4 ms·

You are aware that those holes are leaky relative to the half-life of the waste they contain, right? Decades? Pffft. No, that problem's only deferred, not solve

You are aware that those holes are leaky relative to the half-life of the waste they contain, right? Decades? Pffft. No, that problem's only deferred, not solved.

db48x 6y ago
There is no nuclear waste, only different kinds of nuclear fuel. We _could_ have started building reactors that can extract power from that fuel decades ago.
- notacoward 6y ago
  Considering that we still haven't exactly perfected U-238 technology in 70+ years, when exactly do you think we'll be able to separate and use things like Np-237 or Tc-99? Is there even anyone seriously working on that? There's a reason so many people are actively working on better containment technologies, and I don't think it's because they're dumber than a bunch of HN dilettantes.
  - db48x 6y ago
    You don't need isotope separation or enrichment. What is needed is chemical separation of transuranics. The only real expense there is just the care that must be exersized when dealing with radioactive elements.
vimy 6y ago
The waste is less radioactive than most people assume and it's put deep enough that it doesn't even matter. In fact, we don't even need to put it underground. Because of activists fear mongering, the construction of underground storage has been blocked for decades. So the waste has been safely sitting on the surface all that time. Why change what works?
35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
Yucca Mountain would've been a ten-millennia can kick. Would there be a radioactive problem then if we did absolutely nothing? Absolutely so. But in less than a century Miami could be under water. We missed a huge opportunity to buy time.
ALittleLight 6y ago
It's not like the waste comes up after decades. The waste will still there until we find a better purpose for it.
- notacoward 6y ago
  Have you heard of water table contamination? If these problems were so simple that someone approaching them for what is obviously the first time could solve them with the first facile idea that comes into their head, those solutions would already be implemented. As it turns out, though, storing things so they won't leak for 100K years or more is a hard problem. Rock is not the perfect barrier you think it is. We're just barely getting to the point where the most specialized kinds of glass, buried in rock, with other measures to prevent material degradation, might be sufficient. It hasn't actually been tried yet, not even to determine whether our measurements for the first 0.1% of that timescale are correct. Literal lifetimes have already been spent getting us that far. Do you seriously think you're smarter than all of those people put together?
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    You are being needlessly hostile in a way that is very confusing. You're asking if I think I'm "smarter than all of those people put together" when you are the person going against the status quo. Nuclear has been in use for decades providing significant portions of power in multiple countries throughout the world and waste is demonstrably a solved problem - solved by putting it in the ground. Nuclear is extremely safe and clean. The passage of time will make it more so as we develop reactors that consume nuclear waste, better storage or nuclear technology, etc.
    - notacoward 6y ago
      > You are being needlessly hostile in a way that is very confusing. Challenges to your hand waves are not "needlessly hostile"; they're exactly as "hostile" (i.e. skeptical) as the situation warrants. Maybe it's confusing because you're unaware that the consensus here is not the consensus among people who actually work on this stuff. They recognize that the current "solutions" are only stopgaps. > Nuclear is extremely safe and clean. Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Hanford. Not actually a great record considering the number of deployments involved. Yes, newer kinds of reactors are likely to be safer. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I'm not actually against nuclear power. I just recognize that it's not easy or perfect. Blind faith is not my thing.

You are aware that those holes are leaky relative to the half-life of the waste they contain, right? Decades? Pffft. No, that problem's only deferred, not solved.

db48x 6y ago

There is no nuclear waste, only different kinds of nuclear fuel. We _could_ have started building reactors that can extract power from that fuel decades ago.

notacoward 6y ago
Considering that we still haven't exactly perfected U-238 technology in 70+ years, when exactly do you think we'll be able to separate and use things like Np-237 or Tc-99? Is there even anyone seriously working on that? There's a reason so many people are actively working on better containment technologies, and I don't think it's because they're dumber than a bunch of HN dilettantes.
- db48x 6y ago
  You don't need isotope separation or enrichment. What is needed is chemical separation of transuranics. The only real expense there is just the care that must be exersized when dealing with radioactive elements.

vimy 6y ago

The waste is less radioactive than most people assume and it's put deep enough that it doesn't even matter. In fact, we don't even need to put it underground. Because of activists fear mongering, the construction of underground storage has been blocked for decades. So the waste has been safely sitting on the surface all that time. Why change what works?

35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago

Yucca Mountain would've been a ten-millennia can kick. Would there be a radioactive problem then if we did absolutely nothing? Absolutely so. But in less than a century Miami could be under water. We missed a huge opportunity to buy time.

ALittleLight 6y ago

It's not like the waste comes up after decades. The waste will still there until we find a better purpose for it.

notacoward 6y ago
Have you heard of water table contamination? If these problems were so simple that someone approaching them for what is obviously the first time could solve them with the first facile idea that comes into their head, those solutions would already be implemented. As it turns out, though, storing things so they won't leak for 100K years or more is a hard problem. Rock is not the perfect barrier you think it is. We're just barely getting to the point where the most specialized kinds of glass, buried in rock, with other measures to prevent material degradation, might be sufficient. It hasn't actually been tried yet, not even to determine whether our measurements for the first 0.1% of that timescale are correct. Literal lifetimes have already been spent getting us that far. Do you seriously think you're smarter than all of those people put together?
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  You are being needlessly hostile in a way that is very confusing. You're asking if I think I'm "smarter than all of those people put together" when you are the person going against the status quo. Nuclear has been in use for decades providing significant portions of power in multiple countries throughout the world and waste is demonstrably a solved problem - solved by putting it in the ground. Nuclear is extremely safe and clean. The passage of time will make it more so as we develop reactors that consume nuclear waste, better storage or nuclear technology, etc.
  - notacoward 6y ago
    > You are being needlessly hostile in a way that is very confusing. Challenges to your hand waves are not "needlessly hostile"; they're exactly as "hostile" (i.e. skeptical) as the situation warrants. Maybe it's confusing because you're unaware that the consensus here is not the consensus among people who actually work on this stuff. They recognize that the current "solutions" are only stopgaps. > Nuclear is extremely safe and clean. Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Hanford. Not actually a great record considering the number of deployments involved. Yes, newer kinds of reactors are likely to be safer. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I'm not actually against nuclear power. I just recognize that it's not easy or perfect. Blind faith is not my thing.