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Emerging Technologies in Conventional and Nonconventional Energy Sources
Published in Anirbid Sircar, Gautami Tripathi, Namrata Bist, Kashish Ara Shakil, Mithileysh Sathiyanarayanan, Emerging Technologies for Sustainable and Smart Energy, 2022
Yash Thakare, Sujay Kore, Swapnil Dharaskar
Elements such as plutonium and uranium are widely utilized as a source of fuel in the nuclear power plants. These are inexpensive when compared to that of coal. Most of the electricity generated is due to the three key cases which are nuclear fusion, nuclear fission and the reactions due to nuclear decay. A very minute quantity of radioactive material produces a huge amount of energy [16]. In order to acquire nuclear power, it is must that nuclear reactions should take place. Coal produces less greenhouse gas emissions during power generation than sources such as power plants because nuclear power is one of the most eco-friendly conventional sources of energy [17].
Nuclear Waste Management
Published in William J. Nuttall, Nuclear Renaissance, 2022
Plutonium is obtained via the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The isotopic composition of plutonium depends upon the technical details of the reactor, its operating temperature (normally fixed for a given design), and the length of time that the fuel was in the reactor core. These factors may be summarised by specifying the reactor design and the degree of nuclear fuel burn-up measured in megawatt days per tonne of uranium (or sometimes ‘heavy metal’). The number of megawatts relates to the reactor thermal power, not its electrical output. Plutonium is made from nuclear processes in the reactor core from the fertile uranium-238 atoms in the nuclear fuel. While a distinction is often made between weapons-grade plutonium and civil plutonium it is important to note that there is significant variation between different civil plutoniums depending on the fuelling, design, and operation of the source reactor.
The Other Energy Markets
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Global Energy Market Trends, 2021
Following reprocessing, plutonium is transported as an oxide powder since this is its most stable form. Plutonium oxide is transported in several different types of sealed packages, and each can contain several kilograms of material.
Study on Actinide Burning Core Concepts for the Future Phaseout of a Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2023
Tetsuya Mouri, Masayuki Naganuma, Shigeo Ohki
Plutonium is produced by the neutron absorption of uranium in the core. Thus, reducing the amount of uranium in the fuel through high Pu enrichment provides a high TRU consumption rate. In this study, the TRU enrichment (defined as the weight fraction of TRU in HMs) was limited to 45% on the basis of the experience of the CAPRA project.7 High TRU enrichment affects the solubility in nitric acid during the reprocessing of the MOX fuel using the PUREX method. The development of reprocessing technologies for high TRU enrichment fuels is a future issue at least in Japan.
Implementation of nuclear safety cases
Published in Safety and Reliability, 2020
In the nuclear industry, a common waste is ‘Plutonium Contaminated Material’ (PCM). Plutonium is hazardous if it is breathed in, giving a potentially high internal radiation dose to that person; this is assessed in a radiological safety assessment. Plutonium is also hazardous if enough of it accumulates in a location to give rise to an uncontrolled criticality, which (without going into details) would give a potentially high external radiation dose to nearby people; this is assessed in a criticality safety assessment.