3 ms·
> exhausting those materials for the duration of our species due to irradiation of the containment materials. Not going to comment on the rest of this, but I'm
by DuskStar 6y ago
> exhausting those materials for the duration of our species due to irradiation of the containment materials.
Not going to comment on the rest of this, but I'm pretty sure we could reclaim those rare-earths if we really wanted to.
- gralx 6y agoSince speeding up the half-life of the radioactive elements is off the table, what do you propose?
- DuskStar 6y agoI propose that 99.9% of the rare earths have not undergone nuclear changes, and so could be separated out. If there are +neutron changes that create unstable isotopes, that would be hard - but ones that resulted in fast beta decay or fission would be easy.
- gralx 6y agoProblems with transporting this large quantity of radioactive material (these elements being only a small fraction) to separating facilities and their subsequent handling are obvious, but the stakes are high enough that they're worth considering if what you say is true. Do you you think it's feasible on an industrial scale and without careful laboratory controls?
- DuskStar 6y agoI think the issues with reprocessing low-level nuclear waste (which is what I think this would be) would be more political and economic than practical. But if we truly were running out of rare earths? Both of those would go away. That being said, I would rather live near the power plant than the reprocessing facility. MUCH rather. But another few square miles of superfund site is a fantastic trade for the coral reefs of the world.