2 ms·
Or, bury it underground in impermeable rock. Short of a meteor strike right on top of the repository, it will not make its way out to the surface.
by Manuel_D 4y ago
Or, bury it underground in impermeable rock. Short of a meteor strike right on top of the repository, it will not make its way out to the surface.
- webmaven 4y agoThe best impermeable rock (ie. granite) formations for this purpose are in the eastern US. Congress excluded them from consideration as sites when they mandated the selection of Yucca Mountain as the sole site in 1987.
- Manuel_D 4y agoExactly: the waste problem is a political one, not an engineering problem. But it's moot anyway, because the US doesn't reprocess it's waste. So today's nuclear waste is a source of fuel later and it's be a waste to bury it before reprocessing anyway.
- webmaven 4y agoThere is supposed to be a second facility for retrievable waste, but the planning process for it can't begin until the first facility is commissioned.
- euroderf 4y agoAnd if you bury it a kilometer or two down, then if a meteor strike is big enough to dislodge it, the nuclear waste is the least of your problems.