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Not a stupid question. It’s a pretty common suggestion. The challenge is that fuel rods are quite heavy and the $$$ costs to launch a kilogram on a path beyond
by billyhoffman 7y ago
Not a stupid question. It’s a pretty common suggestion.
The challenge is that fuel rods are quite heavy and the $$$ costs to launch a kilogram on a path beyond earths orbit are incredibly high, let alone the carbon costs. Launching into space is just not a net positive.
- andromeduck 7y agoThat and safety/containment in the event of a mishap. I should add also that generally it's not the super high activity waste like the fuel rods or the low activity waste million years half-life stuff that makes things problematic but rather the heaps of intermediate activity waste that's active enough to require special equipment and procedures, too irregular to easily streamline, too long lived to just wait out and too voluminous to just stick it in a very secure container container somewhere. For that, a deep geological repository is mihc safer, simpler and cheaper.
- MertsA 7y agoNot to mention, if you want to make sure that the waste won't be left just orbiting in the solar system or irradiating Venus or something then you need to either bring its orbit down into the surface of the sun or accelerate it to the point that it escapes from the solar system entirely. Fun fact, it actually takes less energy to escape solar orbit entirely than it takes to reach the sun.