6 ms·

Waste problem - drive through the US state of Nevada. There’s nothing for hundreds of miles. You could likely just throw the waste out of an airplane over Nevad

by mwint 4y ago

Waste problem - drive through the US state of Nevada. There’s nothing for hundreds of miles. You could likely just throw the waste out of an airplane over Nevada and be more or less fine. With containment techniques combined with the ridiculous amount of uninhabited desert the US has, this is a non issue.

nine_k 4y ago
France, with much less uninhabited land, and vastly more nuclear power plants, somehow manages to place waste in a way that's acceptable for an EU country, and neighboring countries. (But of course "waste" is not really waste, it's fuel spent for a few per cent; a breeder reactor + reprocessing should burn it again and again and again.)
- cyanydeez 4y ago
  >After decades of cooling, France, like most other nuclear power generating countries, has no long-term solution in place for high and intermediate spent fuel waste disposal. https://www.power-technology.com/analysis/managing-nuclear-waste-france-long-short-game/ https://www.power-technology.com/analysis/managing-nuclear-w... Yes, short term they manage it. When we are discussing the future, our concern is long term.
  - danaris 4y ago
    When we are discussing climate change, our concern is not long term. If we could build the nuclear reactors now, keep the spent fuel (whether or not we're going to reuse it in breeder reactors) as safe as we know how, and solve the long-term problem later, then we'd have a much better chance of there being a later to worry about.
    - cyanydeez 4y ago
      Climate change is both. People proposing nuclear energy as this wonderful overlooked strategy are not consider why it's consistently self limiting. It's not a "solved" problem inthe long term
  - dodobirdlord 4y ago
    The long term plan is to reprocess it, which is why we need to keep it around in the meantime. If we just wanted to get rid of it that would be trivially easy. But we don’t want that because we know in future we’re going to want to get it back from wherever we put it.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      They've given up on fast reactors. Reprocessing with thermal reactors doesn't actually solve the problem, as MOX fuel cannot then be further reprocessed and used in thermal reactors again. You still end up with all the fission products, and now the higher actinides from spent MOX, to deal with. Having said that, dry casks are a perfectly cromulent way to deal with spent fuel.
      - dodobirdlord 4y ago
        The main motivation to not reprocess fuel was nuclear nonproliferation, because it frees up the plutonium for nuclear weapons. But on the off chance that governments ever want to build a giant pile of nuclear weapons it’s sensible to not get rid of the nuclear waste, since if it ever turns out you do want it again it’s very expensive and time consuming to produce. Since you’ve already gone to all of the effort of mining the uranium and producing a bunch of plutonium, best to just keep it around somewhere in case you ever do want it for some reason.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        I'd say the main motivation to not reprocess is that it costs more than not reprocessing. It's a net economic loss.
freetime2 4y ago
They already tried this in Nevada and failed for political reasons [1]. Dumping nuclear waste in the desert may be a non issue to you (and to me as well), but to a lot of people - particularly people who actually live in Nevada - it is a very serious issue. The question of how to dispose of nuclear waste - in a manner that is satisfying to the residents of the state where it is being disposed - remains an unsolved issue in the US. And the current policy is to basically just ignore the waste. It’s being stored for the time being at reactor sites in steel and concrete casks - which I don’t think anyone would argue is a sufficient solution. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste...
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  All you're saying here is, "people object to it." Or is there something more substantive? > in a manner that is satisfying to the residents of the state where it is being disposed No, that is basically NIMBY. Of course some residents won't like nuclear waste buried underground, 100 miles from them in a place they'll never go and where no one lives. I don't know how to not sound callous about that.
  - freetime2 4y ago
    Yes I am basically saying people object to it. And in a democracy that’s a fairly important detail that you can’t just write off as a “non issue”.
    - dodobirdlord 4y ago
      Many people also hate renewable energy for ideological reasons. People can be persuaded, or, in a democracy, simply outvoted by a critical mass of supporters. Nuclear power has been losing the propaganda war for decades in the United States, but that’s not a reason to give up on it forever.
    - light_hue_1 4y ago
      > Yes I am basically saying people object to it. And in a democracy that’s a fairly important detail that you can’t just write off as a “non issue”. We do this all the time. People object to living next to the airport. They object to new roads. They object to schools being built, rail lines, bus stops, even hospitals. Yet, we weigh the pros for society against the cons for specific people. That's why we have a country with any infrastructure. If we simply gave in whenever someone said no, we would all be dead in an empty field.

by mwint 4y ago

nine_k 4y ago

France, with much less uninhabited land, and vastly more nuclear power plants, somehow manages to place waste in a way that's acceptable for an EU country, and neighboring countries. (But of course "waste" is not really waste, it's fuel spent for a few per cent; a breeder reactor + reprocessing should burn it again and again and again.)

cyanydeez 4y ago
>After decades of cooling, France, like most other nuclear power generating countries, has no long-term solution in place for high and intermediate spent fuel waste disposal. https://www.power-technology.com/analysis/managing-nuclear-waste-france-long-short-game/ https://www.power-technology.com/analysis/managing-nuclear-w... Yes, short term they manage it. When we are discussing the future, our concern is long term.
- danaris 4y ago
  When we are discussing climate change, our concern is not long term. If we could build the nuclear reactors now, keep the spent fuel (whether or not we're going to reuse it in breeder reactors) as safe as we know how, and solve the long-term problem later, then we'd have a much better chance of there being a later to worry about.
  - cyanydeez 4y ago
    Climate change is both. People proposing nuclear energy as this wonderful overlooked strategy are not consider why it's consistently self limiting. It's not a "solved" problem inthe long term
- dodobirdlord 4y ago
  The long term plan is to reprocess it, which is why we need to keep it around in the meantime. If we just wanted to get rid of it that would be trivially easy. But we don’t want that because we know in future we’re going to want to get it back from wherever we put it.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    They've given up on fast reactors. Reprocessing with thermal reactors doesn't actually solve the problem, as MOX fuel cannot then be further reprocessed and used in thermal reactors again. You still end up with all the fission products, and now the higher actinides from spent MOX, to deal with. Having said that, dry casks are a perfectly cromulent way to deal with spent fuel.
    - dodobirdlord 4y ago
      The main motivation to not reprocess fuel was nuclear nonproliferation, because it frees up the plutonium for nuclear weapons. But on the off chance that governments ever want to build a giant pile of nuclear weapons it’s sensible to not get rid of the nuclear waste, since if it ever turns out you do want it again it’s very expensive and time consuming to produce. Since you’ve already gone to all of the effort of mining the uranium and producing a bunch of plutonium, best to just keep it around somewhere in case you ever do want it for some reason.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        I'd say the main motivation to not reprocess is that it costs more than not reprocessing. It's a net economic loss.

freetime2 4y ago

They already tried this in Nevada and failed for political reasons [1]. Dumping nuclear waste in the desert may be a non issue to you (and to me as well), but to a lot of people - particularly people who actually live in Nevada - it is a very serious issue. The question of how to dispose of nuclear waste - in a manner that is satisfying to the residents of the state where it is being disposed - remains an unsolved issue in the US. And the current policy is to basically just ignore the waste. It’s being stored for the time being at reactor sites in steel and concrete casks - which I don’t think anyone would argue is a sufficient solution. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste...

Cupertino95014 4y ago
All you're saying here is, "people object to it." Or is there something more substantive? > in a manner that is satisfying to the residents of the state where it is being disposed No, that is basically NIMBY. Of course some residents won't like nuclear waste buried underground, 100 miles from them in a place they'll never go and where no one lives. I don't know how to not sound callous about that.
- freetime2 4y ago
  Yes I am basically saying people object to it. And in a democracy that’s a fairly important detail that you can’t just write off as a “non issue”.
  - dodobirdlord 4y ago
    Many people also hate renewable energy for ideological reasons. People can be persuaded, or, in a democracy, simply outvoted by a critical mass of supporters. Nuclear power has been losing the propaganda war for decades in the United States, but that’s not a reason to give up on it forever.
  - light_hue_1 4y ago
    > Yes I am basically saying people object to it. And in a democracy that’s a fairly important detail that you can’t just write off as a “non issue”. We do this all the time. People object to living next to the airport. They object to new roads. They object to schools being built, rail lines, bus stops, even hospitals. Yet, we weigh the pros for society against the cons for specific people. That's why we have a country with any infrastructure. If we simply gave in whenever someone said no, we would all be dead in an empty field.