3 ms·
While running nuclear power plants might be manageable, reliably storing the nuclear waste for the next 1,000,000 is almost impossible. No other industry has a
by pvorb 11y ago
While running nuclear power plants might be manageable, reliably storing the nuclear waste for the next 1,000,000 is almost impossible. No other industry has a similar problem.
- DennisP 11y agoThe long-term waste is transuranics, like plutonium. Fission products are much shorter-lived. Some advanced reactor types, including fast reactors and molten salt reactors, produce very little transuranic waste, and can use our existing transuranic wastes as fuel, converting them to fission products. These reactors produce a much lower volume of waste, which goes back to the radioactivity of the original ore within three centuries. Russia has two large fast reactors connected to their electric grid, one since the 1980s. The U.S. nearly completed its Integral Fast Reactor before the program was shut down by the Clinton administration. Half a dozen startups around the world are working on molten salt reactors, and China has a billion-dollar R&D program for them.