4 ms·

Also hand waving away the fact that the waste products have to be managed for civilisation-length time scales.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Deep geologic repositories have a scientific consensus as being safe and appropriate solutions to high level nuclear waste. Finland's Onkalo is mostly constructed and finishing up licensing right now. It's a solved problem. https://posiva.fi/en/ https://posiva.fi/en/ Number of deaths from stored commercial nuclear waste worldwide? zero. People always ask: "what about the waste?" Nowadays we answer: "What about it?" Air pollution and climate change are vastly more serious and challenging problems than the storage of high-level nuclear waste. There was just a huge twitter thread related to this with like 33k RTs and over 100k likes: https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856 https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856
DennisP 4y ago
Only if we never use fast reactors, which fission almost all the long-lived stuff. Take what's left, encase it in glass and bury it, and it'll be back to the radioactivity of the original ore in 300 years.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Well, except for the 7 long lived fission products. Those are possibly good targets for space disposal.
  - DennisP 4y ago
    Sure, the overall mix goes back to the radioactivity of the original ore, not a radioactivity of zero.
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    You can separate them out and transmute them in fast reactors as well. https://www.iaea.org/publications/7112/implications-of-partitioning-and-transmutation-in-radioactive-waste-management https://www.iaea.org/publications/7112/implications-of-parti...
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      I suspect space disposal would be much cheaper.
dmitriid 4y ago
The total amount of waste fuel produced by all of humanity since nuclear power became a thing is magnitudes less than the waste produced by solar panels and wind turbines that will need to be decommissioned due to age (some of them already in the near future)

Deep geologic repositories have a scientific consensus as being safe and appropriate solutions to high level nuclear waste. Finland's Onkalo is mostly constructed and finishing up licensing right now. It's a solved problem. https://posiva.fi/en/ https://posiva.fi/en/ Number of deaths from stored commercial nuclear waste worldwide? zero. People always ask: "what about the waste?" Nowadays we answer: "What about it?" Air pollution and climate change are vastly more serious and challenging problems than the storage of high-level nuclear waste. There was just a huge twitter thread related to this with like 33k RTs and over 100k likes: https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856 https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856

DennisP 4y ago

Only if we never use fast reactors, which fission almost all the long-lived stuff. Take what's left, encase it in glass and bury it, and it'll be back to the radioactivity of the original ore in 300 years.

pfdietz 4y ago
Well, except for the 7 long lived fission products. Those are possibly good targets for space disposal.
- DennisP 4y ago
  Sure, the overall mix goes back to the radioactivity of the original ore, not a radioactivity of zero.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  You can separate them out and transmute them in fast reactors as well. https://www.iaea.org/publications/7112/implications-of-partitioning-and-transmutation-in-radioactive-waste-management https://www.iaea.org/publications/7112/implications-of-parti...
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    I suspect space disposal would be much cheaper.

dmitriid 4y ago

The total amount of waste fuel produced by all of humanity since nuclear power became a thing is magnitudes less than the waste produced by solar panels and wind turbines that will need to be decommissioned due to age (some of them already in the near future)