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Dumb question- why not launch it into the sun? Do the (projected) costs of storing it for 10k+ years exceed the costs of leaving Earths orbit?

by trentmb 11y ago

JoshTriplett 11y ago
We're talking about a massive amount of mass. Sending mass to space costs tens of thousands per kilogram. Storing mass costs far less in the short term, and the long term isn't perceived as the problem of the person paying the bill for the short term. For that matter, with the number of launches required, at least one of them would fail badly enough to spread radioactive material.
e12e 11y ago
Not a dumb question, but as the sibling comment reflects - it has been pondered before, and it is indeed a "dumb solution", unfortunately. In addition to cost of launching such huge mass, and the risks of catastrophic failure (blowing up mid-launch would probably end up being worse than the chernobyl-distaster -- think a really, really big dirty bomb with areal detonation) -- there's also the risk of missing the sun, and ending up with a man-made comet.
aftbit 11y ago
Even if this weren't insanely expensive... The sun is far away in terms of delta-V. Getting to low-Earth orbit requires something like 9.4 km/s of delta-V. Getting from LEO to the Sun requires another 21.3 km/s of delta-V. There are probably transfer orbits that could use gravity assist to make this figure lower, but those orbits spend a lot of time looping around planets and generally hanging out in the solar system, which is probably not the best thing to do with our waste. It's actually cheaper to escape the solar system than to shoot for the Sun - around 18.15 km/s delta-V from ground to escape.
pdkl95 11y ago
You would be throwing away the next generations fuel. We only use a tiny portion of that available energy from nuclear fuel. This is stupidly wasteful - we should be reprocessing it and putting it back into the reactors. A lot of the waste that remains should be used in breeder reactors, such as the LFTR. The amount of actual waste left over if we actually use the entire fuel is tiny compared to what we currently call "waste".
Merad 11y ago
Rockets still tend to go "boom" on the launchpad or shortly after launch at an uncomfortably high rate. A rocket carrying tons of radioactive waste that exploded 30 seconds after launch would create an environmental disaster that made Chernobyl look like a coffee spill.

Dumb question- why not launch it into the sun? Do the (projected) costs of storing it for 10k+ years exceed the costs of leaving Earths orbit?

by trentmb 11y ago

Dumb question- why not launch it into the sun? Do the (projected) costs of storing it for 10k+ years exceed the costs of leaving Earths orbit?

JoshTriplett 11y ago

We're talking about a massive amount of mass. Sending mass to space costs tens of thousands per kilogram. Storing mass costs far less in the short term, and the long term isn't perceived as the problem of the person paying the bill for the short term. For that matter, with the number of launches required, at least one of them would fail badly enough to spread radioactive material.

e12e 11y ago

Not a dumb question, but as the sibling comment reflects - it has been pondered before, and it is indeed a "dumb solution", unfortunately. In addition to cost of launching such huge mass, and the risks of catastrophic failure (blowing up mid-launch would probably end up being worse than the chernobyl-distaster -- think a really, really big dirty bomb with areal detonation) -- there's also the risk of missing the sun, and ending up with a man-made comet.

aftbit 11y ago

Even if this weren't insanely expensive... The sun is far away in terms of delta-V. Getting to low-Earth orbit requires something like 9.4 km/s of delta-V. Getting from LEO to the Sun requires another 21.3 km/s of delta-V. There are probably transfer orbits that could use gravity assist to make this figure lower, but those orbits spend a lot of time looping around planets and generally hanging out in the solar system, which is probably not the best thing to do with our waste. It's actually cheaper to escape the solar system than to shoot for the Sun - around 18.15 km/s delta-V from ground to escape.

pdkl95 11y ago

You would be throwing away the next generations fuel. We only use a tiny portion of that available energy from nuclear fuel. This is stupidly wasteful - we should be reprocessing it and putting it back into the reactors. A lot of the waste that remains should be used in breeder reactors, such as the LFTR. The amount of actual waste left over if we actually use the entire fuel is tiny compared to what we currently call "waste".

Merad 11y ago

Rockets still tend to go "boom" on the launchpad or shortly after launch at an uncomfortably high rate. A rocket carrying tons of radioactive waste that exploded 30 seconds after launch would create an environmental disaster that made Chernobyl look like a coffee spill.