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Existing nuclear reactors may have safe track records in terms of their operation, but we still have no long term solution for high-level nuclear waste disposal

Existing nuclear reactors may have safe track records in terms of their operation, but we still have no long term solution for high-level nuclear waste disposal. At all. The decommissioned plant outside of San Onofre, for example, is now storing nuclear waste in steel canisters on site. That site is on an earthquake fault line, right next to the pacific ocean [0]. Unless we come up with a complete end-to-end model for safely handling the waste, I don't consider nuclear to be a viable option. As it stands, it's a massive liability to the health of our future environment. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chapple-san-onofre-20180815-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chapple-san-onof...

in3d 6y ago
We could've if there was enough political will though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  Do you want trains full of other cities' nuclear waste passing through your city?
  - cdash 6y ago
    Wouldn't care, its hardly dangerous.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Is this like....a rhetorical question? Of course no one actively wants them, but it's just a thing to transport like any other. I also don't want sewage or slaughterhouse waste transported next to my house(very smelly) but it has to be done at some point. Let me ask you a question then - have you actually seen those railroad casks for nuclear waste? They are incredibly resilient, I'd be far less worried about having those travel through my city than living next to a 70 year old chemical plant(which I do).
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    Sure, nuclear waste isn’t sent for long term storage until it’s spent many years in a cooling pond radiating away the fastest-decaying and thus most dangerous components. After that it’s much less dangerous and frankly no more worrisome than plenty of industrial chemicals that are shipped around in traincars.
  - vonmoltke 6y ago
    "Trains full"? The US only produces 2,000 tonnes of spent fuel a year, and has only produced 83,000 tonnes in the entire history of its nuclear generation program[1]. That entire annual production, even accounting for the weight of shielding and other safety measures, would fit on a single train the size of a typical coal or oil train. [1] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mechEpleb 6y ago
    You way overestimate how much nuclear waste is being produced.
sjwright 6y ago
And we can thank the anti-nuclear green activists for the waste disposal problem too. There are numerous ways to minimise waste (reprocessing, breeder plants) which have been lobbied against. And there have been good waste management options that failed only because of lobbying.
opo 6y ago
In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Sounds good in theory. But in reality the fuel rods need to be mechanically separated from their cladding, which is brittle, irradiated and whatnot else. Then chemical reprocessing of the fuel itself, and reassambly into whichever form is necessary. It's not like you could take a used fuel-rod and throw it into some breeder to have energy. Not to speak of the old cladding. I mean, I'm not against it, but it's not that simple.
  - opo 6y ago
    >...It's not like you could take a used fuel-rod and throw it into some breeder to have energy. Not to speak of the old cladding. I mean, I'm not against it, but it's not that simple. You are moving the goal posts. Your original comment was "...but we still have no long term solution for high-level nuclear waste disposal. At all. ...Unless we come up with a complete end-to-end model for safely handling the waste, I don't consider nuclear to be a viable option. As it stands, it's a massive liability to the health of our future environment." There is an end-to-end model for safely handling the waste. (For example, the IFR design would actually have reprocessed the fuel on-site.) Nuclear waste will not be a massive liability to our future environment. The amount waste is very manageable (the Netherlands actually stores their waste in an art museum) and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity.
markdown 6y ago
> Unless we come up with a complete end-to-end model for safely handling the waste, I don't consider nuclear to be a viable option. We only need to store the stuff for 2-3 decades, by which time it should be feasible to just yeet the waste into space.
bananabreakfast 6y ago
Yes we do have a long term solution for high-level nuclear waste. Right now. Recycle it. You get far more energy out than the first pass as well. This technology is over half a century old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing Please stop saying we have no solution for nuclear waste. We absolutely do. It's just cheaper to keep storing waste than to build new plants due to the political barriers.
belorn 6y ago
It would be good if there were a technology neutral expectation that all waste from energy production must be handled and addressed in both short term and long term.
soco 6y ago
France recycles yearly 1700 tons of nuclear waste, since 1966. Over half a century, that's what I would call safe enough. That's about the size of the US waste production, and represents the waste produced in France plus the Netherlands and Germany and and. So that end-to-end model exists already, it's just many people don't know some things are happening also outside US borders.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Vamos a la Playa!

in3d 6y ago

We could've if there was enough political will though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

klmadfejno 6y ago
Do you want trains full of other cities' nuclear waste passing through your city?
- cdash 6y ago
  Wouldn't care, its hardly dangerous.
- gambiting 6y ago
  Is this like....a rhetorical question? Of course no one actively wants them, but it's just a thing to transport like any other. I also don't want sewage or slaughterhouse waste transported next to my house(very smelly) but it has to be done at some point. Let me ask you a question then - have you actually seen those railroad casks for nuclear waste? They are incredibly resilient, I'd be far less worried about having those travel through my city than living next to a 70 year old chemical plant(which I do).
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  Sure, nuclear waste isn’t sent for long term storage until it’s spent many years in a cooling pond radiating away the fastest-decaying and thus most dangerous components. After that it’s much less dangerous and frankly no more worrisome than plenty of industrial chemicals that are shipped around in traincars.
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  "Trains full"? The US only produces 2,000 tonnes of spent fuel a year, and has only produced 83,000 tonnes in the entire history of its nuclear generation program[1]. That entire annual production, even accounting for the weight of shielding and other safety measures, would fit on a single train the size of a typical coal or oil train. [1] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mechEpleb 6y ago
  You way overestimate how much nuclear waste is being produced.

sjwright 6y ago

And we can thank the anti-nuclear green activists for the waste disposal problem too. There are numerous ways to minimise waste (reprocessing, breeder plants) which have been lobbied against. And there have been good waste management options that failed only because of lobbying.

opo 6y ago

In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Sounds good in theory. But in reality the fuel rods need to be mechanically separated from their cladding, which is brittle, irradiated and whatnot else. Then chemical reprocessing of the fuel itself, and reassambly into whichever form is necessary. It's not like you could take a used fuel-rod and throw it into some breeder to have energy. Not to speak of the old cladding. I mean, I'm not against it, but it's not that simple.
- opo 6y ago
  >...It's not like you could take a used fuel-rod and throw it into some breeder to have energy. Not to speak of the old cladding. I mean, I'm not against it, but it's not that simple. You are moving the goal posts. Your original comment was "...but we still have no long term solution for high-level nuclear waste disposal. At all. ...Unless we come up with a complete end-to-end model for safely handling the waste, I don't consider nuclear to be a viable option. As it stands, it's a massive liability to the health of our future environment." There is an end-to-end model for safely handling the waste. (For example, the IFR design would actually have reprocessed the fuel on-site.) Nuclear waste will not be a massive liability to our future environment. The amount waste is very manageable (the Netherlands actually stores their waste in an art museum) and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity.

markdown 6y ago

> Unless we come up with a complete end-to-end model for safely handling the waste, I don't consider nuclear to be a viable option. We only need to store the stuff for 2-3 decades, by which time it should be feasible to just yeet the waste into space.

bananabreakfast 6y ago

Yes we do have a long term solution for high-level nuclear waste. Right now. Recycle it. You get far more energy out than the first pass as well. This technology is over half a century old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing Please stop saying we have no solution for nuclear waste. We absolutely do. It's just cheaper to keep storing waste than to build new plants due to the political barriers.

belorn 6y ago

It would be good if there were a technology neutral expectation that all waste from energy production must be handled and addressed in both short term and long term.

soco 6y ago

France recycles yearly 1700 tons of nuclear waste, since 1966. Over half a century, that's what I would call safe enough. That's about the size of the US waste production, and represents the waste produced in France plus the Netherlands and Germany and and. So that end-to-end model exists already, it's just many people don't know some things are happening also outside US borders.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

Vamos a la Playa!