5 ms·

This should not happen without a long term plan for where are they are going to put the waste.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
What is your long term plan for what to do with all of the carbon dioxide we're putting into the atmosphere? Both are immense problems with immense dangers, but it seems to me that one is clearly easier to solve.
- moate 5y ago
  "Repair an entire planet's atmosphere" vs "store a few hundred tons of radioactive material safely" are definitely very different levels of problems. Not to mention the possibility that spent fuel could be of use to future generations for some kind of future science and it would all conveniently be in one place.
  - EricE 5y ago
    or if you burn today’s “waste” in reactors that can easily do so, you not only don’t have to securely store it while also getting carbon neutral energy that will displace existing fossil fuel derived sources. Nuclear is predictable which means it’s perfect for base load generation. Something all the other “clean” technologies are not.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  so we didn't plan for the problem in the past, so we shouldn't bother this time? that's pure whataboutism and not helpful
  - nharada 5y ago
    The urgency is different. You don't earthquake-proof your house while the living room is on fire.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      An even more apt analogy might be: if your living room is on fire, you should dump water on it. You shouldn't let the fire rage because the water could damage the carpet.
      - metalliqaz 5y ago
        it's not an apt analogy. We can do both! There's no reason that we can't legislate proper waste handling with the subsidies. No reason whatsoever.
        Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        You can either let the fire rage while you make a plan for how to repair the carpet, or you can pour the water now and deal with the carpet later. There is in fact a limit to how much you can get legislatures to do at once. I’m all for coming up with policies for nuclear waste, I just don’t think it should hold up the construction of reactors. The world is on fire.
        metalliqaz 5y ago
        why fight so hard against even trying???
        Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        We should try! But I think the logical end result of "we should do X hard thing before Y" will be that Y never gets done! It's almost like a form of bike shedding—except that the bike shed is in fact important, but its construction can trail launch, and launch is on a tight deadline.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
opanitch 5y ago
new nuclear technologies have long answered this question. some of the new reactors even run on spent fuel from older reactors. Keep reading!
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The long-term "waste" is Plutonium. Half-life 24,000 years. We don't want to have to secure it for that long, but we already have tons of it, so the answer is to permanently destroy it, because Plutonium is fissionable. It can be used as reactor fuel. So the answer for what to do with the waste is to build reactors that use it as fuel. That not only doesn't create more long-lived waste, it gives us a way to get rid of what we already have.
- quench 5y ago
  I thought that was what fast breeder reactors did. They have only low grade waste. The disadvantage is that you don't get free plutonium to put in your nukes
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    There are some political ramifications to admitting that you use plutonium from civilian reactors to make nuclear weapons. It's possible that they're doing this without admitting it and that's the reason reactors that consume rather than produce plutonium are disfavored. But in that case you still don't have a "waste storage problem" -- you know what you're doing with the plutonium, you're just not admitting to it. But I don't think the scale adds up for that. We don't need this amount of plutonium to make weapons, even if that's what we're doing with some of it. So still destroy the rest of it.
cbozeman 5y ago
You mean Yucca Mountain, that sits largely unused to this day?
xroche 5y ago
Nuclear waste handling is a non-issue. The volume are totally manageable, and future generations of nuclear plants won't product much (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor)
molszanski 5y ago
Do you know how much waste in m^3 do we actually produce?

What is your long term plan for what to do with all of the carbon dioxide we're putting into the atmosphere? Both are immense problems with immense dangers, but it seems to me that one is clearly easier to solve.

moate 5y ago
"Repair an entire planet's atmosphere" vs "store a few hundred tons of radioactive material safely" are definitely very different levels of problems. Not to mention the possibility that spent fuel could be of use to future generations for some kind of future science and it would all conveniently be in one place.
- EricE 5y ago
  or if you burn today’s “waste” in reactors that can easily do so, you not only don’t have to securely store it while also getting carbon neutral energy that will displace existing fossil fuel derived sources. Nuclear is predictable which means it’s perfect for base load generation. Something all the other “clean” technologies are not.
metalliqaz 5y ago
so we didn't plan for the problem in the past, so we shouldn't bother this time? that's pure whataboutism and not helpful
- nharada 5y ago
  The urgency is different. You don't earthquake-proof your house while the living room is on fire.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    An even more apt analogy might be: if your living room is on fire, you should dump water on it. You shouldn't let the fire rage because the water could damage the carpet.
    - metalliqaz 5y ago
      it's not an apt analogy. We can do both! There's no reason that we can't legislate proper waste handling with the subsidies. No reason whatsoever.
      - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        You can either let the fire rage while you make a plan for how to repair the carpet, or you can pour the water now and deal with the carpet later. There is in fact a limit to how much you can get legislatures to do at once. I’m all for coming up with policies for nuclear waste, I just don’t think it should hold up the construction of reactors. The world is on fire.
        metalliqaz 5y ago
        why fight so hard against even trying???
        Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        We should try! But I think the logical end result of "we should do X hard thing before Y" will be that Y never gets done! It's almost like a form of bike shedding—except that the bike shed is in fact important, but its construction can trail launch, and launch is on a tight deadline.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

opanitch 5y ago

new nuclear technologies have long answered this question. some of the new reactors even run on spent fuel from older reactors. Keep reading!

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

The long-term "waste" is Plutonium. Half-life 24,000 years. We don't want to have to secure it for that long, but we already have tons of it, so the answer is to permanently destroy it, because Plutonium is fissionable. It can be used as reactor fuel. So the answer for what to do with the waste is to build reactors that use it as fuel. That not only doesn't create more long-lived waste, it gives us a way to get rid of what we already have.

quench 5y ago
I thought that was what fast breeder reactors did. They have only low grade waste. The disadvantage is that you don't get free plutonium to put in your nukes
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  There are some political ramifications to admitting that you use plutonium from civilian reactors to make nuclear weapons. It's possible that they're doing this without admitting it and that's the reason reactors that consume rather than produce plutonium are disfavored. But in that case you still don't have a "waste storage problem" -- you know what you're doing with the plutonium, you're just not admitting to it. But I don't think the scale adds up for that. We don't need this amount of plutonium to make weapons, even if that's what we're doing with some of it. So still destroy the rest of it.

cbozeman 5y ago

You mean Yucca Mountain, that sits largely unused to this day?

xroche 5y ago

Nuclear waste handling is a non-issue. The volume are totally manageable, and future generations of nuclear plants won't product much (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor)

molszanski 5y ago

Do you know how much waste in m^3 do we actually produce?