Polonium 210 has a half-life of 140 days which is the time that can be used to make a power generator; just a few grams are needed to reach temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade sufficient to produce steam that drives a turbine; after 8 months it is no longer radioactive and therefore does not produce waste. It can be produced from bismuth by neutron irradiation; you can even build cars at Polonium 210.

Where does polonium come from and how much energy is needed to extract it?

Probably, Polonium 210 is transmutable from lead: i have an idea for it...

 

39 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

after 8 months it is no longer radioactive 

Why do you think that?

Edited September 7, 20187 yr by Strange

8 hours ago, franco malgarini said:

It can be produced from bismuth by neutron irradiation;

Bismuth relatively stable isotope is Bi-209. After neutron capture, it'll become Bi-210. Majority of it will beta decay minus to Po-210 with half-life 5.012(5) days.

The question is where do you get enough free neutrons to make enough Po-210 fuel.. ?

1 gram of Po-210 is approximately 1 g / 210 g/mol = ~0.0047619 mol * 6.022141*10^23  = 2.86768619*10^21 atoms (and free (slow/thermal) neutrons required to make it).

(too fast neutrons will destroy nucleus, and cause e.g. proton-emission)

 

On 9/7/2018 at 2:17 PM, franco malgarini said:

just a few grams

That's tens of thousands of curies of radioactive material.

Even if we ignore the terrorist threat from a  dirty bomb, there's a huge risk of radioactive  material leaking from a car crash.

Why would anyone take the risks?

 

Fukushima docet !!!!

28 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

Fukushima docet !!!!

That teaches us that having radioactive materials in vulnerable places (eg in automobiles) is not a good idea. 

 

And can you answer my question:

On 07/09/2018 at 2:34 PM, Strange said:

Why do you think that?

 

one year, 12 months + -, the halftime is 142 days....

6 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

one year, 12 months + -, the halftime is 142 days....

What does this mean?

can you answer my question: why do you think that “after 8 months it is no longer radioactive”?

the half-life of a radioactive material is the time it takes to halve the amount of radioactive particles emitted; polonium 210 after 142 days has half of the alpha particles emitted; after eight months, a quarter, after 12 months an eighth, that is almost nothing. For example, the Thorium has 11 years of half-life, plutonium thousands of years'

20 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

after 12 months an eighth, that is almost nothing

14 months.

And I don't think that 1/8th (of an unspecified amount) is "nothing".

The LD50 dose for Po 210 is about 1ug (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium) so if we take that as nothing, then your starting amount if 8ug. Is that enough to power anything useful?

You said you needed "a few grams". Lets say, 5 grams. To reduce this to 1 ug would take over 22 years. And for most of that time it would be useless as a power source.

Basically, like all your threads, you are just making stuff up without doing the most basic research.

Edited September 8, 20187 yr by Strange
Reference

You don't Know radioactivity....

4 minutes ago, franco malgarini said:

You don't Know radioactivity....

Please explain where I have gone wrong?

On 07/09/2018 at 2:17 PM, franco malgarini said:

just a few grams are needed to reach temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade sufficient to produce steam that drives a turbine

The temperature is not the important factor but the rate of energy release. Do you have any figures on that?

On 07/09/2018 at 2:17 PM, franco malgarini said:

It can be produced from bismuth by neutron irradiation

 

On 07/09/2018 at 2:30 PM, franco malgarini said:

Polonium 210 is transmutable from lead

So, which is it?

According to the wiki page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Applications

"Because of intense alpha radiation, a one-gram sample of ²¹⁰Po will spontaneously heat up to above 500 °C (932 °F) generating about 140 watts of power. "

So, getting a million watts will take 7kg of the stuff.

So the assertion implied in the thread title is absurd.

5 hours ago, franco malgarini said:

You don't Know radioactivity....

We do.

You do not.

5 hours ago, Strange said:

Please explain where I have gone wrong?

22 years * 365.25 day/year = 8035 days / 138.376 days/half-life = ~58

5 grams / 2^58 = ~1.735 *10^-17 grams..

6 hours ago, Strange said:

Lets say, 5 grams. To reduce this to 1 ug would take over 22 years.

22 half-lives, not 22 years.

5 g / 2^22 = ~1 ug.

 

4 minutes ago, Sensei said:

22 half-lives, not 22 years.

Doh. Of course. Thank you.

So, about 8 years, 7 months. That's still a long time

 

Edited September 8, 20187 yr by Strange

I suspect that the permitted body burden for 210 Po is a few orders of magnitude less than 1µg. The value I found online was 30 nano curies, or 6.8 pg.

And you would need to start with roughly 10Kg to make a MW generator.

Each SI prefix is about 10  half lives   (2^10 is about a thousand) so

A nanogram would be "safe" after 10 half lives

a µg after 20,

a mg after 30,

a gram after 40

and a kg after about 50 half lives.

Something like 18 years before the original 7 Kg that emits a megawatt decays to the 7pg or so that's a permitted body burden.

 

This is of course a pointless discussion. World production of polonium is only of the order of 100 grams per year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_production

So it would take 100 years to make 10Kg, but that would have decayed about 82 years before you finished making it.

This idea is dead.