year that will have to be stored long term. After 30 years, there will be about an ounce of the stuff. Not very much.
This entire exercise is to show how little waste is being produced in a LFTR. Given the fact that it produces so much energy, the cost and inconvenience of storing such small amounts of waste should be considered well worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment