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Finland may be the only country being close to solving this issue. And no, it's not possible to ship all the nuclear waste to Finland. Not every country even h

Finland may be the only country being close to solving this issue. And no, it's not possible to ship all the nuclear waste to Finland. Not every country even has candidate sites. And there's a lot of issues from "I think we have a solution" to actually having implemented it.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>And no, it's not possible to ship all the nuclear waste to Finland. Only in the political sense. Waste volumes are small enough that we easily could if they were willing to dig a big enough hole.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  You are neglecting the transport issue. It's hard enough to transport the waste over land, with all the security precautions. Crossing country borders is a huge political and diplomatic mess. Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me.
  - ryathal 4y ago
    The US navy has hundreds of reactors doing just that now...
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      And they didn't ask any environmentalists how they feel about it.
      - petre 4y ago
        If we ask the environmentalists every time we'd end up like Germany - hooked on Russian gas, instead of France which doesn't have this problem due to the ~70% electrical energy mix coming from nuclear.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Well, look at what happens in China when industry doesn't need to obey to environmental concerns. France has plenty of problems with its nuclear power. Germany is moving away from Russian gas, and a lot quicker than Russia would like.
        petre 4y ago
        Moving to what, coal? For the volumes needed, a gas terminal is insufficient, so it would ultimately boil down to burning coal again. The problems France has with its nuclear reactors is the need to replace them and build new ones.
      - voldacar 4y ago
        "Environmentalists" have demonstrated for half a century that they are not credible on the topic of nuclear power. The NRC is probably responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths by retarding the construction of new nuclear fission for decades, which is the safest (deaths per watt hour) energy production tech we have
  - varajelle 4y ago
    Probability of the ship sinking: quite low. Damages caused (by the nuclear waste) if the ship sinks: quite low. Multiply the two number, then it's very low. (a ship sinking is usually an environment desaster, but the nuclear waste sinking should be a very small concern because the waste are fixed in glass, and water absorb radiation)
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Handwavy assumptions about potential environmental disasters. Good job. Scaling nuclear power up by factor of 10 to 100 means scaling transport of nuclear waste up by the same factor at least. Including all the risks associated with it. People are not going to take these vague assurances after so much has gone wrong in the past.
  - voldacar 4y ago
    Could you stop commenting on this? It's making me embarrassed to be a Bayesian
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me. Are you aware the several nuclear submarines have sunk? Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants (>80% for nuclear subs, ~20-25% for power plants). Yet no adverse impact is observed. Even in cases like Kursk where some radioactivity release is monitored, it subsides to background levels just a few meters outside the wreck.
    - jhgb 4y ago
      > Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants Which is surely one of the reasons why they generate less waste -- less non-fissile fuel to be irradiated, smaller reactor vessels to be activated, etc. Plus the average power generated is way lower for a nuclear submarine. A single commercial ~1 GW nuclear reactor quite likely produces as much power as the whole US submarine fleet on average, and there's hundreds of such ~1 GW units in the world. And less power means fewer fission events, which means less activation and less waste. So even a sunk sub is nowhere near the levels of a sunk commercial waste fuel shipment when it comes to what either of the two could release into the environment should the bad stuff leak out.
johndevor 4y ago
> Not every country even has candidate sites. Can't they just dig down? Are you saying some countries don't have bedrock?
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  Maybe some of those sites would flood given enough time? (I am not a geologist)
- criddell 4y ago
  Would the waste be useful to those who would like to make a dirty bomb? Maybe some countries can't provide security guarantees?
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    It would be very useful. However, there are processes where waste can be vitrified or otherwise made less useful for terrorists.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Dirty bombs aren’t really a thing one needs to worry about. Getting enough material to make one would require industrial nuclear material handling processes, otherwise you the bomb maker would die. Nuclear material heavy so it’s hard to get it up into the air, you’ll need a large bomb probably truck sized. So at this point you need to drive the thing around. Remember this thing is very radioactive, so you’ll need to shield the driver or they’ll be cooked before getting to their destination. You also need to avoid detection, and you won’t so you’ll need to work fast. Then once you blow up most of the material will fall out of the air really quickly, so you’ll want it somewhere populated like a city. Unfortunately all of the buildings keep the material from hitting many people, and anyone so unfortunate can just shower and take some iodine tablets. The explosion itself will cause most of the damage. Once you’ve done this to little effect, the wrath of the whole world will fall on you for breaking this taboo. So it’s really not worth the trouble.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
concordDance 4y ago
Nuclear waste is really not an issue. You can literally glass it and dump it on the abyssal plain and it'll do much less damage there than the fossil fuels leaked from ships does. (Yes, this is unintuitive. It's also true. The ocean is huge, the abyss not very active and water is great at blocking radiation.)
- chinathrow 4y ago
  Wow really? Why hasn't noone asked you to guide their waste disposal program the way you think it would work? Have you ever seen what oceans do to glass over time?
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    There is a big erosion difference between glass dumped at beach with wave action and 10,000 feet down. Parts of the ocean floor are 200 million years old.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Ah yes, and when scientists from the nuclear power company say "this will never be a problem", the general public is totally on board, right?
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        You post is a non-sequitur. I don't care what your imaginary nuclear scientist says or what the general public thinks.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Because it's a complete nonstarter with the public (thanks to all the fiction like the Simpsons, Godzilla, etc) and the attack ads write themselves. Telling the public that they've been horribly mislead by their entertainment requires burning a LOT of money and political capital and isn't really worth it for any given politician. Step 1 would basically be instilling Joe Q Public with an appreciation for quantification and if you can do THAT you've also solved a huge range of problems unrelated to nuclear power at the same time. This is also an _extremely_ difficult step that I'd expect to cost tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in education and propaganda.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

>And no, it's not possible to ship all the nuclear waste to Finland. Only in the political sense. Waste volumes are small enough that we easily could if they were willing to dig a big enough hole.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
You are neglecting the transport issue. It's hard enough to transport the waste over land, with all the security precautions. Crossing country borders is a huge political and diplomatic mess. Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me.
- ryathal 4y ago
  The US navy has hundreds of reactors doing just that now...
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    And they didn't ask any environmentalists how they feel about it.
    - petre 4y ago
      If we ask the environmentalists every time we'd end up like Germany - hooked on Russian gas, instead of France which doesn't have this problem due to the ~70% electrical energy mix coming from nuclear.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Well, look at what happens in China when industry doesn't need to obey to environmental concerns. France has plenty of problems with its nuclear power. Germany is moving away from Russian gas, and a lot quicker than Russia would like.
        petre 4y ago
        Moving to what, coal? For the volumes needed, a gas terminal is insufficient, so it would ultimately boil down to burning coal again. The problems France has with its nuclear reactors is the need to replace them and build new ones.
    - voldacar 4y ago
      "Environmentalists" have demonstrated for half a century that they are not credible on the topic of nuclear power. The NRC is probably responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths by retarding the construction of new nuclear fission for decades, which is the safest (deaths per watt hour) energy production tech we have
- varajelle 4y ago
  Probability of the ship sinking: quite low. Damages caused (by the nuclear waste) if the ship sinks: quite low. Multiply the two number, then it's very low. (a ship sinking is usually an environment desaster, but the nuclear waste sinking should be a very small concern because the waste are fixed in glass, and water absorb radiation)
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    Handwavy assumptions about potential environmental disasters. Good job. Scaling nuclear power up by factor of 10 to 100 means scaling transport of nuclear waste up by the same factor at least. Including all the risks associated with it. People are not going to take these vague assurances after so much has gone wrong in the past.
- voldacar 4y ago
  Could you stop commenting on this? It's making me embarrassed to be a Bayesian
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me. Are you aware the several nuclear submarines have sunk? Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants (>80% for nuclear subs, ~20-25% for power plants). Yet no adverse impact is observed. Even in cases like Kursk where some radioactivity release is monitored, it subsides to background levels just a few meters outside the wreck.
  - jhgb 4y ago
    > Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants Which is surely one of the reasons why they generate less waste -- less non-fissile fuel to be irradiated, smaller reactor vessels to be activated, etc. Plus the average power generated is way lower for a nuclear submarine. A single commercial ~1 GW nuclear reactor quite likely produces as much power as the whole US submarine fleet on average, and there's hundreds of such ~1 GW units in the world. And less power means fewer fission events, which means less activation and less waste. So even a sunk sub is nowhere near the levels of a sunk commercial waste fuel shipment when it comes to what either of the two could release into the environment should the bad stuff leak out.

johndevor 4y ago

> Not every country even has candidate sites. Can't they just dig down? Are you saying some countries don't have bedrock?

NegativeLatency 4y ago
Maybe some of those sites would flood given enough time? (I am not a geologist)
criddell 4y ago
Would the waste be useful to those who would like to make a dirty bomb? Maybe some countries can't provide security guarantees?
- aerostable_slug 4y ago
  It would be very useful. However, there are processes where waste can be vitrified or otherwise made less useful for terrorists.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Dirty bombs aren’t really a thing one needs to worry about. Getting enough material to make one would require industrial nuclear material handling processes, otherwise you the bomb maker would die. Nuclear material heavy so it’s hard to get it up into the air, you’ll need a large bomb probably truck sized. So at this point you need to drive the thing around. Remember this thing is very radioactive, so you’ll need to shield the driver or they’ll be cooked before getting to their destination. You also need to avoid detection, and you won’t so you’ll need to work fast. Then once you blow up most of the material will fall out of the air really quickly, so you’ll want it somewhere populated like a city. Unfortunately all of the buildings keep the material from hitting many people, and anyone so unfortunate can just shower and take some iodine tablets. The explosion itself will cause most of the damage. Once you’ve done this to little effect, the wrath of the whole world will fall on you for breaking this taboo. So it’s really not worth the trouble.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago

concordDance 4y ago

Nuclear waste is really not an issue. You can literally glass it and dump it on the abyssal plain and it'll do much less damage there than the fossil fuels leaked from ships does. (Yes, this is unintuitive. It's also true. The ocean is huge, the abyss not very active and water is great at blocking radiation.)

chinathrow 4y ago
Wow really? Why hasn't noone asked you to guide their waste disposal program the way you think it would work? Have you ever seen what oceans do to glass over time?
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  There is a big erosion difference between glass dumped at beach with wave action and 10,000 feet down. Parts of the ocean floor are 200 million years old.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    Ah yes, and when scientists from the nuclear power company say "this will never be a problem", the general public is totally on board, right?
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      You post is a non-sequitur. I don't care what your imaginary nuclear scientist says or what the general public thinks.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Because it's a complete nonstarter with the public (thanks to all the fiction like the Simpsons, Godzilla, etc) and the attack ads write themselves. Telling the public that they've been horribly mislead by their entertainment requires burning a LOT of money and political capital and isn't really worth it for any given politician. Step 1 would basically be instilling Joe Q Public with an appreciation for quantification and if you can do THAT you've also solved a huge range of problems unrelated to nuclear power at the same time. This is also an _extremely_ difficult step that I'd expect to cost tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in education and propaganda.