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Message |
    
Ted
hunter
Username: Ted
Post Number: 490
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 9:20 am: |     |
A while ago in one of the forums here or on HZ I stated that radioactive decay cannot be altered. Scott, I think, pointed out that under certain situations it can be, albeit by small amounts.
There is an article in this week's NewScientist that turns it all on its head.
It's not fully corroborated yet, but it is looking as though certain elements can in fact have their radioactive decay speeded up by a large factor.
This has very important ramifications if true - it could remove the radioactive waste disposal problem of nuclear power plants at a single stroke.
Here is part of it:
Half-life heresy: Accelerating radioactive decay
* 21 October 2006
* NewScientist.com news service
FOR ALL its eureka moments, science has taught us many unpalatable lessons about what we are powerless to do. We can't dim the sun to remedy droughts or global warming. We can't stave off the ravages of time to live for thousands of years. And there's little we can do about radioactive waste from nuclear reactors that will be a health hazard for generations to come. Radioactivity cannot be tamed; all we can do is bundle the waste somewhere safe and wait for it to decay away. So it takes some nerve to say otherwise, and suggest that there are, after all, ways to speed up radioactive decay.
Yet that is exactly what Claus Rolfs, a physicist at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, is doing. His dramatic - and controversial - claim is that by encasing certain radioisotopes in metal and chilling them close to absolute zero, it ought to be possible to slash their half-lives from millennia to just a few years. He says it's time to rewrite defeatist textbooks that insist we cannot alter the pace of radioactivity. "When I was studying physics, my teachers said nuclear properties are independent of the environment - you can put nuclei in the oven or the freezer, or any chemical environment, and the nuclear properties will stay the same," says Rolfs. "That is not true any more."
“Encasing radioisotopes in metals and chilling them could slash millennia off their half-lives”
If Rolfs is right, it could have profound implications not just for nuclear waste management, but also for understanding the Earth's interior and measuring the age of the universe. So far, other physicists have reacted to his claim with an equal mix of scepticism and intrigue. Yet everyone is keen to see his idea put to the test properly, which could happen within the next year at CERN, the European centre for particle physics near Geneva, Switzerland.
Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Benjamin Disraeli: "The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." |
Da_bear
flint knapper
Username: Da_bear
Post Number: 850
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 4:24 pm: | |
If true, this will have major paleontological and archeological implications.
Blows a few of my lectures out of the water, including mine for next week.
May even give ID proponents another good shot.
BUT, NO theory/law is ultimately sacred versus valid evidence discrediting or modifying it.
I wonder what we now hold as bedrock is really sand?
I've seen a few rocks ground away in the past few decades.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1539
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - 1:50 am: | |
Yeah Ted, I posted in the Hot Zone a reference to decay:
quote:Radiometric decay is in fact dependant on the speed of light, and since c is constant, so is decay - usually. But decay rates can show variation over time for other reasons, especially electron capture decay (s-oribital character is different from different compounds of Be, and only Be as far as I know where decay rates have changed slightly - less than 1%), but this is not significant with respect to Ted's post above, but they do seem to change over time.
C14 doesn't use a e.c. decay, but K40 does and so there could be issues in KAr dating, but as far as I know none has been detected. C14 is a beta decay animal. There is nothing in theory that says beta decay rates can't change, but observation has shown it to be very consistent and constant.
Radiometric dating is based on the assumption that decay rates do not change over time and they don't - significantly.
Electron Capture Decay Post
I just read the whole article - my best mate in Oz sent it to me - and I am absolutely astounded! Based on your post I was quick to dismiss it "...and chilling them close to absolute zero...." because the world doesn't work that way, but then the article goes on to explain high temperature decay rate acceleration. I am really at a loss here.
Quick sand bear if I am reading the article right.
Thanks Ted!!!
Just when you think you "know" something.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Da_bear
flint knapper
Username: Da_bear
Post Number: 851
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - 1:17 pm: | |
I am excited by any new learning, and read my email last night also with some difficulty, but enjoyment.
If so, one BIG can of quicksand with worms thrown in.
I no longer will pontificate about the sum always rising in the west, er east, whatever.
However, if one can use a fraction of the energy used in fission to get rid of the waste and still have a positive energy production it could bode well for the future of nuclear energy and greenhouse gases.
On the side, there are ads going around the US for greenhouse neutral coal burning plants, anyone know about this?
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2953
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 11:31 pm: | |
NewScientist is a wonderful magazine. I subscribe to it and read it every week. But keep in mind that it promotes speculative ideas, and happily promotes conflicting ideas from issue to issue.
It is a source of ideas in science, sometimes a reporter of published peer review, and sometimes it seriously treats utter whacko thoughts.
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1545
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 3:05 am: | |
Yeah it is a great magazine. I read The Economist and Scientific American regularly, but haven't subscribed to NS yet. I need to, but my subscription budget is stretched - my wife thinks I am nuts at the $ I spend in a year....Speaking of which Current Anthropology just arrived today....gotta run....
I've heard of the greenhouse neutral coal plants technology, but it involves pumping the carbon into the ground somehow.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2963
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 4:35 am: | |
I don't think we can bury our long term problems safely underground... What goes down, comes up. 
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1572
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 - 11:52 pm: | |
Well carbon isn't dangerous if some of it leaks back out, but your point is taken. It is a short term solution at best.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2995
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 2:32 am: | |
Isn't carbon leakage one of the concerns?
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1574
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 6:12 am: | |
Not really - just over the long term if all the carbon leaked out then it would be a problem. For example, say they managed to lock up all the CO2 by pumping it underground *somehow*. If 20% leaked back out over 500 years, that is still an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Something worth thinking about at least. It isn't a perfect solution, but unlike radioactive material, the leaks won't kill us all - at least not immediately.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3002
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 2:47 pm: | |
Well, 80% of what was buried, anyway.  But meanwhile, we are still producing more carbon on the surface...
As my cats always say, "litterboxes get filled up, and there is more to come".
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
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