A Sign in a Chemical Journal that the World Is Waking Up to Energy Reality.
I have pretty much scanned every issue of Chemical Reviews for decades, and while I have seen one or two papers about reprocessing of nuclear fuels, I've seen few about the properties in use of nuclear fuels.
Today I came across this one: Thermal Energy Transport in Oxide Nuclear Fuel, David H. Hurley, Anter El-Azab, Matthew S. Bryan, Michael W. D. Cooper, Cody A. Dennett, Krzysztof Gofryk, Lingfeng He, Marat Khafizov, Gerard H. Lander, Michael E. Manley, J. Matthew Mann, Chris A. Marianetti, Karl Rickert, Farida A. Selim, Michael R. Tonks, and Janelle P. Wharry Chemical Reviews 2022 122 (3), 3711-3762
(For the record, I'm not an oxide fuel kind of guy, but certainly the subjects discussed are relevant to other nuclear fuels.)
This is a very long paper, with 654 references, and it would be useless to try to discuss it fully here, but here from excerpts of the table of contents are some of the subjects discussed in this document which will prove important if we are to save what can be saved and restore what can be restored in the world:
1. Introduction 3712
1.1. Origins of Phonon Thermal Conductivity 3713
2. Thermal Transport in Perfect Single Crystals 3714
2.1. Inelastic Neutron and X-ray Scattering 3714
2.1.1. Phonon Dispersion and Thermal Conductivity 3714
2.1.2. Techniques for Measuring Phonons 3715
2.1.3. Triple-Axis Neutron Measurements of the Phonon Lifetimes in UO2 3715
2.1.4. Inelastic X-ray Measurements of Phonons in Irradiated Epitaxial Thin Films of UO2 3716
2.1.5. Time-of-Flight Neutron Measurements
Reveal Nonlinear Modes in ThO2 and UO2 3716
2.2. First-Principles Thermal Transport in Perfect Crystals 3716
2.2.1. General Considerations 3716
2.2.2. First-Principles Approaches for Crystals beyond DFT...
... 3.2. Irradiation-Induced Defects 3727
3.2.1. Characterization Techniques 3727
3.2.2. Irradiation-Induced Point Defects 3728
3.2.3. Dislocation Loops 3729
3.2.4. Cavities and Precipitates 3730
3.3. Modeling of Defect Clustering 3731
3.3.1. Simple Rate Theory Model of Defect Evolution 3731
3.3.2. Cluster Dynamics Approach to Defect Evolution 3732
3.4. Grain Boundaries 3733
3.4.1. Intrinsic Grain Boundaries 3733
3.4.2. Restructured Grain Boundaries 3733...
... 4. Thermal Conductivity under Irradiation 3735
4.1. Fuel Performance Codes and Thermal Conductivity 3735
4.2. Experimental Measurement of Thermal Conductivity 3736
4.3. Boltzmann Transport Framework 3737
4.3.1. Phonon Scattering 3737
4.3.2. Klemens?Callaway?Debye Approximation3738
4.3.3. Single-Mode Relaxation Time Approximation3739
4.4. Molecular Dynamics Simulations of ThermalConductivity 3740
4.4.1. Bulk Thermal Conductivity 3740...
Here, from the paper is a "science porn" picture of a crystal of thorium oxide:
The caption:
I shared this paper with my son, the materials science engineer, to read during his gap semester before beginning his Ph.D. research.
One of the authors of this paper is Gerry Landers. I referred to a review Dr. Landers wrote of a book about neutron transport in this space, and received a, um, "profound" comment from a dumb guy with a penchant for expressing his intellectual depth with emojis to the the effect that "Nuclear power sucks. Yup." I advised him to share the comment with Dr. Lander, who, I'm sure, on hearing this trenchant "wit" from a poorly educated idiot would be inclined to withdraw all his papers.
Despite the continued existence of anti-nukes, some in prominent positions in places like Germany, where this morning and for years previous they are still burning the fuel of primitives, coal, the world is waking up to the reality that in the age of a crumbling atmosphere, nuclear energy is our last, best hope. Perhaps we are waking up too slowly, but we are waking up.
As of this morning, (2/26/22, 7:48 AM US EST/13:31 Munich time) the carbon intensity of German electricity is 408 g CO2/kwh, that of neighboring France, 83 g CO2/kwh. I note that there are few nations in Europe that have been better customers for Russian gas than Germany.
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