Even the modish generation of nuclear power reactors can only glean about five percent of the energy stored in their radioactive fuel supplies , and the toxic leftovers must then be buried deep underground to slowly crumble over hundred of thousands of years . But thanks to a new breed of atomic number 11 - chill pool nuclear reactor , we may soon be able to pull about 100 times more vigor from nuclear fuels , while slashing their half - lives by two orders of magnitude .
The PRISM reactor ( that ’s Power Reactor Innovative Small Module , not the NSA ’s undercover agent broadcast supreme ) is the result of more than 60 years of research by the DoE , Argonne National Lab , and General Electric . Like other survive nuclear reactor , the PRISM harnesses the radioactive energy of stilted elements like plutonium to tug turbines which generate electrical current . The PRISM will just do so way , fashion faster and much more efficiently . Assuming , of course , one ever actually gets built .
In fact , according to GE ’s Eric Lowen , it should — theoretically at least — be capable to extract 99 times as much energy from a given whole of atomic number 92 than any reactor presently in utilization . This is due to the scheme ’s use of liquid sodium as its coolant , rather than water . The swimming sodium does n’t suck as much energy from radiating neutrons as body of water does and that excess energy in bit create a more efficient fission reaction . And not only does this get more electrical power per unit of fuel , it drastically reduce the half - life of the remainder — only about 300 year , down from the 300,000 years of conventional atomic waste . The nuclear reactor itself will produce an expected 311 MW of electricity , though they will generally operate in 622 MW pairs over their 60 year service life .
Six decades really is n’t that long but these reactors are so effective that they could , again in theory at least , run through the entirety of Great Britain ’s nuclear stockpile over that duration . Heck , the 140 metrical ton reserve in the town of Sellafield , along England ’s northern coast , alone could be used to power the whole of Britain for 100 years with a fraction of the waste material that established reactor produce .
lead range of a function : GE Hitachi
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