• Question: Would it be possible to create a nuclear reactor that runs on biomass

    Asked by kingfabianxvii to Alessandro, Angela, Claudia, Marina, Phil on 11 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Phillip Wilkinson

      Phillip Wilkinson answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      There are ways of generating power from biomass already! Usually from burning out or converting it into another fuel source.

      As for using biomass in a nuclear reactor. These reactors require a specific type of material so I don’t think it would be possible.

    • Photo: Alessandro Guazzi

      Alessandro Guazzi answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      Agreed with Philip! Although… theoretically… if one wanted to…

      one could create a fusion reactor, which makes energy by forcing together atoms which have a mass smaller than iron. Since biomass is mostly made up of carbon (which luckily has a mass lower than that of iron!), you could feed it into this futuristic fusion reactor and actually get energy out!

      Unfortunately, fusion reactors are still a thing of the future, some say we might have to wait 100 years to see them become commercially available. And they’d still probably work on somewhat simpler elements like helium!

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