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I'm serious when I say we should dump it all into a pit in the middle of Antarctica. Why can't we do this?
by 1970-01-01 4y ago
I'm serious when I say we should dump it all into a pit in the middle of Antarctica. Why can't we do this?
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoYou don't want North Korea to send a boat to Antarctica and grab a bunch of enriched uranium.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoIf NK and other evil civilizations out-live our navies, I say they're welcome to whatever they can haul.
- tsol 4y agoThey don't have to outlive us, they just have to wait until our navy is occupied with a different engagement. Why open the world up to such a risk?
- Turing_Machine 4y agoWaste is pretty much not going to be enriched uranium, by definition. No one would be dumping enriched uranium in the first place... it's expensive, yo. Low-enriched uranium (suitable for burning in standard power reactors) is 3-5% U-235 Highly-enriched uranium (suitable for building bombs) is >= 20% U-235. Spent fuel is typically < 1% U-235.
- throw827474737 4y agobecause this location is so accessible and not already melting fast enough?!
- _ph_ 4y agoWe could... but is it a good idea?
- namlem 4y agoAntarctica is protected by various international treaties. Plus it's not necessary, there are plenty of good places to store nuclear waste. Political opposition is the real problem. Yucca mountain should never have been scrapped.
- rootusrootus 4y agoKinda seems like we should revisit Yucca Mountain, and just raise the financial incentives until the NIMBYs are drowned out.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoEasier to just dump it at the bottom of the ocean. There aren't any significant technical problems to this, just political ones.
- Manuel_D 4y agoThe Brits and Soviets just dumped their waste into the ocean, through part of the 1990s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_...
- ncmncm 4y agoBecause it would cost way, way more than all the practical alternatives. Putting it in a hole, and putting it on the sea floor, are both overwhelmingly cheaper. If you are not thinking about cost, you really cannot be said to be thinking at all.