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Your numbers seem way off. My first google results [0] mentions a single plant producing more than 100,000m³ waste requiring special treatment. Most of it on th

by Faark 8y ago

Your numbers seem way off. My first google results [0] mentions a single plant producing more than 100,000m³ waste requiring special treatment. Most of it on the less bad end, though. Or are you just talking about fuel waste and conveniently ignore everything else? [1] compares solid waste from different power sources. Little info for solar/wind. Both nuclear and coal seem bad. But none of us wants to build coal plants anyway. But i sure as hell also don't want lots of public resources spend for new nuclear that is decommissioned a few years later once more environmentally friendly alternatives go online. Especially if those resources could accelerate renewables in the first place. I have no problem with keeping existing nuclear plants running as long as they are safe. I'd love read better concise summaries from official sources, if you can recommend some. [0] https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/46/062/46062902.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/Environment%20Baseline%20Vol.%203--Solid%20Waste%20from%20the%20Operation%20and%20Decommissioning%20of%20Power%20Plants.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/Environm...

roenxi 8y ago
I don't have any decent sources on waste. I wasn't ignoring decommissioning, but what I was trying to and failing to communicate was per-annum figures (comparing per annum production vs. the storage required over the same time period). From a volumetric perspective compared to what we know how to handle industrially the numbers are tiny. I strongly suspect the only reason we treat the waste with such care is because there is so little of it that that sort of care is feasible. I've seen a big lead mine in operation. I wouldn't live anywhere near to one of them, containing the waste is basically impossible. With nuclear waste, there is so little we could literally ship worldwide waste production to the middle of the Sahara and just dump it there. 100,000m³ just isn't that big a number - I mean, we wouldn't because it is a silly idea, not because we can't. It isn't a very responsible approach, but in practice it would work. The volumes are small enough that in my view world-wide nuclear waste storage crosses the boundary from a technical issue to an economic and political issue. There are lots of uninhabitable wastelands that have been created here and there by industrial processes. One more in a location chosen to be remote would make literally no difference given the scale of the benefits. There are a lot of deserts out there.

by Faark 8y ago

roenxi 8y ago

I don't have any decent sources on waste. I wasn't ignoring decommissioning, but what I was trying to and failing to communicate was per-annum figures (comparing per annum production vs. the storage required over the same time period). From a volumetric perspective compared to what we know how to handle industrially the numbers are tiny. I strongly suspect the only reason we treat the waste with such care is because there is so little of it that that sort of care is feasible. I've seen a big lead mine in operation. I wouldn't live anywhere near to one of them, containing the waste is basically impossible. With nuclear waste, there is so little we could literally ship worldwide waste production to the middle of the Sahara and just dump it there. 100,000m³ just isn't that big a number - I mean, we wouldn't because it is a silly idea, not because we can't. It isn't a very responsible approach, but in practice it would work. The volumes are small enough that in my view world-wide nuclear waste storage crosses the boundary from a technical issue to an economic and political issue. There are lots of uninhabitable wastelands that have been created here and there by industrial processes. One more in a location chosen to be remote would make literally no difference given the scale of the benefits. There are a lot of deserts out there.