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> > because of some development in the future will make recycling of spend fuel rods feasible. > Context: They are responding to a complaint that isn't explici

> > because of some development in the future will make recycling of spend fuel rods feasible. > Context: They are responding to a complaint that isn't explicit here. That complaint usually comes in the form of: "we have nowhere to put the waste" or "Yucca Mountain was canceled and we'll never have such a facility because of NIMBY." So the response is more "We can store on site and don't need deep geological depositories, here's others who have done it. But if you really want a geological depository, here's Onkalo." We can already do on sight, and this is already being done, so it makes sense to argue about this. If we want to do some smaller scale DGDs then we can do things substantially smaller than Yucca Mountain and have decades to build it. So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste? And just dismissing the reasons as NIMBY is grossly over simplifying things, there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc.. > I think without this context, it comes off as extremely hand-wavy. I'll admit that there is some hand-wavyness, but without something in place all you can argue is "this problem isn't as hard as people think. We can do it, here's real world examples elsewhere." I'm not sure what other argument they are supposed to make. Where are the real world examples? The only place that has now opened a long term storage facility is Finland who just opened it (and that supposedly was largely due to political pressure because the project had run so much over time and budget), we actually don't know if they can run it let alone for 1000s of years. The low energy storage facility in Germany is a mess already after a few 10s of years (in Asse 2 they stored the low intensity waste in meta drums inside a former salt mine. Water got in, not really a good combination).

godelski 4y ago
I do not feel like you are giving me a good faith response, but I am responding in the hope that you are. > So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste? No, that is not the argument. 1) Those lifetime numbers aren't made up. I'm not sure why you would claim so. You can easily check these numbers. (This is why I'm concerned about good faith. You are just saying that the article is flat out lying, not hand waving) 2) We don't need repositories. There are other sources, including our own acidburnNSA[0]. Storing things on sight is perfectly fine and we can do so for hundreds of years safely. I think many miss a lot of the purposes of deep geological repositories and the strange constraints they have on them. One such constraint (driven by cold war fear) is that these sites can't accidentally be dug up by future archeologists or aliens thousands of years after we are gone and who may not understand our language. It is a weird constraint because it's assuming we have a nuclear war, wipe everyone out, and forget everything about radiation. This is really unlikely. > there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc.. Would you care to explain? We've advanced storage techniques in the last 70 years we've been using nuclear. What is the concern with transportation? We've had them fall out of planes (during a period where engines would also fall off planes, but this doesn't happen anymore) and hit by trains all without any problem. It sounds like we have room for mistakes/error. Those examples are success of real world testing. > Where are the real world examples? > now opened a long term storage facility is Finland It feels like you answered your own question. But here's France's storage[1] and Russia's[2]. You should also read [0] because it discusses easier methods. [0] https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html [1] https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s
- cycomanic 4y ago
  > I do not feel like you are giving me a good faith response, but I am responding in the hope that you are. I am trying to give a good faith response, but I feel that the original article is not arguing in good faith and I don't understand your justification. > > So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste? > No, that is not the argument. > 1) Those lifetime numbers aren't made up. I'm not sure why you would claim so. You can easily check these numbers. (This is why I'm concerned about good faith. You are just saying that the article is flat out lying, not hand waving) The lifetime numbers are not made up and I never said the original author was lying. However, saying that solar cells have an issue because they at this moment can not commercially recycled 100% (which is incorrect but besides the point), but at the same time arguing that nuclear waste is not a problem because we can ignore everything with a lifetime >300 years because it is potential fuel and could be somehow recycled in the future is dishonest. You can't in the same argument criticise one technology based on the current state of the art and at the same time use some hypothetical future development to say the other technology does not have an issue. This is what I criticised, many discussions boil down to exactly this. Renewables are criticised based on some current state, while nuclear is good because all issues will somehow be solved through future developments. You argued that it was OK to be handwavy because of NIMBY preventing a repository. I disagree that ignoring long lifetime components because they somehow could be recycled in the future is handwavy, that is wishing the issue away. > 2) We don't need repositories. There are other sources, including our own acidburnNSA[0]. What do you mean acidburnNSA? I could not find anything on the link you provided. > Storing things on sight is perfectly fine and we can do so for hundreds of years safely. While I agree that storing things on site is currently the best solution. It is completely unproven that we can do this for 100s of years. Neither is it clear that the containers will last that long, nor the social/political structures. >I think many miss a lot of the purposes of deep geological repositories and the strange constraints they have on them. One such constraint (driven by cold war fear) is that these sites can't accidentally be dug up by future archeologists or aliens thousands of years after we are gone and who may not understand our language. It is a weird constraint because it's assuming we have a nuclear war, wipe everyone out, and forget everything about radiation. This is really unlikely. What do you mean? Understanding languages that are several hundreds to thousands of years old is not straight forward. We don't need to think of aliens either. We don't even have established information storage mechanisms that lasts that long. > > there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc.. > Would you care to explain? We've advanced storage techniques in the last 70 years we've been using nuclear. What is the concern with transportation? We've had them fall out of planes (during a period where engines would also fall off planes, but this doesn't happen anymore) and hit by trains all without any problem. It sounds like we have room for mistakes/error. Those examples are success of real world testing. I'm talking about that they are obvious targets for terrorist attacks, protests etc.. All of these increase the costs of transports. Also I recall some experiments or expert assessments for at least the french/German castor containers which showed possible (impropabale but not unrealistic) scenarios that they would not withstand. > > Where are the real world examples? > > now opened a long term storage facility is Finland > It feels like you answered your own question. But here's France's storage[1] and Russia's[2]. You should also read [0] because it discusses easier methods. You are moving the goalposts, first Onkalo is even by the nuclear industry acknowledged to be the first long term repository, and it can't have been proven to work having just opened. The French facility (and I assume Russian one, I don't speak Russian) is much more like a temporary storage, also not proven yet that it will work. I covered recycling already, it is highly uneconomical produces a lot of low rate waste and is only done for political/military reasons in France. > [0] https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html > [1] https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 > [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s

godelski 4y ago

I do not feel like you are giving me a good faith response, but I am responding in the hope that you are. > So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste? No, that is not the argument. 1) Those lifetime numbers aren't made up. I'm not sure why you would claim so. You can easily check these numbers. (This is why I'm concerned about good faith. You are just saying that the article is flat out lying, not hand waving) 2) We don't need repositories. There are other sources, including our own acidburnNSA[0]. Storing things on sight is perfectly fine and we can do so for hundreds of years safely. I think many miss a lot of the purposes of deep geological repositories and the strange constraints they have on them. One such constraint (driven by cold war fear) is that these sites can't accidentally be dug up by future archeologists or aliens thousands of years after we are gone and who may not understand our language. It is a weird constraint because it's assuming we have a nuclear war, wipe everyone out, and forget everything about radiation. This is really unlikely. > there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc.. Would you care to explain? We've advanced storage techniques in the last 70 years we've been using nuclear. What is the concern with transportation? We've had them fall out of planes (during a period where engines would also fall off planes, but this doesn't happen anymore) and hit by trains all without any problem. It sounds like we have room for mistakes/error. Those examples are success of real world testing. > Where are the real world examples? > now opened a long term storage facility is Finland It feels like you answered your own question. But here's France's storage[1] and Russia's[2]. You should also read [0] because it discusses easier methods. [0] https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html [1] https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s

cycomanic 4y ago
> I do not feel like you are giving me a good faith response, but I am responding in the hope that you are. I am trying to give a good faith response, but I feel that the original article is not arguing in good faith and I don't understand your justification. > > So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste? > No, that is not the argument. > 1) Those lifetime numbers aren't made up. I'm not sure why you would claim so. You can easily check these numbers. (This is why I'm concerned about good faith. You are just saying that the article is flat out lying, not hand waving) The lifetime numbers are not made up and I never said the original author was lying. However, saying that solar cells have an issue because they at this moment can not commercially recycled 100% (which is incorrect but besides the point), but at the same time arguing that nuclear waste is not a problem because we can ignore everything with a lifetime >300 years because it is potential fuel and could be somehow recycled in the future is dishonest. You can't in the same argument criticise one technology based on the current state of the art and at the same time use some hypothetical future development to say the other technology does not have an issue. This is what I criticised, many discussions boil down to exactly this. Renewables are criticised based on some current state, while nuclear is good because all issues will somehow be solved through future developments. You argued that it was OK to be handwavy because of NIMBY preventing a repository. I disagree that ignoring long lifetime components because they somehow could be recycled in the future is handwavy, that is wishing the issue away. > 2) We don't need repositories. There are other sources, including our own acidburnNSA[0]. What do you mean acidburnNSA? I could not find anything on the link you provided. > Storing things on sight is perfectly fine and we can do so for hundreds of years safely. While I agree that storing things on site is currently the best solution. It is completely unproven that we can do this for 100s of years. Neither is it clear that the containers will last that long, nor the social/political structures. >I think many miss a lot of the purposes of deep geological repositories and the strange constraints they have on them. One such constraint (driven by cold war fear) is that these sites can't accidentally be dug up by future archeologists or aliens thousands of years after we are gone and who may not understand our language. It is a weird constraint because it's assuming we have a nuclear war, wipe everyone out, and forget everything about radiation. This is really unlikely. What do you mean? Understanding languages that are several hundreds to thousands of years old is not straight forward. We don't need to think of aliens either. We don't even have established information storage mechanisms that lasts that long. > > there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc.. > Would you care to explain? We've advanced storage techniques in the last 70 years we've been using nuclear. What is the concern with transportation? We've had them fall out of planes (during a period where engines would also fall off planes, but this doesn't happen anymore) and hit by trains all without any problem. It sounds like we have room for mistakes/error. Those examples are success of real world testing. I'm talking about that they are obvious targets for terrorist attacks, protests etc.. All of these increase the costs of transports. Also I recall some experiments or expert assessments for at least the french/German castor containers which showed possible (impropabale but not unrealistic) scenarios that they would not withstand. > > Where are the real world examples? > > now opened a long term storage facility is Finland > It feels like you answered your own question. But here's France's storage[1] and Russia's[2]. You should also read [0] because it discusses easier methods. You are moving the goalposts, first Onkalo is even by the nuclear industry acknowledged to be the first long term repository, and it can't have been proven to work having just opened. The French facility (and I assume Russian one, I don't speak Russian) is much more like a temporary storage, also not proven yet that it will work. I covered recycling already, it is highly uneconomical produces a lot of low rate waste and is only done for political/military reasons in France. > [0] https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html > [1] https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968 > [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s