"The Holy Grail of energy is out there - we just need to harness it..."
If you are not familiar with tritium, don't feel alone. Many have never heard of it. However, if you lived in China, you would be very familiar with it as they are staking a good part of their energy future on this mineral.
This is a very interesting mineral. It has been mined since the 1955 and unlike uranium, only very little of was produced. It has some advantages over uranium and some disadvantages. The main advantage is a much shorter half-life of the radioactivity once the mineral is done producing energy. The main disadvantage (this may have some urban legend mixed in) especially during the cold war, tritium does not produce plutonium as a by product. Plutonium as we know, is instrumental in the production of nuclear weapons.
Okay - we know we can use tritium to illuminate key chains, watches, exit signs and rifle sights. However, we need to know if it is hazardous to humans. According to studies done by Idaho State University:
The radioactive decay product of tritium is a low energy beta that cannot penetrate the outer dead layer of human skin. Therefore, the main hazard associated with tritium is internal exposure from inhalation or ingestion. In addition, due to the relatively long half life and short biological half life, an intake of tritium must be in large amounts to pose a significant health risk.
If it is not as lethal as uranium, can we still use it as a safer yet viable energy source? To answer this, we need to go deeper into the rabbit hole. First off, yes - tritium can be used as a cleaner answer to nuclear energy. However, there is currently not enough natural tritium to sustain a new and viable energy source. To obtain enough tritium, breeder reactors will be required. The first step on this research is being conducted by the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). This project is being funded by seven countries (including the United States) and the goal is to build a "proof of concept" reactor in France that will be able to produce (breed) deuterium and tritium by 2027.
One more thing about this reactor being built in France. This will be a plasma reactor like we have never seen before. Besides breeding adequate supplies of deuterium and tritium, it is hopeful this reactor can product 10 times more energy from the plasma it generates than the fuel needed to produce it. If this technology is successful, by 2050 this energy source could be a global game changer ushering in the age of clean, unlimited energy.
When we talk about a comprehensive plan for our energy future, technologies such as this need to be a part of it. Fuel cells, solar, cleaner nuclear (tritium), oil shale, natural gas, tar sands and others make up a cornucopia, a smorgasbord for decades of energy. Don't let anyone fool you - we are energy rich and more energy sources are on the way. And that is the truth.
courtesy of the US Environmental Protection Agency:
ReplyDeleteTritium was discovered by physicists Ernest Rutherford, M.L. Oliphant, and Paul Harteck, in 1934, when they bombarded deuterium (a hydrogen isotope with mass number 2) with high-energy deuterons (nuclei of deuterium atoms).
Where does tritium come from?
Tritium is produced naturally in the upper atmosphere when cosmic rays strike air molecules. Tritium is also produced during nuclear weapons explosions, as a byproduct in reactors producing electricity, and in special production reactors, where the isotope lithium-6 is bombarded to produce tritium.
What are the properties of tritium?
Tritium is a hydrogen atom that has 2 neutrons in the nucleus, in addition to its single proton, giving it an atomic weight near 3. Although tritium can be a gas, its most common form is in water, because, like non-radioactive hydrogen, radioactive tritium reacts with oxygen to form water. Tritium replaces one of the stable hydrogens in the water molecule, H2O, and is called tritiated water. Like H2O, tritiated water is colorless and odorless. Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years and emits a very weak beta particle.
The key words here are "very weak" - the beta particles are unable to penetrate even thin layers of solid material and are easily stopped by human skin. A report by the
Public Health Division
of the Department of Human Services in Victoria, Australia on the effects of wearing a plastic watch containing tritium concluded that the health implications were negligible. Rather more prejudicial to physical well-being is the other common use of tritium, as outlined by the
Federation of American Scientists
:
Tritium is essential to the construction of boosted-fission nuclear weapons. A boosted weapon contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium, the gases being heated and compressed by the detonation of a plutonium or uranium device. The D-T mixture is heated to a temperature and pressure such that thermonuclear fusion occurs. This process releases a flood of 14 MeV neutrons which cause additional fissions in the device, greatly increasing its efficiency.
Nice one - it's good to see science getting the most bangs for the taxpayers' bucks. There is, however, one drawback to the use of tritium in nukes - that 12.3 year half-life. The
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
explains:
Tritium must be replenished in nuclear weapons routinely. The United States has not produced tritium since 1988, when the Department of Energy's (DOE's) production facility at the Savannah River site in South Carolina closed. Immediate tritium needs are being met by recycling tritium from dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons. According to DOE, resumption of tritium production is essential for maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.
Indeed. The US is currently looking at various options for the domestic production of tritium. It's a political hot potato, as
this 1998 letter
to Bill Clinton from Physicians for Social Responsibility, urging him not to use civilian facilities for the production of military tritium, proves.