Polonium 210 Power Plant 1 MW

[franco malgarini]

 

Polonium 210 has a half-life of 140 days which is the time that can be used to make a power generator; just a few grams are needed to reach temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade sufficient to produce steam that drives a turbine; after 8 months it is no longer radioactive and therefore does not produce waste. It can be produced from bismuth by neutron irradiation; you can even build cars at Polonium 210.

[Frank]

Where does polonium come from and how much energy is needed to extract it?

[franco malgarini]

Probably, Polonium 210 is transmutable from lead: i have an idea for it...

[Strange]

 

39 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

after 8 months it is no longer radioactive 

Why do you think that?

Edited September 7, 2018 by Strange

[Sensei]

8 hours ago, franco malgarini said:

It can be produced from bismuth by neutron irradiation;

Bismuth relatively stable isotope is Bi-209. After neutron capture, it'll become Bi-210. Majority of it will beta decay minus to Po-210 with half-life 5.012(5) days.

The question is where do you get enough free neutrons to make enough Po-210 fuel.. ?

1 gram of Po-210 is approximately 1 g / 210 g/mol = ~0.0047619 mol * 6.022141*10^23  = 2.86768619*10^21 atoms (and free (slow/thermal) neutrons required to make it).

(too fast neutrons will destroy nucleus, and cause e.g. proton-emission)

 

[John Cuthber]

On 9/7/2018 at 2:17 PM, franco malgarini said:

just a few grams

That's tens of thousands of curies of radioactive material.

Even if we ignore the terrorist threat from a  dirty bomb, there's a huge risk of radioactive  material leaking from a car crash.

Why would anyone take the risks?

 

[franco malgarini]

Fukushima docet !!!!

[Strange]

28 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

Fukushima docet !!!!

That teaches us that having radioactive materials in vulnerable places (eg in automobiles) is not a good idea. 

 

And can you answer my question:

On 07/09/2018 at 2:34 PM, Strange said:

Why do you think that?

 

[franco malgarini]

one year, 12 months + -, the halftime is 142 days....

[Strange]

6 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

one year, 12 months + -, the halftime is 142 days....

What does this mean?

can you answer my question: why do you think that “after 8 months it is no longer radioactive”?

[franco malgarini]

the half-life of a radioactive material is the time it takes to halve the amount of radioactive particles emitted; polonium 210 after 142 days has half of the alpha particles emitted; after eight months, a quarter, after 12 months an eighth, that is almost nothing. For example, the Thorium has 11 years of half-life, plutonium thousands of years'

[Strange]

20 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

after 12 months an eighth, that is almost nothing

14 months.

And I don't think that 1/8th (of an unspecified amount) is "nothing".

The LD50 dose for Po 210 is about 1ug (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium) so if we take that as nothing, then your starting amount if 8ug. Is that enough to power anything useful?

You said you needed "a few grams". Lets say, 5 grams. To reduce this to 1 ug would take over 22 years. And for most of that time it would be useless as a power source.

Basically, like all your threads, you are just making stuff up without doing the most basic research.

Edited September 8, 2018 by Strange
Reference

[franco malgarini]

You don't Know radioactivity....

[Strange]

4 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

You don't Know radioactivity....

Please explain where I have gone wrong?

On 07/09/2018 at 2:17 PM, franco malgarini said:

just a few grams are needed to reach temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade sufficient to produce steam that drives a turbine

The temperature is not the important factor but the rate of energy release. Do you have any figures on that?

On 07/09/2018 at 2:17 PM, franco malgarini said:

It can be produced from bismuth by neutron irradiation

 

On 07/09/2018 at 2:30 PM, franco malgarini said:

Polonium 210 is transmutable from lead

So, which is it?

[John Cuthber]

According to the wiki page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Applications

"Because of intense alpha radiation, a one-gram sample of ²¹⁰Po will spontaneously heat up to above 500 °C (932 °F) generating about 140 watts of power. "

So, getting a million watts will take 7kg of the stuff.

So the assertion implied in the thread title is absurd.

5 hours ago, franco malgarini said:

You don't Know radioactivity....

We do.

You do not.

[Sensei]

5 hours ago, Strange said:

Please explain where I have gone wrong?

22 years * 365.25 day/year = 8035 days / 138.376 days/half-life = ~58

5 grams / 2^58 = ~1.735 *10^-17 grams..

6 hours ago, Strange said:

Lets say, 5 grams. To reduce this to 1 ug would take over 22 years.

22 half-lives, not 22 years.

5 g / 2^22 = ~1 ug.

 

[Strange]

4 minutes ago, Sensei said:

22 half-lives, not 22 years.

Doh. Of course. Thank you.

So, about 8 years, 7 months. That's still a long time

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Strange

[John Cuthber]

I suspect that the permitted body burden for 210 Po is a few orders of magnitude less than 1µg. The value I found online was 30 nano curies, or 6.8 pg.

And you would need to start with roughly 10Kg to make a MW generator.

Each SI prefix is about 10  half lives   (2^10 is about a thousand) so

A nanogram would be "safe" after 10 half lives

a µg after 20,

a mg after 30,

a gram after 40

and a kg after about 50 half lives.

Something like 18 years before the original 7 Kg that emits a megawatt decays to the 7pg or so that's a permitted body burden.

 

This is of course a pointless discussion. World production of polonium is only of the order of 100 grams per year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_production

So it would take 100 years to make 10Kg, but that would have decayed about 82 years before you finished making it.

This idea is dead.