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Sounds lovely on paper, but nobody wants to store it on their property. Groundwater intrusion is a clear risk. Oil companies already have (minor) problems with

Sounds lovely on paper, but nobody wants to store it on their property. Groundwater intrusion is a clear risk. Oil companies already have (minor) problems with fracking fluids. Nuclear waste is orders of magnitude more risky. It’s not centuries of waste, it’s millions of years of waste.

gambiting 5y ago
>>Groundwater intrusion is a clear risk. How? 5km down is way below the water table. Also 5km down the soil is already radioactive by itself, so it's not like you are storing your waste in some pristine environent and polluting it - it's already a very dangerous place. If the elements at 5km depth could get into our grandwater it would all be polluted already. They can't. >>Oil companies already have (minor) problems with fracking fluids. Again, no one is fracking 5km down. Not even close. >>It’s not centuries of waste, it’s millions of years of waste. Uhm....."kinda". The highly radiactive stuff has half life of few centuries at most, otherwise it wouldn't be highly radioactive. Yes certain elements produced in the waste exist for "millions" of years, but that's no different than saying that naturally occuring Uranium exists for "millions of years". Like, yeah, duh. Again, at 5km or deeper depths that's not an actual problem. >>but nobody wants to store it on their property. I feel like I'm repeating myself, but 5km down is hardly anyone's property. Like, it's really really really not. You could fill up the drill hole and turn the surface into a national park and no one would ever be able to tell there's anything stored down there, just like you can't tell you might have a natural uranium deposit 5km down below you. And yes, certain groups will protest it anyway - but I think it's important to call them for what they are - insane.
- mogadsheu 5y ago
  Again, it sounds good behind a computer or to an engineer looking for a solution, but nature has a way of connecting itself with itself. Waste would have to pass through the shallows of the borehole which is a risk, and then the well remains a high permeability conduit for the duration of its existence. If/when the well collapses, the infill is likely to be high permeability on a human/civilization timescale. That’s not to mention the volume of material that would need to be placed downhole, which I would imagine is significant. Re: duration of harmfulness, doesn’t uranium have a half life of some 10^9 years? Not an expert in nuclear chemistry, but I wouldn’t want that stuff in concentration anywhere near me, or beneath my feet, and neither does any state in the US it seems.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    >>: duration of harmfulness, doesn’t uranium have a half life of some 10^9 years Yes, and uranium in its pure form is hardly dangerous. Like, don't eat the stuff, but the same could be said about lead - you're perfectly fine holding it, just don't eat it. Again, the more dangerous something is the shorter is its half life, stuff that has incredibly long half life is almost by definition not very dangerous. With uranium you'd worry more about the toxicity than the radioactivity.

gambiting 5y ago

>>Groundwater intrusion is a clear risk. How? 5km down is way below the water table. Also 5km down the soil is already radioactive by itself, so it's not like you are storing your waste in some pristine environent and polluting it - it's already a very dangerous place. If the elements at 5km depth could get into our grandwater it would all be polluted already. They can't. >>Oil companies already have (minor) problems with fracking fluids. Again, no one is fracking 5km down. Not even close. >>It’s not centuries of waste, it’s millions of years of waste. Uhm....."kinda". The highly radiactive stuff has half life of few centuries at most, otherwise it wouldn't be highly radioactive. Yes certain elements produced in the waste exist for "millions" of years, but that's no different than saying that naturally occuring Uranium exists for "millions of years". Like, yeah, duh. Again, at 5km or deeper depths that's not an actual problem. >>but nobody wants to store it on their property. I feel like I'm repeating myself, but 5km down is hardly anyone's property. Like, it's really really really not. You could fill up the drill hole and turn the surface into a national park and no one would ever be able to tell there's anything stored down there, just like you can't tell you might have a natural uranium deposit 5km down below you. And yes, certain groups will protest it anyway - but I think it's important to call them for what they are - insane.

mogadsheu 5y ago
Again, it sounds good behind a computer or to an engineer looking for a solution, but nature has a way of connecting itself with itself. Waste would have to pass through the shallows of the borehole which is a risk, and then the well remains a high permeability conduit for the duration of its existence. If/when the well collapses, the infill is likely to be high permeability on a human/civilization timescale. That’s not to mention the volume of material that would need to be placed downhole, which I would imagine is significant. Re: duration of harmfulness, doesn’t uranium have a half life of some 10^9 years? Not an expert in nuclear chemistry, but I wouldn’t want that stuff in concentration anywhere near me, or beneath my feet, and neither does any state in the US it seems.
- gambiting 5y ago
  >>: duration of harmfulness, doesn’t uranium have a half life of some 10^9 years Yes, and uranium in its pure form is hardly dangerous. Like, don't eat the stuff, but the same could be said about lead - you're perfectly fine holding it, just don't eat it. Again, the more dangerous something is the shorter is its half life, stuff that has incredibly long half life is almost by definition not very dangerous. With uranium you'd worry more about the toxicity than the radioactivity.