NAVY LENR Patent Granted – Transmutes Radioactive Waste

[Pete_C]

Some of you may recall that I had said at G4 that there was a solution to the problem of Nuclear waste.
This process known as the Oppenheimer Phillips process or LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) was known since the fifties but only recently had the final variable in the equations been identified and solved (by US nuclear weapons researchers).
Well it appears that they have actually done something with it.

http://coldfusionnow.org/transmutes-radioactive-wastes-now-u-s-navy-and-lenr-energy/

 

 

The United States of America Navy LENR energy patent is noteworthy. The transmutation of radioactive waste to benign elements through LENR low energy nuclear reactions is of global importance
Global Energy Corporation is utilizing the LENR nuclear waste remediation technology developed at SPAWAR. Lawrence Parker Galloway Forsley of Global Energy Corporation along with JWK International have worked with SPAWAR developing this technology for decades. Following many years of research and development the Navy patent was filed in 2007.

 

 

Implications?
I see this as a potential break through for Nuclear Power generation.
First, it gives a method of dealing with the spent fuel rods and other contaminated material. Once they get a pilot plant built and processing spent fuel rods it removes one of the major objections to nuclear power (the other can be solved by switching from pressurized water Uranium reactors to liquid salt Thorium reactors - LIFTR technology).

The nice thing about this technology is that it does not require separating out individual radioactive isotopes.  Each isotope will have a narrow "cross section"  to which the device must be tuned to interact.  Any other isotope will be unaffected. Hence they could just treat  contaminated material or spent fuel by tuning to first one isotope and processing until the reaction halts, then changing the settings to deal with another.

 

The other interesting implication is that Cold Fusion using Deuterium and Helium 3 becomes practical.  The only drawback is that Helium 3 is rare on Earth, but it is plentiful in lunar dust.  This reaction would create Helium 4 and a high speed proton. Nice since the energy of the proton can be harnessed directly using electromagnetic forces (Magneto Hydro Dynamic energy conversion) to convert it to electric potential at a very high efficiency (with little waste as heat ).

 

 

 

 

 

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?61046-US-Navy-Releases-Cold-Fusion-and-Transmutation-Patent--breaks-down-radioactive-waste-
Lots of technical details there.

[JDoors]

If I learned anything from Star Trek, it's that nuclear power is a dead end.     

 

I wonder if this upcoming process was one reason a 'permanent' storage solution has been constantly delayed - or if that's just typical political incompetence.

[Pete_C]

I wouldn't say nuclear power is a dead end, it is one of the best and safest alternatives.

If it had not been for the anti nuke movement in the seventies we would not now be so heavily reliant on coal for electric generation.  In reality more radioactive elements have been spewed out by coal fired power plants than were spread by Chernobyl and Fukishima combined.   Had we continued with development of thorium reactors (we had a test unit back then but it was canceled) we would have a very safe and stable source of nuclear power which does not require isotopic separation like pressurized water uranium reactors.  Nor do they produce any where near as much radioactive waste (the process carries on to completion rather than dieing off with much of the fuel unburned).  They are also safe from "melt down" in that they require containment of the salt in contact with an 'activator" for the reaction to proceed. If cooling fails it is very simple to have a  plug that melts and pours the liquid salt out in a catch basin where it solidifies very rapidly and the reaction grinds to a halt.

 

 

I doubt that the  research the Navy was conducting was wide knowledge. It was classified research in their nuclear propulsion and weapons labs.  The physics community was split as to whether this technique could be figured out or if it even really existed.  Much of the research failed to be duplicable because until the NRL discovered the final variable equations did not accurately describe what was happening and because the final variable was unknown it was often incorrect and prevented the process from proceeding.

This was the case with Flieschman and Pons and their "discovery of cold fusion"  they actually did it back in the seventies, but even for researchers who did duplicate their results, they might try again the next day and be unable to do it again.  Now we have it all mathematically modeled and the final variable identified and controlled and it works like a charm.

 

 

I suspect that once Google Planetary Ventures and Elon Musk SpaceX have captured their first asteroids for mining they will turn their attention towards mining Helium3 from lunar dust and returning it to Earth as a power source in both hot and cold nuclear fusion plants.