[cdn-nucl-l] From the Sunday Telegraph

["Jim Muckerheide" <jmuckerheide@cnts.wpi.edu>]

Friends,

A lot wrong here, but the real message, that the UK needs nuclear power,
continues to be reiterated! :-)

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
========================

Nobel prize-winner's reactor offers safer, cleaner nuclear power By Robert
Matthews, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 11/07/2004)

A revolutionary nuclear reactor that can recycle its own waste is being
studied by the Government as a future source of energy for Britain.

The reactor, which is being developed by a Nobel prize-winning Italian
scientist, is said to eliminate the risk of disasters of the type that
devastated Chernobyl in 1986. It can also use radioactive waste from other
reactors - as well as from its own - as a source of fuel, minimising any
environmental problems and reducing the cost of generating electricity.

By offering these benefits, scientists believe that the reactor will ensure
that nuclear power plays a greater role in future energy policy. Conviction
is growing among governments and some environmentalists that without nuclear
power the world will face an energy crisis.

Last week Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, indicated that Britain might have
to build a new generation of nuclear power stations. Mr Blair said that the
aim would be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions - as required by the Kyoto
convention - produced by other forms of electricity generation and declared
that the only obstacles to nuclear power were the issues of safety and cost.
The reactor, which is being assembled near Rome by Prof Carlo Rubbia, an
Italian physicist who won a Nobel Prize in 1984, addresses both concerns.

In a conventional reactor, radioactive fuel - uranium - is used to trigger a
chain reaction, in which atoms of the fuel break apart, releasing energy and
particles that in turn break apart further atoms, sustaining the reaction.
The challenge has been to prevent the chain reaction getting out of control
and producing an atomic explosion. This has led to complex and expensive
safety systems, which do not always work, as the Chernobyl disaster in the
former Soviet Union demonstrated.

Prof Rubbia's reactor, by contrast, can use other radioactive fuels - such
as plutonium, neptunium and other high-level waste products from
conventional nuclear reactors - that do not produce enough particles to
sustain a chain reaction.

Instead, the reactor has to be fed with particles from an external source.
If the supply of particles is cut off - through a mistake or sabotage - the
reactor reverts to its natural state, and switches off.

Since the start of nuclear power generation 50 years ago, thousands of tons
of hot and toxic radioactive waste have accumulated, awaiting the discovery
of some long-term disposal method. In Britain, it is turned into a glassy
material and kept in huge, heavily protected cooling ponds.

Dr Kadi said that the new reactor, which is known as an "energy amplifier",
would be able to dispose of waste produced by five conventional reactors, as
well as its own. "With this reactor you can put in any type of radioactive
waste, as long as you can get it into the right form," he said.

The first live test on the reactor will be conducted soon at the Casaccia
Research Centre. Once the performance of the test reactor has been assessed,
the team plans to upgrade to a bigger reactor and particle accelerator and
attempt the first "incineration" of radioactive waste.

Nuclear power has had a chequered history since the opening of Britain's
Calderhall, the world's first nuclear power station, in 1956. Incidents such
as the Windscale reactor fire of 1957, Three Mile Island in 1979 and
Chernobyl led many countries to halt their nuclear power programmes. Within
20 years Britain will have just one nuclear power station.

Despite its reputation, nuclear power is seen by many scientists as offering
environmental advantages because it generates no carbon dioxide. Other forms
of non-fossil fuel-burning energy generation - such as wind turbines - do
not produce enough power to meet Britain's requirement to cut its greenhouse
gas emissions, while electricity produced by nuclear power is likely to be
less than half as expensive as that from offshore windfarms.

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