4 ms·

Of course there is; actually dangerous materials are produced to the rate of a few cubic meters a year: just sink them in lead and concrete and put them at the

by shakow 5y ago

Of course there is; actually dangerous materials are produced to the rate of a few cubic meters a year: just sink them in lead and concrete and put them at the bottom of a mine shaft. Compared to the result of having billions over billions of over wastes in the atmosphere, I can't even understand how people pretend it's not a no-brainer question.

mschuster91 5y ago
> just sink them in lead and concrete and put them at the bottom of a mine shaft. That is, frankly, moronic. All you will end up with is your groundwater leeching out the waste. We have exactly this problem in Gorleben, and now have to spend a boatload of money in recovering all the waste from the former mine.
- eropple 5y ago
  This is an important thing, IMO - aquifers go a lot deeper into the Earth than maybe most folks realize.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Yes, the parent was being overly simplistic. You have to be choosey about where you put your waste, but experts currently recommend deep geologic repository as the safest solution. In whichever case, the salient point is that however you manage the waste it's still far less harmful than spewing co2 into the atmosphere. Radiation only seems scarier because it is much more direct.
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  Put it deep enough in bedrock where there is no groundwater, like the Finns https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_re... There is still the issue of how to communicate “Danger: Nuclear Waste” to the people who will encounter the waste storage facility over the next 10,000-100,000 years, but for now we can safely store waste.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Pretty sure in 10K years the nuclear waste will no longer be radiotoxic. > The radioactivity of nuclear waste naturally decays, and has a finite radiotoxic lifetime. Within a period of 1,000-10,000 years, the radioactivity of HLW decays to that of the originally mined ore. Its hazard then depends on how concentrated it is. By comparison, other industrial wastes (e.g. heavy metals, such as cadmium and mercury) remain hazardous indefinitely. - https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... The above is probably some nuclear power lobby (vested interest and all that), but I think the point is a good one.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    Put it somewhere extremely hard to get to without industrialized tools. Assuming civilization doesn't collapse, any society with the kind of resources to want to go back in and extract the radioactive was is going to know what radioactivity is. If you assume it does collapse, the protection you get from a lack of power tools and logistics makes breaking into the waste repository prohibitively expensive. I doubt an agrarian or non-industrial society would be able to bankroll an expedition to a place like, say, Antarctica or the Atacama Desert and then being digging thousands of feet down using hand tools and ropes to find magic rocks. An example I'd like to cite is how one of the Sultan's of Egypt tried to dismantle the pyramids and failed horribly because of all the manpower involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  Yes. The better idea is to sink them in lead and leave on the surface. This way if something happens to external core, you can cheaply fix it, instead of recover them from deep mines.
- shakow 5y ago
  > All you will end up with is your groundwater leeching out the waste No yo won't, because you will think just a bit before drilling the mine shaft over an aquifer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository) > We have exactly this problem in Gorleben Looks like the only problems you have in Gorleben are a handful of medical-grade wastes badly conditioned and a very vocal populace.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Asmod4n 5y ago
    The radiation in Gorleben is already destroying the salt dome.
    - shakow 5y ago
      Would you mind sourcing that? The documents I can find (https://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Endlagerung/Downloads/Description_Gorleben_Part4_Geotechnical_exploration_en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 https://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Endlagerung/Downloads/Desc...) seem pretty happy with the current situation.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
      The radiation is destroying nothing. The salt dome itself wasn't as stable as thought before, but that has nothing to do with any radiation. Which btw. isn't much at all, even though the waste has been thrown into caverns recklessly. The really bad stuff sits still above ground in CASTOR cases, sometimes in storage sheds, sometimes under open skies, some in so called temporary storage at the power plants, sometimes in another country, until it's reprocessed. Don't spread lies.

by shakow 5y ago

mschuster91 5y ago

> just sink them in lead and concrete and put them at the bottom of a mine shaft. That is, frankly, moronic. All you will end up with is your groundwater leeching out the waste. We have exactly this problem in Gorleben, and now have to spend a boatload of money in recovering all the waste from the former mine.

eropple 5y ago
This is an important thing, IMO - aquifers go a lot deeper into the Earth than maybe most folks realize.
throwaway894345 5y ago
Yes, the parent was being overly simplistic. You have to be choosey about where you put your waste, but experts currently recommend deep geologic repository as the safest solution. In whichever case, the salient point is that however you manage the waste it's still far less harmful than spewing co2 into the atmosphere. Radiation only seems scarier because it is much more direct.
quickthrowman 5y ago
Put it deep enough in bedrock where there is no groundwater, like the Finns https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_re... There is still the issue of how to communicate “Danger: Nuclear Waste” to the people who will encounter the waste storage facility over the next 10,000-100,000 years, but for now we can safely store waste.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Pretty sure in 10K years the nuclear waste will no longer be radiotoxic. > The radioactivity of nuclear waste naturally decays, and has a finite radiotoxic lifetime. Within a period of 1,000-10,000 years, the radioactivity of HLW decays to that of the originally mined ore. Its hazard then depends on how concentrated it is. By comparison, other industrial wastes (e.g. heavy metals, such as cadmium and mercury) remain hazardous indefinitely. - https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... The above is probably some nuclear power lobby (vested interest and all that), but I think the point is a good one.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  Put it somewhere extremely hard to get to without industrialized tools. Assuming civilization doesn't collapse, any society with the kind of resources to want to go back in and extract the radioactive was is going to know what radioactivity is. If you assume it does collapse, the protection you get from a lack of power tools and logistics makes breaking into the waste repository prohibitively expensive. I doubt an agrarian or non-industrial society would be able to bankroll an expedition to a place like, say, Antarctica or the Atacama Desert and then being digging thousands of feet down using hand tools and ropes to find magic rocks. An example I'd like to cite is how one of the Sultan's of Egypt tried to dismantle the pyramids and failed horribly because of all the manpower involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure
KptMarchewa 5y ago
Yes. The better idea is to sink them in lead and leave on the surface. This way if something happens to external core, you can cheaply fix it, instead of recover them from deep mines.
shakow 5y ago
> All you will end up with is your groundwater leeching out the waste No yo won't, because you will think just a bit before drilling the mine shaft over an aquifer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository) > We have exactly this problem in Gorleben Looks like the only problems you have in Gorleben are a handful of medical-grade wastes badly conditioned and a very vocal populace.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Asmod4n 5y ago
  The radiation in Gorleben is already destroying the salt dome.
  - shakow 5y ago
    Would you mind sourcing that? The documents I can find (https://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Endlagerung/Downloads/Description_Gorleben_Part4_Geotechnical_exploration_en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 https://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Endlagerung/Downloads/Desc...) seem pretty happy with the current situation.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    The radiation is destroying nothing. The salt dome itself wasn't as stable as thought before, but that has nothing to do with any radiation. Which btw. isn't much at all, even though the waste has been thrown into caverns recklessly. The really bad stuff sits still above ground in CASTOR cases, sometimes in storage sheds, sometimes under open skies, some in so called temporary storage at the power plants, sometimes in another country, until it's reprocessed. Don't spread lies.