Fuel stores

By the year 2000, the United States will have an estimated 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored at some 70 sites and awaiting disposal. By 2035, after all existing nuclear plants have completed 40 years of operation, about 85,000 metric tons will be awaiting disposal (Slovic et al. 1991). 

Fuel store Approximate total fuel reserve Estimated period for which fuel store would provide energy ... 

In the ebb phase, there is increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system and increased plasma levels of adrenaline and glucocorticoids but a decreased level of insulin. This results in mobilisation of glycogen in the liver and triacylglycerol in adipose tissue, so that the levels of two major fuels in the blood, glucose and long-chain fatty acids, are increased. This is, effectively, the stress response to trauma. These changes continue and are extended into the flow phase as the immune cells are activated and secrete the proinflammatory cytokines that further stimulate the mobilisation of fuel stores (Table 18.2). Thus the sequence is trauma increased endocrine hormone levels increased immune response increased levels of cytokines metabolic responses. 

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) can live in water bottoms of fuel storage tanks. These bacteria can produce growth plaques on metal surfaces and can live in corrosion pits in metal. Hydrogen sulfide is a product of SRB metabolism and can contaminate fuel stored in tanks. 

Fuel properties are especially important in defining the safety hazards posed by a fuel. Since fuels are flammable, fire and explosion hazards are possible. Some fuels are toxic or contain carcinogenic compounds that present exposure, inhalation, and ingestion hazards. Fuels stored at cryogenic temperatures such as liquefied natural gas and liquefied hydrogen present safety hazards from skin contact... 

The equilibrium of a hydrogen or carbon monoxide fuel cell operating at high temperature and pressure is defined using a flow sheet, which connects the cell to a fuel store at standard conditions, and to the environment, via combined isentropic and isothermal circulators and a Carnot cycle. 

Note Fuels stored are estimated for a 70-kg person having a muscle mass of 28 kg. Source After E. Hultman and R. C. Harris. In Principles of Exercise Biochemistry, J. R. Poortmans (Ed.). (Karger, 1988), pp. 78-119. ... 

The studies on separation of water isotopomers (HTO, HDO, H2O) with membranes from poly[bis(phenoxy)phosphazene] and carboxylated derivatives were carried on in Pacific Northwest Laboratory [112,113]. Using these membranes tritiated water was extracted from fuel storing pool water of 3 pCi/L concentration of tritium, and from facilities under supervision of US DOE in Hanford and Savannah River. Separation with 10,800 pCi/L tritiated water obtained by membrane method was not higher than 33% (depletion in the permeate fraction). Water containing 3 pCi/L of HTO was depleted by 22% in a similar system [113]. 

In prolonged fasting (starvation), changes occur in the use of fuel stores that permit survival for extended periods of time. 

In the normal adult, the fuel store that contains the fewest calories is... 

High blood glucose levels occur because of either a deficiency of insulin (insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, IDDM) or the inability of tissues such as adipose and muscle to take up glucose in the presence of normal amounts of insulin (insulin resistance or noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus [NIDDM]). If insulin-deficiency diabetes mellitus is untreated, the body responds as if it is starving. Fuel stores are degraded in the face of high blood glucose, and ketoacidosis may occur. Many metabolic pathways are affected. 

Glucocorticoids prepare the body during stressful conditions so that fuel stores are ready for the alarm reaction mediated by epinephrine. 

---