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> 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 subm
by 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.