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Germany has no long term storage for nuclear waste, it is sending 12.000 tons of depleted uranium-hexafluoride from its reprocessing plant in Gronau to a plant

Germany has no long term storage for nuclear waste, it is sending 12.000 tons of depleted uranium-hexafluoride from its reprocessing plant in Gronau to a plant in Novouralsk, Russia, where its turned into uranium-oxide for usage in MOX fuel for fast breeders sometime in the future. Until then it is stored above ground, hoping the containment doesn't leak dust clouds. And those are the few parts of the problem that can be reused. For the vast majority of radioactive and contaminated waste, there is no such solution: there is no reprocessing decades old contaminated reactor parts that are replaced due to old age and material fatigue. The burial site in Asse turned into a disaster and the waste stored there is being digged up again, costing billions. Gorleben is on hold since it was build under the assumptions that lead to the Asse problem, Konrad is not even finished and already booked out, without even taking all of the waste that currently exists. So most radioactive, irradiated or contaminated waste is stored in "temporary containment" with no long term plan. Nuclear power is neither clean nor cheap: its lobbyists are just very good at pushing externalities toward tax payers and future generations. American nuclear industry is trying to convince people that their ocean dumping sites are safe and that the contamination of the Savannah river or the Columbia river are not a problem. Note that these are the same kind of people that argued in favor of leaded gasoline, fracking gas infused tap water and smoking tobacco. Nuclear waste is not a solved problem. And if you look at the other side of the supply chain, uranium mining is even worse. The mines in germany are closed, and most of what was produced there over decades was sold to the SU and USA anyway. Handling millions of tons of uranium trailings and irradiated pumping, mining and milling equipment is left as a problem for future generations. You think the selling price for yellow cake pays for these problems in advance? Think again.

nickpp 5y ago
How does all that compare to continuing to burn coal and gas and dumping humongous quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere? Maybe nuclear waste storage is not yet solved, but it is a long term problem while global warming is already here. I’d rather work on storage solutions for the next 1000 years than fighting floods, hurricanes and forest fires every day.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  Instead of investing hundreds of billions to restart a nuclear industry that failed to deliver what it promised for seven decades and created lots of problems of its own, Germany is investing in solar, wind, geothermal and tidal power production to find out what kind of issues those have (turns out wind turbines shredder insects en mass, leading to a different kind of ecological problem - there is no free lunch). Knowing very well that the EU will likely continue to require energy imports in the foreseeable future, Germany is pushing to import hydrogen instead of hydrocarbons, and a major supplier will be Africa. Instead of investing into irradiating our country, we invest into building sustainable power infrastructure with our southern neighbors.
  - _Tev 5y ago
    We already know what is the issue with only scalable renewables (wind & solar) - unrealiability. Germany is doing pretty much nothing to scale up energy storage, so this all is just a fig leaf to burn more coal & gas (or imported "renewable" wood). See last autumn - when wind did not blow and sun did not shine as much, you were pretty much just burrning stuff to make electricity. Hydrogen is a joke, just the infrastructure to distribute it will dwarf any costs nuclear could ever have. Not to mention production costs . . . And you are already irradiating your country by burning coal, so no idea what do you mean by "Instead of investing into irradiating our country".
    - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
      Again: whataboutism rarely helps, i am not arguing in favor of coal
      - _Tev 5y ago
        It's not whataboutism - when intermittent energy sources are offline you need to have either storage or backup energy source. Fossil fuel (or biomass) sources are good at spinning up quickly, so it makes sense to assume that pushing renewables without storage is effectively pushing burner power plants. And observed practice in Germany confirms this. Or do you have real data pointing in other direction? Say, period of low output from solar & wind which resulted in anything else than using mostly (imported) fossil-fueled electricity? EDIT to illustrate: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electricity-data/chart/power_generation/04.10.2021/10.10.2021/today/ https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electric... - emission factor of Germany's power generation was for several days (during the selected week) far above EU average (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-of-the-electricity-production-3/assessment https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-...)
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Meanwhile coal powerplants have put 100x (!) More radiation into the environment than fukushima and chernobil did combined, and noone even blinked.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  whataboutism rarely helps, i am not arguing in favor of coal
- PolygonSheep 5y ago
  It's like pointing out that car accidents kill ~10x more Americans a year than 9/11 did so why are we so obsessed with making sure you can't bring weapons on a plane? The real threat is giving every moron with a pulse control over a 4,000lb wrecking ball. Logically it's absolutely true that inattentive drivers are a greater risk to Americans than airline hijackers but 3,000+ people dying in one day in one location hits a lot harder than 30,000 people dying mostly one or two at a time, over 12 months, spread out across fifty states.
ArnoVW 5y ago
Can't they reprocess in la Hague? I imagine it was politically complicated before, but in light of recent developments? As an aside, France announced last week a plan to construct 6 new EPR installations, and a plan to revamp and extend the existing fleet. The Netherlands has reversed it's decision to phase out gaz, and is extending it's capacity.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  My knowledge about the nuclear economy of France is limited, but i don't think La'Hague has a UF6 defluorisation plant. I believe there are some in southern France but those are unable to handle the amount of UF6 France produces on its own, without buying more from Germany. Also, much like the german reprocessing plant in Gronau, the french plant in La'Hague is only a small part of a long re-processing and re-enrichment chain. It is a producer of "uranium de retraitement" (URT). Ask the French what they do with it, their "nuclear circular economy" goes through Tomsk in Siberia.
akvadrako 5y ago
You don't need a long-term plan for waste – most plants just store it onsite – it doesn't take much space.

nickpp 5y ago

How does all that compare to continuing to burn coal and gas and dumping humongous quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere? Maybe nuclear waste storage is not yet solved, but it is a long term problem while global warming is already here. I’d rather work on storage solutions for the next 1000 years than fighting floods, hurricanes and forest fires every day.

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
Instead of investing hundreds of billions to restart a nuclear industry that failed to deliver what it promised for seven decades and created lots of problems of its own, Germany is investing in solar, wind, geothermal and tidal power production to find out what kind of issues those have (turns out wind turbines shredder insects en mass, leading to a different kind of ecological problem - there is no free lunch). Knowing very well that the EU will likely continue to require energy imports in the foreseeable future, Germany is pushing to import hydrogen instead of hydrocarbons, and a major supplier will be Africa. Instead of investing into irradiating our country, we invest into building sustainable power infrastructure with our southern neighbors.
- _Tev 5y ago
  We already know what is the issue with only scalable renewables (wind & solar) - unrealiability. Germany is doing pretty much nothing to scale up energy storage, so this all is just a fig leaf to burn more coal & gas (or imported "renewable" wood). See last autumn - when wind did not blow and sun did not shine as much, you were pretty much just burrning stuff to make electricity. Hydrogen is a joke, just the infrastructure to distribute it will dwarf any costs nuclear could ever have. Not to mention production costs . . . And you are already irradiating your country by burning coal, so no idea what do you mean by "Instead of investing into irradiating our country".
  - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
    Again: whataboutism rarely helps, i am not arguing in favor of coal
    - _Tev 5y ago
      It's not whataboutism - when intermittent energy sources are offline you need to have either storage or backup energy source. Fossil fuel (or biomass) sources are good at spinning up quickly, so it makes sense to assume that pushing renewables without storage is effectively pushing burner power plants. And observed practice in Germany confirms this. Or do you have real data pointing in other direction? Say, period of low output from solar & wind which resulted in anything else than using mostly (imported) fossil-fueled electricity? EDIT to illustrate: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electricity-data/chart/power_generation/04.10.2021/10.10.2021/today/ https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electric... - emission factor of Germany's power generation was for several days (during the selected week) far above EU average (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-of-the-electricity-production-3/assessment https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-...)

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

Meanwhile coal powerplants have put 100x (!) More radiation into the environment than fukushima and chernobil did combined, and noone even blinked.

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
whataboutism rarely helps, i am not arguing in favor of coal
PolygonSheep 5y ago
It's like pointing out that car accidents kill ~10x more Americans a year than 9/11 did so why are we so obsessed with making sure you can't bring weapons on a plane? The real threat is giving every moron with a pulse control over a 4,000lb wrecking ball. Logically it's absolutely true that inattentive drivers are a greater risk to Americans than airline hijackers but 3,000+ people dying in one day in one location hits a lot harder than 30,000 people dying mostly one or two at a time, over 12 months, spread out across fifty states.

ArnoVW 5y ago

Can't they reprocess in la Hague? I imagine it was politically complicated before, but in light of recent developments? As an aside, France announced last week a plan to construct 6 new EPR installations, and a plan to revamp and extend the existing fleet. The Netherlands has reversed it's decision to phase out gaz, and is extending it's capacity.

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
My knowledge about the nuclear economy of France is limited, but i don't think La'Hague has a UF6 defluorisation plant. I believe there are some in southern France but those are unable to handle the amount of UF6 France produces on its own, without buying more from Germany. Also, much like the german reprocessing plant in Gronau, the french plant in La'Hague is only a small part of a long re-processing and re-enrichment chain. It is a producer of "uranium de retraitement" (URT). Ask the French what they do with it, their "nuclear circular economy" goes through Tomsk in Siberia.

akvadrako 5y ago

You don't need a long-term plan for waste – most plants just store it onsite – it doesn't take much space.