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How to make a windmill to produce electricity?

If spent nuclear fuel rods produce heat, why cant they be used to make electricity?

  • if they can still boil water then why cant they be used to make electricity, rather than just sitting in a cooling pool for 10 years.

  • Answer:

    They can, just not very much. It's not economically viable to use low-grade heat for electrical generation. The amount of power you get out and can charge for might not cover your costs of maintaining the generation equipment. But yes, you could put a Stirling engine on it and generate something.

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They can, but reactors are set up to boil water pumped in, and turn it into steam to power turbines. There is a lower limit to an effective operating temperature. If they used spent nuclear fuel rods with a liquid that has a considerably lower boiling point than water, it would work, but be considerably more expensive, and less efficient.

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