3 ms·
Does the decommissioning process for a nuclear plant involve returning the space to other uses? Does it become a permanent dead zone? Half-lives of thousands
by tcbawo 7y ago
Does the decommissioning process for a nuclear plant involve returning the space to other uses? Does it become a permanent dead zone? Half-lives of thousands of years are no joke. Practically infinite is a long time.
- jcrawfordor 7y agoYes. In the United States the NRC requires that civilian nuclear power plants be remediated to a point where the property can be released for unlimited use within 60 years of termination of the license. Most of this time span is provided for financial reasons, not technical, as decommissioning is financially secured by a trust fund which gains value with time (the use and investment of which is monitored by the NRC). The NRC does recognize an "entombment" state for facilities in which they are secured so as to be permanently safe, but this does not remove the 60-year requirement, so is usually done when another facility on the same site still has an active license, preventing full-site remediation.
- paulddraper 7y ago> Practically infinite is a long time. Nuclear power plants are not large. They're definitely smaller than the literally hundreds of acres of equivalent solar panels. [1] [1] Solar requires 3.4 acres/GWh/yr according to 2013 study. (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf). The smallest U.S. nuclear power plant was built in 1970 and generates 582 MW (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=104&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=104&t=3). That's 3.4 acres/GWh/yr * 1000 GWh/MWh * 582 MW / 24 h/day / 365 day/yr = 225 acres of solar panels.