The U.S. has a lot of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) rods from nuclear reactors, which need to be disposed off in deep, protected underground sites. Yet these rods give off massive amounts of heat as they slowly cool.
Jumping to oil extraction challenges, there are massive amounts of oil locked in U.S. shale formations, which could equal three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia even using relatively conservative extraction estimates. Problem is, they require inordinate amounts of energy to heat up, liquefy, and then extract; which makes them too expensive to be worthwhile based on established technology.
Thus there might be an excellent use for spent nuclear fuel rods which are otherwise be left to rot -- use the heat they produce, in an environmentally-protected fashion, to liquefy hard to get U.S. oil reserves.
Yes it sounds completely crazy at first. It's the kind of story an environmental opposition would have a field day creating scare stories with, but it might actually make sense.
Full article at: Nuclear Fuel rods
Pretty interesting actually.
by heat you mean nuclear radiation, right? ....just wanted to be clear on that.
The reason we disposed of them is because we have an open cycle. We could merely keep using the fuel over again, and build a much larger nuclear power plant grid, freeing up fossil fuels from their use in power plants.
"To prevent overheating, control rods made of a material that absorbs neutrons are inserted into the uranium bundle using a mechanism that can raise or lower the control rods. Raising and lowering the control rods allow operators to control the rate of the nuclear reaction. When an operator wants the uranium core to produce more heat, the control rods are raised out of the uranium bundle (thus absorbing fewer neutrons). To create less heat, they are lowered into the uranium bundle. The rods can also be lowered completely into the uranium bundle to shut the reactor down in the case of an accident or to change the fuel.
I don't think the spent fuel is hot, it is the reaction which produces the heat.
Don't think risking nuclear meltdown to get oil from shale formations is the best idea.
Are you suggesting we take SNF rods which are bleeding radiation and heat oil with that bleeding radiation? You don't see any issue with mining, refining, transporting and using radioactive crude oil?
Are your initials GWB?
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