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Yeah, no. We should not exchange large quantities of relatively slowly decaying radioactive materials (hence the long half-life) hidden somewhere deep undergrou

Yeah, no. We should not exchange large quantities of relatively slowly decaying radioactive materials (hence the long half-life) hidden somewhere deep underground with a very dangerous device somewhere close to population.

uranium 7y ago
The long half-life [actually the mixture of lengths of half-lives] is really the problem. You've got stuff that's super-hot [fast decay] and so very dangerous mixed with much slower-decaying [so not as dangerous] stuff that needs to be isolated for a super long time. If you run it through a fast reactor/reprocessor, you can use most of the energy and be left with mostly just medium-duration stuff, that will burn out in a reasonable timescale for underground storage, say 1000 years. We have many dangerous devices extremely close to the population already. Cars kill more people in a year than all nuclear reactors have killed in the whole time of their existence. Should we bury the cars underground instead?
08-15 7y ago
A very dangerous device. I suppose you have heard about that irresponsible experiment conducted in 1986 where they simply turned off all cooling to a reactor? Remember what happened? No, not Chernobyl. I'm talking about EBR-II, a fast reactor. Nothing happened. That's how dangerous the device is!
- choeger 7y ago
  You mean a reactor that is cooled with Sodium, a material that, according to Wikipedia, spontaneously explodes when it comes into contact with a rare substance called water?
  - 08-15 7y ago
    Not spontaneously, only when contacting water. But you see, there is no water in such a reactor. And it can't get in, because if water can get in, other stuff can get out, and stuff getting out of a reactor is a disaster anyway, so the thing is a closed system. Even though, since sodium cooled reactors are not pressurized, stuff wouldn't necessarily come out of a small leak. On the other hand, water at 300C and 200bar will explode spontaneously without coming into contact with anything. A steam explosion is no fun, according to Wikipedia.

uranium 7y ago

The long half-life [actually the mixture of lengths of half-lives] is really the problem. You've got stuff that's super-hot [fast decay] and so very dangerous mixed with much slower-decaying [so not as dangerous] stuff that needs to be isolated for a super long time. If you run it through a fast reactor/reprocessor, you can use most of the energy and be left with mostly just medium-duration stuff, that will burn out in a reasonable timescale for underground storage, say 1000 years. We have many dangerous devices extremely close to the population already. Cars kill more people in a year than all nuclear reactors have killed in the whole time of their existence. Should we bury the cars underground instead?

08-15 7y ago

A very dangerous device. I suppose you have heard about that irresponsible experiment conducted in 1986 where they simply turned off all cooling to a reactor? Remember what happened? No, not Chernobyl. I'm talking about EBR-II, a fast reactor. Nothing happened. That's how dangerous the device is!

choeger 7y ago
You mean a reactor that is cooled with Sodium, a material that, according to Wikipedia, spontaneously explodes when it comes into contact with a rare substance called water?
- 08-15 7y ago
  Not spontaneously, only when contacting water. But you see, there is no water in such a reactor. And it can't get in, because if water can get in, other stuff can get out, and stuff getting out of a reactor is a disaster anyway, so the thing is a closed system. Even though, since sodium cooled reactors are not pressurized, stuff wouldn't necessarily come out of a small leak. On the other hand, water at 300C and 200bar will explode spontaneously without coming into contact with anything. A steam explosion is no fun, according to Wikipedia.