| Back to home | ||
Study of nuclear environment & material strategy KAMEI Takashi
Kinugasa Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University,
Syugaku-kan 226, Tojiin Kitamachi 56-1, Kita-ku, KYOTO, 603-8577 Japan(hae00675@nifty.com)
Abstract:There is a concern about the environmental hazard caused by radioactive materials coming with the expansion of nuclear power and even by renewable energies, which are used as countermeasures against global warming to construct a sustainable society. A concept to internalize the pollution caused by radioactive materials, which are directly or indirectly related to nuclear power, to economical activities by adopting externality is proposed. Energy and industrial productions are strongly related to the supply of material. Therefore material flow is also part of this internalization concept. The concept is named ”NEMS (Nuclear Environment & Material Strategy)”. Fission products and transuranic isotopes from nuclear power such as plutonium are considered in this concept. Thorium, which comes from the material flow of rare-earth production to support the elaboration of renewable energies including electric vehicles on the consumer side, is considered as an externality of the non-nuclear power field. Fission products contain some rare-earth materials. Thus, these rare-earth materials, which are extracted by the advanced ORIENT (Optimization by Recycling Instructive Elements) cycle, are internalized as rare-earth supplier in economy. However, the supply quantity is limited. Therefore rare-earth production itself is still needed. The externality of rare-earth production is thorium and is internalized by using it as nuclear fuel. In this case, the demand of thorium is still small within these few decades compared to the production of thorium as byproduct of the rare-earth production. A thorium energy bank (The Bank) is advanced to regulate the storage of the excess amount of thorium inside of an international framework in order to prevent environmental hazard resulting from the illegal disposal of thorium. In this paper, the material flows of thorium and rare-earth are outlined. Their material balance are demonstrated based on the prediction of rare-earth mining and an implementation of thorium nuclear power. Keyword:thorium;rare-earth;material balance;externality |
||
| Click here for viewing full text. | ||