The University of Manchester researchers have found bacteria that can endure extreme conditions of radioactive waste disposal sites in soil samples obtained from a highly alkaline industrial site located in the Peak District.
When an earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant complex in 2011, neither the quake nor the inundation caused the ensuing contamination. Rather, it was the aftereffects — specifically, the lack of cooling for the reactor cores, due to a shutdown of all power at the station — that caused most of the harm.
Shale, the source of the United States' current natural gas boom, could help solve another energy problem: what to do with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. The unique properties of the sedimentary rock and related clay-rich rocks make it ideal for storing the potentially dangerous spent fuel for millennia, according to a geologist studying possible storage sites who made a presentation here today.
The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) and TerraPower® have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support the development of TerraPower’s Generation IV traveling wave reactor (TWR), a safe, economic and sustainable nuclear energy system that utilizes advanced materials for more durable metallic fuels and supercomputing for advanced comprehensive modeling.
Chemical reactions will change the nature of the deep repository and the surrounding rock (clay rock); that much is certain. But to what extent and with what impact on safety? Researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute are looking to answer this question with the aid of a combination of experiments and computer simulations.
The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists today called on the United States and Russia to restart negotiations on reducing their nuclear arsenals, to lower alert levels for their nuclear weapons, and to scrap their missile defense programs.
The Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant has been selected to receive the prestigious 2013 Information Systems on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) World-Class ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) Performance Award.
Uranium mining for the nuclear industry causes immense environmental damage, which becomes more severe as reserves are depleted. The isolation of uranium from seawater would be a much more environmentally friendly alternative. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, American researchers have now introduced a process by which they can produce tailored, highly effective adsorption agents to do this job.
2013 No.11 issue of SCIENCE CHINA Chemistry published a special topic on extraction of uranium from Seawater recently.
Many efforts to smooth out the variability of renewable energy sources — such as wind and solar power — have focused on batteries, which could fill gaps lasting hours or days.