5 ms·

Built for Eternity: The Hoover Dam

34 points by andyjohnson0 11y ago

cperciva 11y ago
Radioactive waste from spent nuclear fuel has a shelf life of hundreds of thousands of years. Maybe even more than a million, it’s not possible to precisely predict. The fact that a journalist can write such a thing demonstrates the level to which public discourse about the sciences has sunk. We have very accurate measurements of the half-lives and decay pathways of all the isotopes found in non-trivial quantities in spent nuclear fuel, and it is indeed very possible to predict the level of radioactivity at a given time in the future.
- amelius 11y ago
  Not if we invent methods to reduce the shelf life. Difficult to predict indeed :)
  - MertsA 11y ago
    Not too difficult, with a high neutron flux, the waste can be "burned" and that half life can be dropped to something manageable on a human timescale.
    - achamayou 11y ago
      That involves either creating more waste, or a sizable particle accelerator though. It's not too difficult, but it's quite expensive on a large scale to say the least.
      - adrianN 11y ago
        Breeder reactors burn up >90% of what we call "waste" now, leaving behind only relatively short-lived isotopes. They're not more expensive than normal nuclear power plants, but because they can be used to breed weapons grade plutonium we don't build them.
        ckozlowski 11y ago
        We don't, and that's a shame. They /can/ be used to breed plutonium, or they can me used to transmute into non-proliferation concerned materials. (Plutonium may be an interm step still; you'll need to read further on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle) France does this still actually, but we do not. Too toxic an issue. (no pun intended.) I've always been perplexed though at the 10,000 year requirement of the repository, as if envisioning all progress stopped for that period of time. Would this not be considered an interim step if, one hundred years from now, we found an economically sound alternative not available earlier? I am not suggesting for a moment that this become a "kick the can" solution, but rather, the issue of nuclear waste is an ongoing project of management, not simply "stick in the ground for 10,000 years." If it turns out that in 200 years, we still do not have a better way of dealing with it, then take it out of the vault and put it in a better one.
      - elektromekatron 11y ago
        Might be a good job for CERN.
- andyjohnson0 11y ago
  The only circumstances I can think of in which the decay of radioactive waste might be unknown is in the case of mixed waste where the content or origin is unknown or ambiguous. Some old waste material might fall into that category, but I don't think that recent spent reactor fuel would.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    My understanding is that radioactive emissions are readily measurable so what elements/isotopes are involved should be identifiable and therefore the rate at which these will decay will be predictable - this could well be wrong! One potential other risk is chemical instability of nuclear waste materials - that has caused lots of problems e.g. the Kyshtym disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster Edit: Modified the first part to make it clear that I should have been asking a question rather than making a statement!
    - andyjohnson0 11y ago
      Is it possible to precisely identify the composition of a body of mixed waste solely from its emissions? Wouldn't chemical analysis of a sample be necessary?
      - kijin 11y ago
        Two substances might emit the same kind of particles, but their rate of decay will be different. Measuring the emissions of a container over a period of several years will probably yield enough data points to solve for all of the unknowns.
        hga 11y ago
        Also the energies, specifically of the more penetrating gamma rays (very energetic photons). And the more dangerous stuff has shorter half-lives, so it wouldn't take all that long to get the full picture. WRT to nuclear weapons, we can determine what the fissionables were, where they were mined, and some details of design all from sniffing the air downwind.
- Altay- 11y ago
  The writing quality was a lacking overall. I actually found that uplifting, I'm not a great writer but if VICE is willing to publish this story, I shouldn't be as self conscious about my own work!
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    In other words, not only the article sucks, it also teaches others not to care about quality. :(.
- scriptman 11y ago
  I find it frustrating that so much journalism these days exaggerates environmental issues, with any factual errors seemingly brushed off as just showing an excess of virtue.
andyjohnson0 11y ago
I posted this because I'm fascinated by the intersection of architecture and long-term thinking. Example: the sculptures and terrazzo floor at the Hoover Dam [1], the Long Now clock, the Georgia Guidestones [2], the design of the Arctic seed vault [3]. When people design for the very long term they can produce very interesting results. The scale of the landscape described in the article seemed to match the depth of time involved in the various projects. [1] http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/pao/brochures/wingedfigures.pdf http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/pao/brochures/wingedfigures.pd... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
- Asbostos 11y ago
  Communicating 10,000 years into the future is certainly a challenge but I just realized that this idea of warning people of a radioactive waste dump is surely not actually worth a huge effort. Being just one place, only a very small number of people will be able to visit it up close where it's dangerous. Isn't that about the same level of danger as the existence of poisonous plants, carnivorous animals, high risk places for lightning strikes, drowning, etc? And massively safer than disease, including genetic disease and inbreeding. Perhaps the best solution is just to not bother warning anyone if our society oneday forgets about it. If it affects enough people, they'll figure out the connection to the site themselves.
  - ifdefdebug 11y ago
    What are they going to think about us if we let their archaeologists run into death without even trying to warn them...
  - andyjohnson0 11y ago
    "not actually worth a huge effort" I think I'd argue that if we (human civilisation) are going to create a very long term hazard such as a radioactive waste dump, then we have a moral obligation to the people who it might one day endanger. Even if the number of such people is small, I think we still have a duty to them. We had a choice to build this thing, but they won't have a choice about living with it. A cynical view is that the effort that went into the WIPP marker design was an effort to pre-empt objections to it being built. Gregory Benford (a physicist and science fiction author) was part of the design team, and he devoted part of a book, Deep Time [1], to his experience. Whatever the ultimate motivation of the US DOE and others, it seems like the design team took the ethical component of their task seriously. [1] http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/benford.html http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/benford.html
onli 11y ago
If you find the Hoover Dam and the region a little bit fascinating, play Fallout: New Vegas. It plays a central role there, and the game is also one of the best RPGs of the recent years, maybe the best.
andyjohnson0 11y ago
A few links about the WIPP marker design project: Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Sandia National Laboratories report SAND92-1382 / UC-721. http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/92138... Ten Thousand Years of Solitude? On Inadvertent Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Project Repository. Los Almos National Laboratory. http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/22/064/22064107.pdf http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Publ... Designing for Deep Time: How Art History is Used to Mark Nuclear Waste. Kelli Anderson (MS Thesis), 2005. http://www.kellianderson.com/MSthesis.pdf http://www.kellianderson.com/MSthesis.pdf
vlehto 11y ago
"That a 10,000 year storage solution was nowhere near long enough to inculcate the Earth from the true shelf-life of the waste, which is realistically thought to be dangerous for many times that length of time." With some definition of "dangerous" sure. After just few hundred years, it's only slightly more dangerous than naturally occurring uranium. The other difference is that natural uranium is dispersed more and guarded less. "Final disposal of high-level waste is delayed for 40-50 years to allow its radioactivity to decay, after which less than one-thousandth of its initial radioactivity remains, and it is much easier to handle. --- After being buried for about 1000 years most of the radioactivity will have decayed. The amount of radioactivity then remaining would be similar to that of the corresponding amount of naturally-occurring uranium ore from which it originated, though it would be more concentrated." Source: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Waste-Management-Overview/ http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear...
- mikeash 11y ago
  And as I always point out in these discussions, the long life of nuclear waste isn't a problem, it's a bonus. We deal with chemical poisons all over the place which never decay, and yet we treat them with much less care than nuclear waste. Somehow, for some reason I can't fathom, people get much more worked up about "this waste will remain dangerous for 10,000 years" than "this waste will remain dangerous until the heat death of the universe."
geophile 11y ago
I visited Hoover Dam a couple of years ago. The physical scale of the thing is just astonishing. You can look at it from the top, from a bridge nearby, from inside looking out and up, and it is just mind bogglingly big. Then there is the audacity of what it does. It reroutes an entire river and moves the water through these enormous turbines to generate power. Actually, the individual turbines are surprisingly small considering what they do, (to me anyway). Sort of the same magnitude as one of those stills in Islay that distill whisky. But one of the most amazing things, neglected by the article, is this: The project was done ahead of schedule and under budget. It went from concept to working machine in a very short period of time. It seems to me that this was peak capitalism, working exactly as it should. I cannot conceive of anything so large today being built ahead of schedule and under budget. The parasites at Bechtel and Halliburton and whoever else would get involved would find ways to suck up time and money forever, and then the flaws would be discovered after all the checks had been cashed.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  As they say, it was a simpler time. The dam builders hired unemployed workers, paid them cheaply, and violently broke up any attempts at unionizing or collective bargaining. Over 100 workers were killed during construction. There was of course no environmental impact statement or review; to the contrary, it was broadly taken for granted that it was man's destiny and duty to "improve the land" through massive engineering projects.
  - geophile 11y ago
    Think about the same project being attempted now. Unemployment is now officially pretty low, but I believe the numbers omit people who are "underemployed", (e.g. part time when they would prefer full, no longer looking for work). Pay would likely be very low, and unions have been pretty much busted, so no more collective bargaining. Maybe fewer would die. Environmental review would probably take place, but a large enough corporation seems to be able to bully its way through anything. The main difference I see is that corporations have become more expert at modifying the system to suit their own interests. And of course, this country is no longer capable of doing large projects (or even basic maintenance) because congress is completely broken. How's that highway trust fund coming along?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

34 points by andyjohnson0 11y ago

Radioactive waste from spent nuclear fuel has a shelf life of hundreds of thousands of years. Maybe even more than a million, it’s not possible to precisely predict. The fact that a journalist can write such a thing demonstrates the level to which public discourse about the sciences has sunk. We have very accurate measurements of the half-lives and decay pathways of all the isotopes found in non-trivial quantities in spent nuclear fuel, and it is indeed very possible to predict the level of radioactivity at a given time in the future.

amelius 11y ago
Not if we invent methods to reduce the shelf life. Difficult to predict indeed :)
- MertsA 11y ago
  Not too difficult, with a high neutron flux, the waste can be "burned" and that half life can be dropped to something manageable on a human timescale.
  - achamayou 11y ago
    That involves either creating more waste, or a sizable particle accelerator though. It's not too difficult, but it's quite expensive on a large scale to say the least.
    - adrianN 11y ago
      Breeder reactors burn up >90% of what we call "waste" now, leaving behind only relatively short-lived isotopes. They're not more expensive than normal nuclear power plants, but because they can be used to breed weapons grade plutonium we don't build them.
      - ckozlowski 11y ago
        We don't, and that's a shame. They /can/ be used to breed plutonium, or they can me used to transmute into non-proliferation concerned materials. (Plutonium may be an interm step still; you'll need to read further on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle) France does this still actually, but we do not. Too toxic an issue. (no pun intended.) I've always been perplexed though at the 10,000 year requirement of the repository, as if envisioning all progress stopped for that period of time. Would this not be considered an interim step if, one hundred years from now, we found an economically sound alternative not available earlier? I am not suggesting for a moment that this become a "kick the can" solution, but rather, the issue of nuclear waste is an ongoing project of management, not simply "stick in the ground for 10,000 years." If it turns out that in 200 years, we still do not have a better way of dealing with it, then take it out of the vault and put it in a better one.
    - elektromekatron 11y ago
      Might be a good job for CERN.
andyjohnson0 11y ago
The only circumstances I can think of in which the decay of radioactive waste might be unknown is in the case of mixed waste where the content or origin is unknown or ambiguous. Some old waste material might fall into that category, but I don't think that recent spent reactor fuel would.
- arethuza 11y ago
  My understanding is that radioactive emissions are readily measurable so what elements/isotopes are involved should be identifiable and therefore the rate at which these will decay will be predictable - this could well be wrong! One potential other risk is chemical instability of nuclear waste materials - that has caused lots of problems e.g. the Kyshtym disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster Edit: Modified the first part to make it clear that I should have been asking a question rather than making a statement!
  - andyjohnson0 11y ago
    Is it possible to precisely identify the composition of a body of mixed waste solely from its emissions? Wouldn't chemical analysis of a sample be necessary?
    - kijin 11y ago
      Two substances might emit the same kind of particles, but their rate of decay will be different. Measuring the emissions of a container over a period of several years will probably yield enough data points to solve for all of the unknowns.
      - hga 11y ago
        Also the energies, specifically of the more penetrating gamma rays (very energetic photons). And the more dangerous stuff has shorter half-lives, so it wouldn't take all that long to get the full picture. WRT to nuclear weapons, we can determine what the fissionables were, where they were mined, and some details of design all from sniffing the air downwind.
Altay- 11y ago
The writing quality was a lacking overall. I actually found that uplifting, I'm not a great writer but if VICE is willing to publish this story, I shouldn't be as self conscious about my own work!
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  In other words, not only the article sucks, it also teaches others not to care about quality. :(.
scriptman 11y ago
I find it frustrating that so much journalism these days exaggerates environmental issues, with any factual errors seemingly brushed off as just showing an excess of virtue.

andyjohnson0 11y ago

I posted this because I'm fascinated by the intersection of architecture and long-term thinking. Example: the sculptures and terrazzo floor at the Hoover Dam [1], the Long Now clock, the Georgia Guidestones [2], the design of the Arctic seed vault [3]. When people design for the very long term they can produce very interesting results. The scale of the landscape described in the article seemed to match the depth of time involved in the various projects. [1] http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/pao/brochures/wingedfigures.pdf http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/pao/brochures/wingedfigures.pd... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault

Asbostos 11y ago
Communicating 10,000 years into the future is certainly a challenge but I just realized that this idea of warning people of a radioactive waste dump is surely not actually worth a huge effort. Being just one place, only a very small number of people will be able to visit it up close where it's dangerous. Isn't that about the same level of danger as the existence of poisonous plants, carnivorous animals, high risk places for lightning strikes, drowning, etc? And massively safer than disease, including genetic disease and inbreeding. Perhaps the best solution is just to not bother warning anyone if our society oneday forgets about it. If it affects enough people, they'll figure out the connection to the site themselves.
- ifdefdebug 11y ago
  What are they going to think about us if we let their archaeologists run into death without even trying to warn them...
- andyjohnson0 11y ago
  "not actually worth a huge effort" I think I'd argue that if we (human civilisation) are going to create a very long term hazard such as a radioactive waste dump, then we have a moral obligation to the people who it might one day endanger. Even if the number of such people is small, I think we still have a duty to them. We had a choice to build this thing, but they won't have a choice about living with it. A cynical view is that the effort that went into the WIPP marker design was an effort to pre-empt objections to it being built. Gregory Benford (a physicist and science fiction author) was part of the design team, and he devoted part of a book, Deep Time [1], to his experience. Whatever the ultimate motivation of the US DOE and others, it seems like the design team took the ethical component of their task seriously. [1] http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/benford.html http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/benford.html

onli 11y ago

If you find the Hoover Dam and the region a little bit fascinating, play Fallout: New Vegas. It plays a central role there, and the game is also one of the best RPGs of the recent years, maybe the best.

andyjohnson0 11y ago

A few links about the WIPP marker design project: Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Sandia National Laboratories report SAND92-1382 / UC-721. http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/92138... Ten Thousand Years of Solitude? On Inadvertent Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Project Repository. Los Almos National Laboratory. http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/22/064/22064107.pdf http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Publ... Designing for Deep Time: How Art History is Used to Mark Nuclear Waste. Kelli Anderson (MS Thesis), 2005. http://www.kellianderson.com/MSthesis.pdf http://www.kellianderson.com/MSthesis.pdf

vlehto 11y ago

"That a 10,000 year storage solution was nowhere near long enough to inculcate the Earth from the true shelf-life of the waste, which is realistically thought to be dangerous for many times that length of time." With some definition of "dangerous" sure. After just few hundred years, it's only slightly more dangerous than naturally occurring uranium. The other difference is that natural uranium is dispersed more and guarded less. "Final disposal of high-level waste is delayed for 40-50 years to allow its radioactivity to decay, after which less than one-thousandth of its initial radioactivity remains, and it is much easier to handle. --- After being buried for about 1000 years most of the radioactivity will have decayed. The amount of radioactivity then remaining would be similar to that of the corresponding amount of naturally-occurring uranium ore from which it originated, though it would be more concentrated." Source: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Waste-Management-Overview/ http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear...

mikeash 11y ago
And as I always point out in these discussions, the long life of nuclear waste isn't a problem, it's a bonus. We deal with chemical poisons all over the place which never decay, and yet we treat them with much less care than nuclear waste. Somehow, for some reason I can't fathom, people get much more worked up about "this waste will remain dangerous for 10,000 years" than "this waste will remain dangerous until the heat death of the universe."

geophile 11y ago

I visited Hoover Dam a couple of years ago. The physical scale of the thing is just astonishing. You can look at it from the top, from a bridge nearby, from inside looking out and up, and it is just mind bogglingly big. Then there is the audacity of what it does. It reroutes an entire river and moves the water through these enormous turbines to generate power. Actually, the individual turbines are surprisingly small considering what they do, (to me anyway). Sort of the same magnitude as one of those stills in Islay that distill whisky. But one of the most amazing things, neglected by the article, is this: The project was done ahead of schedule and under budget. It went from concept to working machine in a very short period of time. It seems to me that this was peak capitalism, working exactly as it should. I cannot conceive of anything so large today being built ahead of schedule and under budget. The parasites at Bechtel and Halliburton and whoever else would get involved would find ways to suck up time and money forever, and then the flaws would be discovered after all the checks had been cashed.

snowwrestler 11y ago
As they say, it was a simpler time. The dam builders hired unemployed workers, paid them cheaply, and violently broke up any attempts at unionizing or collective bargaining. Over 100 workers were killed during construction. There was of course no environmental impact statement or review; to the contrary, it was broadly taken for granted that it was man's destiny and duty to "improve the land" through massive engineering projects.
- geophile 11y ago
  Think about the same project being attempted now. Unemployment is now officially pretty low, but I believe the numbers omit people who are "underemployed", (e.g. part time when they would prefer full, no longer looking for work). Pay would likely be very low, and unions have been pretty much busted, so no more collective bargaining. Maybe fewer would die. Environmental review would probably take place, but a large enough corporation seems to be able to bully its way through anything. The main difference I see is that corporations have become more expert at modifying the system to suit their own interests. And of course, this country is no longer capable of doing large projects (or even basic maintenance) because congress is completely broken. How's that highway trust fund coming along?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]