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> Accidents in nuclear power plants can have disastrous implications. As in the case if Chernobyl, large areas around the site remain unusable forever What exa

> Accidents in nuclear power plants can have disastrous implications. As in the case if Chernobyl, large areas around the site remain unusable forever What exactly about this do you not buy? And what is your solution for storing nuclear waste safely for hundreds of thousands of years?

Aachen 5y ago
I should really make template comments. Being asked to explain why Chernobyl is not a realistic scenario in the 2020s, with all the available information and previous discussions, has been getting really old... See https://whatisnuclear.com/chernobyl-main.html#again https://whatisnuclear.com/chernobyl-main.html#again Or even just another comment in this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653778 Or the fact that it hasn't happened despite hundreds of active nuclear power plants around the world (not all in countries that you would expect to have high safety standards). Or the safety statistics in general: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy Same with the waste issue. Nobody asks what the proposed solution is for CO2 storage (it will remain for billions of years! The horror!) when proposing to keep open coal/gas plants a bit longer until we have solar/wind/hydro+storage all set up, but with nuclear we need to find more reasons for the phase-out. Here's another info page: https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html > If these materials are burnt in fuel through recycling, nuclear waste would only remain radioactive for a few hundred years And that's ignoring that we're also managing to deal with the waste so far just fine, also without recycling. (The tally is at 40 minutes time wasted for these two answer so far, also because most of the previous one was 'researched' and written on mobile. How long did it take to ask the question? This is why I contemplate templates.)
cipher_system 5y ago
You put the waste into containers and bury them deep into a geologically stable mine that you then seal shut. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
schleck8 5y ago
Before 100 thousand years have passed humanity will easily be able to send nuclear waste. We got from horses to Lamborghini Huracan in a century.
rsynnott 5y ago
I mean, it seems a bit like using the Bhopal disaster as an argument to not build any more chemical plants, or the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster as an argument to stop using passenger ships. Chernobyl was a flawed design incompetently operated. > And what is your solution for storing nuclear waste safely for hundreds of thousands of years? While it's a problem, it's actually a fairly tractable one, because the volume of high level waste is small and it doesn't leave the plant as part of normal operations. For coal power, for contrast, we store much of the waste in peoples' lungs.
lsllc 5y ago
Technology -- there was a submission just today currently on the front page: "Lasers could cut lifespan of nuclear waste from a million years to 30 minutes" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30652334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30652334 Obviously this particular idea is still blue-sky but as technology improves, I'd like to think we'll be able to solve problems like this within a few decades. (although I'm still waiting for my Mr Fusion, Flying Car etc).

Aachen 5y ago

I should really make template comments. Being asked to explain why Chernobyl is not a realistic scenario in the 2020s, with all the available information and previous discussions, has been getting really old... See https://whatisnuclear.com/chernobyl-main.html#again https://whatisnuclear.com/chernobyl-main.html#again Or even just another comment in this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653778 Or the fact that it hasn't happened despite hundreds of active nuclear power plants around the world (not all in countries that you would expect to have high safety standards). Or the safety statistics in general: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy Same with the waste issue. Nobody asks what the proposed solution is for CO2 storage (it will remain for billions of years! The horror!) when proposing to keep open coal/gas plants a bit longer until we have solar/wind/hydro+storage all set up, but with nuclear we need to find more reasons for the phase-out. Here's another info page: https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html > If these materials are burnt in fuel through recycling, nuclear waste would only remain radioactive for a few hundred years And that's ignoring that we're also managing to deal with the waste so far just fine, also without recycling. (The tally is at 40 minutes time wasted for these two answer so far, also because most of the previous one was 'researched' and written on mobile. How long did it take to ask the question? This is why I contemplate templates.)

cipher_system 5y ago

You put the waste into containers and bury them deep into a geologically stable mine that you then seal shut. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

schleck8 5y ago

Before 100 thousand years have passed humanity will easily be able to send nuclear waste. We got from horses to Lamborghini Huracan in a century.

rsynnott 5y ago

I mean, it seems a bit like using the Bhopal disaster as an argument to not build any more chemical plants, or the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster as an argument to stop using passenger ships. Chernobyl was a flawed design incompetently operated. > And what is your solution for storing nuclear waste safely for hundreds of thousands of years? While it's a problem, it's actually a fairly tractable one, because the volume of high level waste is small and it doesn't leave the plant as part of normal operations. For coal power, for contrast, we store much of the waste in peoples' lungs.

lsllc 5y ago

Technology -- there was a submission just today currently on the front page: "Lasers could cut lifespan of nuclear waste from a million years to 30 minutes" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30652334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30652334 Obviously this particular idea is still blue-sky but as technology improves, I'd like to think we'll be able to solve problems like this within a few decades. (although I'm still waiting for my Mr Fusion, Flying Car etc).