How to stop a nuclear reaction using only energy...any theories?

[JohnCli]

So me and my classmates where debating if it is ever possible to contain a Nuclear Blast and eventually stop it's nuclear chain reaction using only pure energy and plasma.

 

 

Any other theories?

[mathematic]

So me and my classmates where debating if it is ever possible to contain a Nuclear Blast and eventually stop it's nuclear chain reaction using only pure energy and plasma.

 

 

Any other theories?

Extremely unlikely.

[ACG52]

Energy is not a thing. It is a property. Plasma is a hot, ionized gas, it's unlikely that it could contain anything.

[JohnCli]

That's what I was trying to explain to them. Thanks so...any theories?

[SamBridge]

In order to stop it you would have to add energy to binding energy between nucleons which increases the field strength or range of the gluons making it harder for them neutrons and protons to split off in a chain reaction. But, there's no known way to do that, you can create gluons from energy in certain particle interactions, but shooting a powerful laser at plutonium doesn't really stop it from reacting.

Edited January 18, 2013 by SamBridge

[Enthalpy]

A nuclear bomb diverges within a matter of nanoseconds. Light propagates over 3m in 10 nanoseconds, other things are slower. So any action taken after the chain reaction has started must be made from within 1.5m - which doesn't make it easier.

 

A neutron absorber (on fast neutrons) would have been great, but shipment methods are too slow.

 

You better destroy the bomb before the chain reaction starts. Please remember that there is no relationship whatsoever between nuclear bombs and missiles.

[SamBridge]

Well, perhaps not a nuclear reaction like in a nuclear bomb unless you had some kind of gauge field that only interacted when the process took place, but for some things like a nuclear reactor such as with the recent meltdown in Japan which are slower, neutron absorbers could temporarily handle the problem, but all the heat being trapped in a container would eventually melt it, which did happen in Japan.

Edited January 19, 2013 by SamBridge

[John Cuthber]

Well, perhaps not a nuclear reaction like in a nuclear bomb unless you had some kind of gauge field that only interacted when the process took place, but for some things like a nuclear reactor such as with the recent meltdown in Japan which are slower, neutron absorbers could temporarily handle the problem, but all the heat being trapped in a container would eventually melt it, which did happen in Japan.

Pardon?

[Moontanman]

What you need is a bobbler...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peace_War

 

 

 

The story takes place in 2048, 51 years after scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develop "the ultimate weapon", a force field generating device they term a Bobbler. The bureaucracy running the Laboratory use it to enforce an end to conventional warfare (triggering a brief war in the process), calling themselves the Peace Authority. The Bobbler creates a perfectly spherical, impenetrable, and persistent shield around or through anything, and is used to contain nuclear weapons, people, and occasionally entire cities or governments, separating them from the rest of the world (and presumably killing everyone inside by eventual suffocation and lack of sunlight).

 

 

I wouldn't hold my breath, Great book btw...

[SamBridge]

Oh wait, for a second I thought that force field was real and I was like "god dammit they beat me to it and I didn't even know", but it looks like I still have time, though I wasn't planning on it being a weapon.

 

Pardon?

Just read it, there are materials that can absorb neutrons better, but don't you think they are already using those in nuclear reactors? But if the reaction becomes unstable and there is no neutron damper, then it doesn't matter if they can absorb neutrons will, it will heat up the neutron absorber so much that it will melt.

Edited January 19, 2013 by SamBridge

[ACG52]

Best way to stop a nuclear reaction is to cut the speed of light in half.

[Enthalpy]

Just read it, there are materials that can absorb neutrons better, but don't you think they are already using those in nuclear reactors? But if the reaction becomes unstable and there is no neutron damper, then it doesn't matter if they can absorb neutrons will, it will heat up the neutron absorber so much that it will melt.

Pardon again?

 

A Fukushima, the reactors were properly stopped for hours thanks to the neutron absorbers every reactor uses, with negligible neutron emission at that time, when heat from fission products' radioactivity put the cores out of control.

 

And if someone could have had access to the cores, controlling them would have been easy. After the tsunami, workers had zero mean of action.

 

If you're interested in such topics, Wikipedia is generally a good introduction: nuclear reactors, control rods, residual heat...

[SamBridge]

Pardon again?

 

A Fukushima, the reactors were properly stopped for hours thanks to the neutron absorbers every reactor uses, with negligible neutron emission at that time, when heat from fission products' radioactivity put the cores out of control.

 

And if someone could have had access to the cores, controlling them would have been easy. After the tsunami, workers had zero mean of action.

 

If you're interested in such topics, Wikipedia is generally a good introduction: nuclear reactors, control rods, residual heat...

Exactly, they were stopped for "hours", not months, not years, "hours", that's how fast the heat builds up. If they can't introduce any more neutron moderators into the system, it will heat up too much and the reaction can go critical.

[Enthalpy]

SamBridge, you're messing up heat with chain reaction, absorber with moderator...

[John Cuthber]

Sambridge.

With a well designed reactor, overheating it (within limits) will make it less likely to go critical.

Heating it will stop the reaction.

In fact, that's what stops teh reaction in a nuclear bomb. It heats up, expands and becomes non-critical again.

 

Incidentally, moderators can be solids liquids or gases, melting doesn't change the capture cros section of the nucleus.

[SamBridge]

Sambridge.

With a well designed reactor, overheating it (within limits) will make it less likely to go critical.

Heating it will stop the reaction.

In fact, that's what stops teh reaction in a nuclear bomb. It heats up, expands and becomes non-critical again.

 

Incidentally, moderators can be solids liquids or gases, melting doesn't change the capture cros section of the nucleus.

So how do you explain what happened in Tokyo where there was a catastrophe because the walls melted and leaked radioactive material into the atmosphere? Yes, neutron moderators can be in any form, they typically use water don't they? But what happens if the walls melt and the gaseous moderator leaves? No moderator anymore. Even if the material is slightly less dense, even if it doesn't make a big boom, radioactive material continuously leaking everywhere isn't exactly great, the reaction will still happen somewhat just not at a critical rate to create an atomic explosion, I think uranium has a half life of something like at least a few million years. And on top of that, the heat would lead back to it becoming critical if such a small density change does in fact effect it, because it will melt the walls and then expose the reactor to the atmosphere which I'm guessing is cooler than a few hundred degrees, and it will become more dense again.

I guess if you could heat up the material so much that it vaporizes that could be a solution but you'd still have to deal with it being in the atmosphere, maybe just put it in a rocket and send it into space before it melts the rocket.

Edited January 21, 2013 by SamBridge

[John Cuthber]

"So how do you explain what happened in Tokyo where there was a catastrophe because the walls melted and leaked radioactive material into the atmosphere?"

Well, there was this earthquake...

 

"Yes, neutron moderators can be in any form, they typically use water don't they? But what happens if the walls melt and the gaseous moderator leaves? No moderator anymore."

 

And, without the moderator the reaction will shut down.

Fast neutrons don't produce a lot of fission.

 

"I think uranium has a half life of something like at least a few million years."

I think you need a few more noughts.

"And on top of that, the heat would lead back to it becoming critical"

No it won't, the heat will cause it to expand thus increasing the surface area for neutrons to be lost from and stopping the reaction.

 

"maybe just put it in a rocket"

Maybe not.

For a start launching something into space costs about its weight in gold.

Also

http://www.ov-10bronco.net/users/merlin/flight/kaboom.htm

 

You really need to understand the difference between moderators and absorbers (or you need to stop posting about them)

[SamBridge]

"So how do you explain what happened in Tokyo where there was a catastrophe because the walls melted and leaked radioactive material into the atmosphere?"

Well, there was this earthquake...

 

"Yes, neutron moderators can be in any form, they typically use water don't they? But what happens if the walls melt and the gaseous moderator leaves? No moderator anymore."

 

And, without the moderator the reaction will shut down.

Fast neutrons don't produce a lot of fission.

 

"I think uranium has a half life of something like at least a few million years."

I think you need a few more noughts.

"And on top of that, the heat would lead back to it becoming critical"

No it won't, the heat will cause it to expand thus increasing the surface area for neutrons to be lost from and stopping the reaction.

 

"maybe just put it in a rocket"

Maybe not.

For a start launching something into space costs about its weight in gold.

Also

http://www.ov-10bronco.net/users/merlin/flight/kaboom.htm

 

You really need to understand the difference between moderators and absorbers (or you need to stop posting about them)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_poison

Neutron absorbers do what they say they do, absorb neutrons, that's what I thought before

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_moderator

reduces the speed of neutrons, that's what I thought before too,

With regards to your comment "no, it won't", that makes no sense, the title says you're a chemistry expert so I'd like to think you know that most materials become more dense when they cool down. You argued the process can be damped by the expansion, using basic logic that a child could understand it's pretty simple that the process would become closer to critical if the material contracted and became more dense if your argument that the expansion affects the process is true. Either you didn't know that or you aren't giving me the simple courtesy of wholly reading my posts. Heat builds up. If the container was indestructible, you'd be right perhaps, though perhaps some of the heat could escape through the walls so that it didn't completely dampen the reaction, but it's not, if you read later in my post, you would have read that my statement was justified by that the container could melt eventually, thus exposing the reactor to a cooler atmosphere making the material itself cooler, making it contract. Since it's pretty likely that a chemistry expert would understand how density and temperature are related, I like to think you just skimmed my post without much of a regard instead so to avoid issues like this in the future I suggest you give posts more though and read things more carefully. The fact that you put so little words down and that the only thing you referenced was a rocket launch and not even the heat build up causing expansion seems troubling, and is one of the reason why I'm leaving this site soon.

As you have hypothesized indirectly, if you could vaporize the uranium in a super strong container that wouldn't melt but that would also moderate thermal energy to the outside world without letting radioactive decay out, that would seem to be a solution.

I also did not say putting something in a rocket wouldn't be expensive, that's not the debate, the debate is "how to do it at all", not "what's the most cost effective way".

Edited January 21, 2013 by SamBridge

[Moontanman]

I'm not sure if this is relevant but it is possible to build nuclear reactors that cannot melt down, current reactors were designed with production of plutonium for bombs in mind. this has been handed down in the design since the first reactors....

[SamBridge]

I'm not sure if this is relevant but it is possible to build nuclear reactors that cannot melt down, current reactors were designed with production of plutonium for bombs in mind. this has been handed down in the design since the first reactors....

Perhaps more recently constructed reactors are, but have you herd of Chernobyl? And did you hear about Tokyo? Even if the walls themselves are thick enough, the heat could be enough to melt other more delicate machinery just outside those walls which control the moderation materials. In any case, uncontrolled nuclear reactions are not good. Can we at least agree on that? If a nuclear bomb went off inside a nuclear reactor sure it wouldn't cause as much damage, but that doesn't mean everything would be completely OK, some of the walls would definitely be vaporized, something will go wrong with too much energy. I would imagine the walls are designed to withstand radioactivity more than they are to extreme thermal energy.

http://www.makeitgreen.webs.com/Nuclear_meltdown.html

Try to ignore the add

Edited January 21, 2013 by SamBridge

[Moontanman]

Perhaps more recently constructed reactors are, but have you herd of Chernobyl? And did you hear about Tokyo? Even if the walls themselves are thick enough, the heat could be enough to melt other more delicate machinery just outside those walls which control the moderation materials. In any case, uncontrolled nuclear reactions are not good. Can we at least agree on that?

 

 

Again Chernobyl was a very poor design and it was designed to use uranium and produce plutonium as was the Tokyo reactor. Even if the reactors were meant to only produce energy they were still of the design that uses uranium to produce plutonium, energy is just a by product even if it is the sole reason the reactors were built.

[SamBridge]

 

 

Again Chernobyl was a very poor design and it was designed to use uranium and produce plutonium as was the Tokyo reactor. Even if the reactors were meant to only produce energy they were still of the design that uses uranium to produce plutonium, energy is just a by product even if it is the sole reason the reactors were built.

The goal is to produce energy, but it is not to produce it all at once, or in an uncontrolled way. Even with better designs in place, too much radiation building up isn't a good thing, that shouldn't be a debate.

Perhaps in the future things will happen in a much more controlled manner using fusion instead of fission if someone can successfully mine Helium 3 from the moon or create efficient cold fusion.

There are numerous ways which the reaction can become uncontrolled, which I direct you to this

http://www.makeitgreen.webs.com/Nuclear_meltdown.html

Edited January 21, 2013 by SamBridge

[Moontanman]

The goal is to produce energy, but it is not to produce it all at once, or in an uncontrolled way. Even with better designs in place, too much radiation building up isn't a good thing, that shouldn't be a debate.

Perhaps in the future things will happen in a much more controlled manner using fusion instead of fission if someone can successfully mine Helium 3 from the moon or create efficient cold fusion.

There are numerous ways which the reaction can become uncontrolled, which I direct you to this

http://www.makeitgreen.webs.com/Nuclear_meltdown.html

 

Thorium reactors are fundamentally different...

 

[SamBridge]

 

Thorium reactors are fundamentally different...

 

If thorium reactors can be constructed on a large scale and there is enough of it available, then good for us, we don't have to worry about previous problems so much, but my previous statement remains the same: "too much radiation building up isn't a good thing".

 

Anyway, I think at this point we're getting too off topic. We need to see if there's ways to stop a nuclear reaction. If you can just vaporize the reactive material, it will stop the reaction but still release materials into the atmosphere potentially. If you use gluon ionization rays, you can't cause they don't exist. If you shoot it into space, it will cost a lot of money, it won't stop it, but we won't have to deal with it anymore unless it loops around the sun and hits Earth.

Edited January 21, 2013 by SamBridge

[Moontanman]

If thorium reactors can be constructed on a large scale and there is enough of it available, then good for us, we don't have to worry about previous problems so much, but my previous statement remains the same: "too much radiation building up isn't a good thing".

 

 

I agree, but uranium reactors produce huge amounts of very long lived radioactive waste. Thorium reactors not only produce much less waste is it much shorter lived and Thorium reactors can be used to "burn" the waste we currently have...

Edited January 21, 2013 by Moontanman