It seems like an audacious claim, but Uranium-238 might just be the solution the world needs to solve the energy crisis. As many of the intellectual thinkers, serial entrepreneurs and research stalwarts all over the world combine their efforts to solve the energy crisis, Uranium 238 seems to pop up more often than not.
Before dismissing this as yet another pipe dream or a media publicity stunt, consider this – the best minds of the scientific and research community are already involved in this project. Bill Gates has recently classified this as an ‘Energy Miracle’ if successful. This is a total revolution and not an incremental improvement of existing technologies. This is why, if successful, it can redefine the way we look at all forms of energy and indeed the entire geo-politics and socio-economics of the world.
Terrapower is one such company that has had considerable success in this field with the use of high technology simulations using supercomputers and employing a passionate and expert research team.
The idea behind this concept is simple. Usual nuclear reactors that burn Uranium can only use the isotope Uranium-235 for the fission reaction that produces the energy. Natural Uranium contains less than 1% (0.71% average) of Uranium-235, which means we cannot use most of the Uranium that we find in the Earth’s crust. The fuel used in nuclear reactors is enriched to about 3.5% U-235 to sustain the reaction. Now what if there was a method to use the remaining 99% of U-238 that has been left unused?
The idea of using the spent fuel rich in U-238 is not new, but no one had actually shown that such an idea is feasible and will work out in real case scenarios. However, new research is showing promise that it might be technologically feasible and there are computer simulations of reactors that just might work. If true, then we might see a lot more of uranium nuclear energy than we see today.
Uranium nuclear energy is used by a number of reactors all over the world, using the fission of U-235. These face the problem of safe disposal of the nuclear waste. There are today tens of thousands of tons of spent nuclear waste, and all of this can be used for electricity generation. Simultaneously, we can also get rid of all the nuclear waste that would otherwise take billions of years to decay on its own. This idea, if made feasible, can power the US for hundreds of years to come.
The implications of this technology can be huge and beyond the imagination of any single person. Perhaps we would no longer be dependent on foreign oil if the government decides to invest heavily in this idea to solve the energy crisis. Perhaps we can go oil free and thus carbon-dioxide free in our energy generation. It is good to remember that uranium nuclear energy doesn’t produce any direct emissions and therefore is a clean technology. Unfortunately it is not renewable, so we will still need to harness wind and solar energy, but at least this would be a wonderful substitute for oil.
Photo: Argonne National Laboratory
9 comments
This is amazing, excellent post! We need to understand that revolutionary technology is the only way we can move forward and solve the energy crisis. I hope it shows some future, so America can be a leader in practical innovation once again.
Energy Miracle of the day: Uranium 238, can nuclear waste solve the energy crisis? http://bit.ly/aCkSv2
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
excellent article. hope all our energy problems will be solved with the help of u-238 soon.
what if the energy was produced by the homes all over the US by a new self recycled engery . One or two devices that produce enough power to run a house hold and still have enough to run another . It would have no nuclear wast , zero emssions , and no fule needed .
I have such a device that can do the job the same way as a coil ,water turbine and wind powerd power plants and can be upgraded to larger scale to be a power plant in it self if you are interested in how it works you must be have a good working knowlag of genorators electoric moters and copacitors to understand how it works .
ps. Forgive the spelling erros. I’m better at sience
Who needs uranium,,there is a better way..Its so simple,,there are roughly 125 million homes in the United States, it cost 50,000 dollars to change a house to solar energy, 80,000 dollars per house if you want them to produce more energy than they consume,,which means putting 5,000 to 6,000 dollars a year back to the system, but 50 or 60,000 should due it, and even if,,the price tag on this is only 5-8 trillion dollars….crysis solved..Although it would take 5-10 years,roughly, to make and have then install, ohhh this means it would also,,create alot of jobs..and sure 5-8 million seems like a big number,,but really,,it isnt….
ok i even did the math for ya,,,the is 125.4 million of which 18 million are empty according to the article i read, with the 80,000 dollar solar panel system,,which is has the power to push more energy than needed..the total cost is $8,592,000,000,000…again this seems like a big number,,but our energy problems would be gone forever…
Chris,
If it were that simple a matter of policy, the energy crisis would have been resolved by now. There were many such studies; for example I remember one that said if we covered a very small percentage of the Sahara with solar panels, it could power the whole of Europe. These are extremely hard to implement in a practical scenario.
By the way, you should consider not just household consumption but also energy required by industries, which forms a significant percentage of total energy consumption of a country.
The article is high on opinion but low on technical detail. What would be the waste products of the U238 fission? Most likely these products are radio-active. What would be the half time of these waste products?
Why not just use Thorium?
Comments are closed.