7 ms·

> As a result, spent nuclear fuel is currently stored in pools or in dry casks at reactor sites, accumulating at a rate of about 2,000 metric tonnes per year.

by vimy 4y ago

> As a result, spent nuclear fuel is currently stored in pools or in dry casks at reactor sites, accumulating at a rate of about 2,000 metric tonnes per year. Seems to me we already have a working solution. We have been storing nuclear “waste” for more than 60 years like this and nothing ever happened. Problem solved.

raphaelj 4y ago
While it might work and be actually safe, that does not mean it does not cost a lot to keep it safe for hundred of years (or more).
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Safe from what? What do you think will happen to the nuclear waste?
  - taf2 4y ago
    Pretty sure the big risk is leaking into the water table. See: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/khalaf2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/khalaf2/
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    For example it could get dispersed an irradiate people, maybe to an immediately fatal degree or contribute to cancer etc. That's the main problem. Seeping into the ground water, worst case getting blown up in an explosion. The latter may also happen intentionally, as a dirty bomb. Because betting big on SMRs means they are going to be everywhere... You normally don't hear about these kind of problems because of course the people responsible don't let the simple and stupid stuff happen. But this has to be prevented forever for all practical purposes, for all waste ever generated.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      I think ground water contamination is not an issue for a properly chosen site. I think the terrorist issue is an overblown boogeyman. More reactors would give bad actors more access to nuclear material though but I don't think that's an issue with the end of life storage part of the chain.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Erm, "I think the terrorist issue is an overblown boogeyman" is cold comfort. ISIS already comtemplated building dirty bombs in Mossul. And so far most of the nuclear waste has been stored right were it was used. SMRs are supposed to be everywhere. So nuclear waste will be everywhere, ready to get stolen, or shot at or blown up.
        2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
        Terrorists have contemplated everything. Pulling it off is different.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        They didn't know that they had Cobalt-60 on the college campus, which would have made a superb dirty bomb. They did get their hands on some Uranium, though. So it is a relatively close call. To close to hand-wave away the possibility of terrorists or failed states abusing nuclear material.
        robonerd 4y ago
        By the numbers, any kind of terrorism is an overblown boogeyman. Nuclear terrorism particularly so, and doubly overblown is nuclear terrorism that isn't state sponsored.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        You'd hope so. But in the case of ISIS you could argue that it was a near-state actor. And we just can't predict the trajectory of state actors. Pakistan is troublesome. So is Iran, even with its "civilian" nuclear program. North-Korea. Those are just examples from the present. There are lots of other countries that would need nuclear power but whom I wouldn't count on surviving the next few decades. And many are too corrupt to regulate a nuclear industry well enough. Just hand-waving away future risks like that does sound intellectually dishonest and careless to me.
ethagknight 4y ago
This works until that nuclear station is decommissioned. 40 to 80 years is a typical design lifespan. Then what? The answer is “kick the can down the road and hope we find a better solution.” That’s not a bad plan, but we do need a better plan so that local governments are not stuck holding the bag for power companies that are long gone, having left their nuclear waste behind. I would like to avoid an “EPA nuclear super fund” To deal with messes after the fact like we have from industries in the last century. EDIT- it does sort of seem like treating nuclear waste the same as other industrial waste and sending it off to approved Class III landfills should be acceptable. So then, kicking the can down the road leads to the public being forced to accept nuclear waste at a Class III landfill.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Also sometimes local governments disappear or change their "nature" significantly. Or people start shooting big guns and missiles in the vicinity of reactors or storage facilities. ISIS in Mossul contemplated building dirty bombs, for example.
  - MagnumOpus 4y ago
    And sometimes people shoot guns and missiles at hydro dams to make them fail and kill tens of thousands of people. For both of these there needs to be cautious assessment of the amount of risks that can be mitigated: - nuclear reactor containment domes, like hydro dams, are built to withstand a few bombs or the impact of a fighter jet, or maybe even a tsunami or once-a-millenium major quake - neither of the two are built to withstand nuclear weapons or continued bunker busters - that's the job of the military...
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Dams often aren't built for power generation, but to better control the river. Energy generation is only a side benefit. Also: A burst dam has predictable and limited consequences. There's still no final assessment for the cost of the Fukushima cleanup or when it will be finished or what they are even gonna do with all the radioactive earth and such. No, apparently not all reactors are built that sturdily. Certainly the proposed SMRs and micro reactors have no such ambitions. Fukushima was built to withstand Tsunamis and earth quakes. The topic of "impossible accidents" actually happening makes the public a little uneasy about predictions by pro-nuclear salespeople. The whole argument about dams vs nuclear plants is pointless.
coryrc 4y ago
Here's 1500x more radioactive, toxic waste from a single coal plant: https://www.southernenvironment.org/news/court-ruling-dominions-coal-ash-illegally-pollutes-virginias-elizabeth-rive/ https://www.southernenvironment.org/news/court-ruling-domini... Anyone complaining about nuclear waste is a troll or ignorant.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  Coal ash is radioactive compared to rocks generally?
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Yes, but it is less radioactive than some rock. Burning coal concentrates the uranium into the ash, so at a basic level you can say that coal ash is more radioactive than coal itself.
  - connicpu 4y ago
    Coal ash tends to have a high volume of Carbon-14 which, in the volumes used to burn coal for electricity, releases significantly more radioactivity than any normally operating nuclear plant. Even just a large pile of unburnt coal is much more radioactive than your average pile of rocks
    - duskwuff 4y ago
      No, that's incorrect. Coal is mostly carbon, but almost all of that carbon burns with the coal -- what's left over in the ash is whatever didn't burn, which is mostly minerals like silicon/aluminium oxides. Even the source coal has relatively low levels of C14 (since it's been buried for millions of years), and nothing about the combustion process would be likely to concentrate that in the ash. Radioactivity in coal ash is primarily due to small quantities of uranium in the coal. It's not significantly radioactive, though; the hazards it poses are more due to other heavy metals which are often present in the ash (lead, mercury, etc).
- Gwypaas 4y ago
LatteLazy 4y ago
Actually there are small leaks, releases and spills at these places quite regularly. Just because it doesn't make front page news doesn't mean it's a solution. Plus now you have to maintain and staff those facilities for millennia...

by vimy 4y ago

raphaelj 4y ago

While it might work and be actually safe, that does not mean it does not cost a lot to keep it safe for hundred of years (or more).

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Safe from what? What do you think will happen to the nuclear waste?
- taf2 4y ago
  Pretty sure the big risk is leaking into the water table. See: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/khalaf2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/khalaf2/
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  For example it could get dispersed an irradiate people, maybe to an immediately fatal degree or contribute to cancer etc. That's the main problem. Seeping into the ground water, worst case getting blown up in an explosion. The latter may also happen intentionally, as a dirty bomb. Because betting big on SMRs means they are going to be everywhere... You normally don't hear about these kind of problems because of course the people responsible don't let the simple and stupid stuff happen. But this has to be prevented forever for all practical purposes, for all waste ever generated.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    I think ground water contamination is not an issue for a properly chosen site. I think the terrorist issue is an overblown boogeyman. More reactors would give bad actors more access to nuclear material though but I don't think that's an issue with the end of life storage part of the chain.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Erm, "I think the terrorist issue is an overblown boogeyman" is cold comfort. ISIS already comtemplated building dirty bombs in Mossul. And so far most of the nuclear waste has been stored right were it was used. SMRs are supposed to be everywhere. So nuclear waste will be everywhere, ready to get stolen, or shot at or blown up.
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
        Terrorists have contemplated everything. Pulling it off is different.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        They didn't know that they had Cobalt-60 on the college campus, which would have made a superb dirty bomb. They did get their hands on some Uranium, though. So it is a relatively close call. To close to hand-wave away the possibility of terrorists or failed states abusing nuclear material.
      - robonerd 4y ago
        By the numbers, any kind of terrorism is an overblown boogeyman. Nuclear terrorism particularly so, and doubly overblown is nuclear terrorism that isn't state sponsored.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        You'd hope so. But in the case of ISIS you could argue that it was a near-state actor. And we just can't predict the trajectory of state actors. Pakistan is troublesome. So is Iran, even with its "civilian" nuclear program. North-Korea. Those are just examples from the present. There are lots of other countries that would need nuclear power but whom I wouldn't count on surviving the next few decades. And many are too corrupt to regulate a nuclear industry well enough. Just hand-waving away future risks like that does sound intellectually dishonest and careless to me.

ethagknight 4y ago

This works until that nuclear station is decommissioned. 40 to 80 years is a typical design lifespan. Then what? The answer is “kick the can down the road and hope we find a better solution.” That’s not a bad plan, but we do need a better plan so that local governments are not stuck holding the bag for power companies that are long gone, having left their nuclear waste behind. I would like to avoid an “EPA nuclear super fund” To deal with messes after the fact like we have from industries in the last century. EDIT- it does sort of seem like treating nuclear waste the same as other industrial waste and sending it off to approved Class III landfills should be acceptable. So then, kicking the can down the road leads to the public being forced to accept nuclear waste at a Class III landfill.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Also sometimes local governments disappear or change their "nature" significantly. Or people start shooting big guns and missiles in the vicinity of reactors or storage facilities. ISIS in Mossul contemplated building dirty bombs, for example.
- MagnumOpus 4y ago
  And sometimes people shoot guns and missiles at hydro dams to make them fail and kill tens of thousands of people. For both of these there needs to be cautious assessment of the amount of risks that can be mitigated: - nuclear reactor containment domes, like hydro dams, are built to withstand a few bombs or the impact of a fighter jet, or maybe even a tsunami or once-a-millenium major quake - neither of the two are built to withstand nuclear weapons or continued bunker busters - that's the job of the military...
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    Dams often aren't built for power generation, but to better control the river. Energy generation is only a side benefit. Also: A burst dam has predictable and limited consequences. There's still no final assessment for the cost of the Fukushima cleanup or when it will be finished or what they are even gonna do with all the radioactive earth and such. No, apparently not all reactors are built that sturdily. Certainly the proposed SMRs and micro reactors have no such ambitions. Fukushima was built to withstand Tsunamis and earth quakes. The topic of "impossible accidents" actually happening makes the public a little uneasy about predictions by pro-nuclear salespeople. The whole argument about dams vs nuclear plants is pointless.

coryrc 4y ago

Here's 1500x more radioactive, toxic waste from a single coal plant: https://www.southernenvironment.org/news/court-ruling-dominions-coal-ash-illegally-pollutes-virginias-elizabeth-rive/ https://www.southernenvironment.org/news/court-ruling-domini... Anyone complaining about nuclear waste is a troll or ignorant.

endisneigh 4y ago
Coal ash is radioactive compared to rocks generally?
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Yes, but it is less radioactive than some rock. Burning coal concentrates the uranium into the ash, so at a basic level you can say that coal ash is more radioactive than coal itself.
- connicpu 4y ago
  Coal ash tends to have a high volume of Carbon-14 which, in the volumes used to burn coal for electricity, releases significantly more radioactivity than any normally operating nuclear plant. Even just a large pile of unburnt coal is much more radioactive than your average pile of rocks
  - duskwuff 4y ago
    No, that's incorrect. Coal is mostly carbon, but almost all of that carbon burns with the coal -- what's left over in the ash is whatever didn't burn, which is mostly minerals like silicon/aluminium oxides. Even the source coal has relatively low levels of C14 (since it's been buried for millions of years), and nothing about the combustion process would be likely to concentrate that in the ash. Radioactivity in coal ash is primarily due to small quantities of uranium in the coal. It's not significantly radioactive, though; the hazards it poses are more due to other heavy metals which are often present in the ash (lead, mercury, etc).
Gwypaas 4y ago

LatteLazy 4y ago

Actually there are small leaks, releases and spills at these places quite regularly. Just because it doesn't make front page news doesn't mean it's a solution. Plus now you have to maintain and staff those facilities for millennia...