3 ms·

There is very little water in modern reactors, especially if we reprocess the spent rods. There is much more radioactive waste in Coal fly ash.

bayesian_horse 9y ago
The technology to process the spent rods is far from being commercialized and widely available. So far, "spent rods" are accumulating all over the world, mostly in temporary storage. Some in unsuitable long term storage. We can talk about acceptable nuclear waste production as soon as this changes...
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  We can talk about acceptable nuclear waste production right now. Reprocessing on one level has been commercialized for a long time [1]. Furthermore, geologic storage in a repository is ready to go and under construction [2]. Nuclear waste is a technically solved problem. You can get all your energy for your entire life (transportation, electricity, heat, everything) and the waste from conventional nukes would fit in 1.5 soda cans. Nasty stuff but easy to store safety. Nuclear reactors are probably the only energy source that can track the entirety of the toxic waste because the energy density is 2 million times the 2nd best. Compared to fossil fuels, nuclear energy is a major life-saver, having already offset 1.8 million deaths that would have occurred had the nuclear fleet not been operational [3]. As far as I'm aware, zero or close to zero people have ever even been injured from stored commercial nuclear waste. Right? So why can't we talk about it now while hundreds of thousands are dying early right now from upper respiratory disease from fossil emissions? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COGEMA_La_Hague_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COGEMA_La_Hague_site [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... [3] https://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Prevents-Deaths-Causes.html https://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Pr...
  - bayesian_horse 9y ago
    In reality, spent fuel rods are piling up next to the reactors they were spent in. At best they are moved to mid-term storage location, at worst the long term storage is failing. So, yes, there is some reprocessing going on. But it's obviously not even remotely on the scale which is needed to solve the issue.

bayesian_horse 9y ago

The technology to process the spent rods is far from being commercialized and widely available. So far, "spent rods" are accumulating all over the world, mostly in temporary storage. Some in unsuitable long term storage. We can talk about acceptable nuclear waste production as soon as this changes...

acidburnNSA 9y ago
We can talk about acceptable nuclear waste production right now. Reprocessing on one level has been commercialized for a long time [1]. Furthermore, geologic storage in a repository is ready to go and under construction [2]. Nuclear waste is a technically solved problem. You can get all your energy for your entire life (transportation, electricity, heat, everything) and the waste from conventional nukes would fit in 1.5 soda cans. Nasty stuff but easy to store safety. Nuclear reactors are probably the only energy source that can track the entirety of the toxic waste because the energy density is 2 million times the 2nd best. Compared to fossil fuels, nuclear energy is a major life-saver, having already offset 1.8 million deaths that would have occurred had the nuclear fleet not been operational [3]. As far as I'm aware, zero or close to zero people have ever even been injured from stored commercial nuclear waste. Right? So why can't we talk about it now while hundreds of thousands are dying early right now from upper respiratory disease from fossil emissions? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COGEMA_La_Hague_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COGEMA_La_Hague_site [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... [3] https://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Prevents-Deaths-Causes.html https://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Pr...
- bayesian_horse 9y ago
  In reality, spent fuel rods are piling up next to the reactors they were spent in. At best they are moved to mid-term storage location, at worst the long term storage is failing. So, yes, there is some reprocessing going on. But it's obviously not even remotely on the scale which is needed to solve the issue.