Radioactive Wolves.

[Warren Dew]

Of course, it might be interesting to reuse already irradiated material from old stations into the building of new ones... might save on costs, and delay having to find a resting home for those tons of stuff for 30 or 50 years.

Probably the best way to reuse irradiated material would be simply to extend the lifetimes of existing plants as much as possible.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, if there's a breakthrough in fusion and it becomes practical, what happens to the fission plants?

[JimC]

So, if there's a breakthrough in fusion and it becomes practical, what happens to the fission plants?

Glow in the dark amusement parks for real thrillseekers?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, if there's a breakthrough in fusion and it becomes practical, what happens to the fission plants?

Glow in the dark amusement parks for real thrillseekers?

We'd all look like tree frogs.

[Schneibster]

Of course, it might be interesting to reuse already irradiated material from old stations into the building of new ones... might save on costs, and delay having to find a resting home for those tons of stuff for 30 or 50 years.

Probably the best way to reuse irradiated material would be simply to extend the lifetimes of existing plants as much as possible.

Changing the chemical composition of metal weakens it.

[MiM]

So, if there's a breakthrough in fusion and it becomes practical, what happens to the fission plants?

Because of their comparably low running costs, they would continue at least through their designed lifetime, unless the fusion breakthrough would be astonishing enough to provide really cheap fusion power.

[MiM]

Of course, it might be interesting to reuse already irradiated material from old stations into the building of new ones... might save on costs, and delay having to find a resting home for those tons of stuff for 30 or 50 years.

Probably the best way to reuse irradiated material would be simply to extend the lifetimes of existing plants as much as possible.

Changing the chemical composition of metal weakens it.

Yes, and in addition older designs are inherently less safe (as we saw in Fukushima). Many countries lack good programs for adding novel safety practices to old plants.

[Schneibster]

Not to mention conservative fiscal policies make it seem attractive to avoid looking at it. As do greedy ones. Not that they aren't generally one and the same.

[Warren Dew]

Changing the chemical composition of metal weakens it.

So? Irradiation doesn't significantly change the chemical composition of anything.

[Warren Dew]

So, if there's a breakthrough in fusion and it becomes practical, what happens to the fission plants?

Same thing that happened to coal plants when nuclear plants became practical?

[Schneibster]

Changing the chemical composition of metal weakens it.

So? Irradiation doesn't significantly change the chemical composition of anything.

Have you ever heard of neutrons? Duh.

ETA:

it is found that although mechanical properties are substantially degraded, several Ti alloys may retain acceptable properties to low or moderate doses.

Source.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, if there's a breakthrough in fusion and it becomes practical, what happens to the fission plants?

Same thing that happened to coal plants when nuclear plants became practical?

Hopefully the fission plants will make them obsolete. Fusion plants didn't. I would love to stop seeing coal trains with 140+ box cars rumble past our house. It's the majority of rail traffic around here, heading for the St. Louis power plant.

[Warren Dew]

Changing the chemical composition of metal weakens it.

So? Irradiation doesn't significantly change the chemical composition of anything.

Have you ever heard of neutrons?

Add a neutron to something and you get a different isotope of the same element. There's no chemical change.

it is found that although mechanical properties are substantially degraded, several Ti alloys may retain acceptable properties to low or moderate doses.

Source.

Which has zilch to do with chemistry. Maybe you need to look up "chemistry"?

[Warren Dew]

Hopefully the fission plants will make them obsolete. Fusion plants didn't. I would love to stop seeing coal trains with 140+ box cars rumble past our house. It's the majority of rail traffic around here, heading for the St. Louis power plant.

Did you accidentally exchange "fission" and "fusion"? Fission plants have been around for half a century, and coal plants are still around. I doubt that fusion plants would have any different an effect.

Can't shut down the coal plants, it would put the poor unionized coal miners at high risk of black lung out of work!

[Schneibster]

Changing the chemical composition of metal weakens it.

So? Irradiation doesn't significantly change the chemical composition of anything.

Have you ever heard of neutrons?

Add a neutron to something and you get a different isotope of the same element. There's no chemical change.

After the radionuclide you've just created decays. Which happens in days to weeks for most radionuclides.

Duh.

it is found that although mechanical properties are substantially degraded, several Ti alloys may retain acceptable properties to low or moderate doses.

Source.

Which has zilch to do with chemistry. Maybe you need to look up "chemistry"?

Are you serious? Did you just say the Oak Ridge National Laboratory doesn't know any chemistry?

What's next, you gonna claim Ghengis Khan was the world's first communist? Gargle peanut butter? Prove you can stick a banana down your throat without getting toothmarks on it?