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My apologies, I was under the impression that waste was an order of magnitude lower on modern designs, but I was unaware it's effectively eliminated.
by cameronbrown 7y ago
My apologies, I was under the impression that waste was an order of magnitude lower on modern designs, but I was unaware it's effectively eliminated.
- mimixco 7y agoThe waste problem has in no way been solved. Reprocessing is, itself, horribly polluting and its waste byproducts are more dangerous than the original spent fuel rods. I'll also add here that Fukushima is still pouring radiation into the Pacific Ocean while we pontificate.
- p_l 7y agoIt's not so much eliminated, so much as we can reprocess a lot of what we now have as "waste". Yes, it still involves possibly polluting reagents (some common reagents are the same as in microchip production, btw). However, it enables use of different types of reactors and different total economy of nuclear power generation. The end result is that properly managed, you can limit remaining waste as well as extend usability of each kilogram of fissile material several times. Reprocessing of waste is also how several crucial isotopes are produced - for example, Canadian CANDU reactors are famous for producing important resources for medicine (radiation sources mainly). Similarly, Polish research reactors near Warsaw partially pay for their upkeep by reprocessing the spent fuel into medical isotopes and weapons-grade plutonium (which is then milled with uranium into MOX fuel for civilian reactors)