5 ms·

Sigh. This is a political issue dating back to shortsighted decisions in the 1970s, not a technical one. Reuse this stuff in breeder reactors, the waste from wh

by bugsy 16y ago

Sigh. This is a political issue dating back to shortsighted decisions in the 1970s, not a technical one. Reuse this stuff in breeder reactors, the waste from which has a substantially shorter half life. Then you don't have to build toxic monuments.

jerf 16y ago
Or toss the stuff just in front of a subduction zone. It's also a product of the 1950s/1960s OMGRadiation!!1! mentality where instead of treating radioactivity scientifically, it's a boogeyman that will reach out and consume your delicious delicious brains, then increase their size 100-fold and reanimate them so they can go cruising through Manhattan shooting radiation death rays at the hapless public. It's dangerous stuff. It isn't that dangerous.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Or toss the stuff just in front of a subduction zone. For quite a while I've wondered whether it would be possible to put all our truly unrecyclable waste, nuclear and otherwise, into the mantle for very-long-term recycling. I'm glad someone else is thinking about geological solutions too.
  - jerf 16y ago
    It's been talked about for a while in places where you can find people who understand nuclear waste isn't magical, and that given where these zones are even if the waste dissolves and floats away it will have no impact on the ocean whatsoever. As you might imagine, there aren't many places where this gets talked about. One fun number to tell people is that there are 4.5 billion tons of uranium in seawater [1]. Does it really matter if we toss a few tons of waste in to somewhere that is hundreds of miles from any significant life anyhow? (The ocean is not uniformly alive, the deeps are not very alive at all.) We can pack it up in ways that won't leak anyhow, like the well-known technique of embedding it in glass. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_depletion#Seawater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_depletion#Seawater
hartror 16y ago
It is a horrible meme, that just won't die. By the time we actually want to get rid of the "waste" from reactors (note we haven't done anything or the sort so far) the waste will be seriously less dangerous than this article concerns itself with. Todays waste is tomorrow energy. I am a leftie and a bit of a greenie and there are a couple of minor political parties I feel represent my views in Australia where I live. However on a couple of points I greatly disagree with them and that is on nuclear energy and GMOs. Both these technologies are controversial and have risks associated with them. However both of these technologies promise to solve the two major (and interwoven) problems of the early 21st century, food and energy. I feel it is extremely short sighted to discount these technologies that will solve these problems just because of the dangers that may happen if they are misused/mismanaged.

by bugsy 16y ago

jerf 16y ago

Or toss the stuff just in front of a subduction zone. It's also a product of the 1950s/1960s OMGRadiation!!1! mentality where instead of treating radioactivity scientifically, it's a boogeyman that will reach out and consume your delicious delicious brains, then increase their size 100-fold and reanimate them so they can go cruising through Manhattan shooting radiation death rays at the hapless public. It's dangerous stuff. It isn't that dangerous.

nitrogen 16y ago
Or toss the stuff just in front of a subduction zone. For quite a while I've wondered whether it would be possible to put all our truly unrecyclable waste, nuclear and otherwise, into the mantle for very-long-term recycling. I'm glad someone else is thinking about geological solutions too.
- jerf 16y ago
  It's been talked about for a while in places where you can find people who understand nuclear waste isn't magical, and that given where these zones are even if the waste dissolves and floats away it will have no impact on the ocean whatsoever. As you might imagine, there aren't many places where this gets talked about. One fun number to tell people is that there are 4.5 billion tons of uranium in seawater [1]. Does it really matter if we toss a few tons of waste in to somewhere that is hundreds of miles from any significant life anyhow? (The ocean is not uniformly alive, the deeps are not very alive at all.) We can pack it up in ways that won't leak anyhow, like the well-known technique of embedding it in glass. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_depletion#Seawater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_depletion#Seawater

hartror 16y ago

It is a horrible meme, that just won't die. By the time we actually want to get rid of the "waste" from reactors (note we haven't done anything or the sort so far) the waste will be seriously less dangerous than this article concerns itself with. Todays waste is tomorrow energy. I am a leftie and a bit of a greenie and there are a couple of minor political parties I feel represent my views in Australia where I live. However on a couple of points I greatly disagree with them and that is on nuclear energy and GMOs. Both these technologies are controversial and have risks associated with them. However both of these technologies promise to solve the two major (and interwoven) problems of the early 21st century, food and energy. I feel it is extremely short sighted to discount these technologies that will solve these problems just because of the dangers that may happen if they are misused/mismanaged.