The disadvantages are that liquid lead is far more viscous than liquid sodium ( increasing pumping costs ), and there are numerous radioactive neutron activation products, while there are essentially none from sodium.
12.
Nuclear reprocessing can separate spent fuel into various combinations of reprocessed uranium, plutonium, minor actinides, fission products, remnants of zirconium or steel cladding, activation products, and the reagents or solidifiers introduced in the reprocessing itself.
13.
"The likelihood of a large-scale release from the Komsomolets is small, " the report said . " Even if the containment material corrodes with time, most of the activation products will have decayed before they are released.
14.
Disadvantages include difficulties associated with inspection and repair of a reactor immersed in opaque molten metal, and depending on the choice of metal, fire hazard risk ( for alkali metals ), corrosion and / or production of radioactive activation products may be an issue.
15.
Using steel reflectors instead of U-238 blankets, the reactor operates in pure burner mode and is not a net creator of fissile material; on balance it will consume fissile and fertile material and, assuming loss-free reprocessing, output no actinides but only fission products and activation products.
16.
After the actinides ( reprocessed uranium, plutonium, and minor actinides ) are recycled, the remaining radioactive waste isotopes are fission products, with half-life of 90 years ( Sm-151 ) or less or 211, 100 years ( Tc-99 ) and more; plus any activation products from the non-fuel reactor components.
17.
Fission products and actinides produced by neutron absorption of nuclear fuel itself are normally referred to by those specific names, and " activation product " reserved for products of neutron capture by other materials, such as structural components of the nuclear reactor or nuclear bomb, the reactor coolant, control rods or other neutron poisons, or materials in the environment.
18.
The triple " taiga " nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora Kama Canal project, produced substantial amounts of Co-60, with this fusion generated neutron activation product being responsible for about half of the gamma dose now ( 2011 ) at the test site, with green vegetation existing all around the lake that was formed.
19.
One of the more unusual isotopes found in trinitite, although by no means unique as it may also have formed during the Joe-1 test, which was a partial to complete Soviet replica of the Trinity / Fat Man design, is a barium neutron activation product, the barium in the Trinity device coming from the slow explosive lens employed in the device, known as Baratol.
