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>I learned that I had been confusing waste from nuclear energy with waste from nuclear weapons. That is a rhetorical tactic that kind of misses the point - it'

>I learned that I had been confusing waste from nuclear energy with waste from nuclear weapons. That is a rhetorical tactic that kind of misses the point - it's not that weapons reactors produce fundamentally leakier waste than civilian reactors, it's that the military has a long history of not disposing of dangerous chemicals the right way. It happens with non-radioactive toxic waste too and a lot of bases and the areas around them are contaminated. If you want to use this as an argument for the safety of nuclear waste disposal, you would have to explain why the armed force's problems with waste disposal are specific to them and will never spread to regulated private industry. (P.S. the history of that is not great either and you might end up arguing that something which has already happened never will.)

erentz 4y ago
I think this part stems from a common response you see from anti-nuclear folks, who frequently point to the issues at Hanford as a reason to be against civilian nuclear power. She's trying to make clear the difference between civilian nuclear power and waste management and historical waste from military nuclear weapons programs. Remembering also Hanford waste issues date as far back as the Manhattan Project during WW2.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Civilian nuclear waste management has a better track record than military nuclear waste management and civilian chemical waste management. Is that a permanent condition, or a fluke?
  - erentz 4y ago
    We are talking about 32 countries with civilian nuclear power operating for several decades. With oversight by an international body that tracks every bit of nuclear material. Using processes that differ from what was done at Hanford, producing waste different from Hanford. That has been working well, stored well and safely without issue. The military didn't start from that position, it started from "Joe just throw that shit in a pit over there, don't even bother keeping records." Hanford has no resemblance to civilian nuclear power. I think the onus is on those who keep saying it does (despite the evidence to the contrary) to demonstrate it.
    - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      > That has been working well, stored well and safely without issue. Fukushima Daiichi. In case those two words aren't enough to jog your memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe... > "leading to releases of radioactivity and triggering a 30 km (19 mi) evacuation zone surrounding the plant" > "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years." I'm hopeful that when/if fusion reactors become prevalent that we will prioritize burning up the fusion waste radioactives. https://cns.utexas.edu/news/fusion-fission-hybrid https://cns.utexas.edu/news/fusion-fission-hybrid But, of course, that's an if: https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run...
      - LarryMullins 4y ago
        > "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years." A minuscule amount of tritium, dumped into an ocean that has billions of tons of uranium dissolved in it. This Fukushima water issue is a perfect example of people letting emotions overrule rational thought.
        pvaldes 4y ago
        > A minuscule amount of tritium, dumped into an ocean that has billions of tons of uranium (And then marine life enters the room, accumulating this while ignoring that, and all those carefully raised math models, simulations and speeches fall like a house of cards).
        natmaka 4y ago
        The "National Association of Marine Laboratories" publishes a Position Paper titled "Scientific opposition to Japan’s planned release of over 1.3 million tons of radioactively contaminated water from the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster into the Pacific Ocean." https://www.naml.org/policy/documents/2022-12-12%20Position%20Paper,%20Release%20of%20Radioactively%20Contaminated%20Water%20into%20the%20Ocean.pdf https://www.naml.org/policy/documents/2022-12-12%20Position%...
  - troupe 4y ago
    It is probably the result of military being secretive in nature and civilian efforts being more open so there is more oversight and awareness.
LarryMullins 4y ago
> It happens with non-radioactive toxic waste too It tends to be a lot harder to detect too. With radioactive waste, we're fortunate to have very cheap and extremely sensitive instruments that can detect the tiniest leaks. This allows the nuclear industry to be held to a much higher standard than most other industries. This is also the reason we can say with a high degree of confidence that first-world militaries have actually been very good at handling nuclear waste for a while now. The Manhattan Project era and a few years after that were very messy, but they have demonstrably cleaned up their act and figured out how to do things safely. Meanwhile the non-radioactive chemical pollution continues largely unabated. Never live near a military base if you value the well-being of any children you might have.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  >we're fortunate to have very cheap and extremely sensitive instruments that can detect the tiniest leaks. This allows the nuclear industry to be held to a much higher standard than most other industries. The military has no problems detecting the chemicals that get leaked around bases, taking soil samples might be more expensive than walking around with a Geiger counter but it's well within the budgets of even local municipalities. The problem is that they don't really care all that much. Even something as simple as "standing far away from the pit where you're burning plastic," a practice that even law-breaking rural trash burners can manage, was too much for them in Iraq, shows you something about their institutional culture.
  - willnonya 4y ago
    You're confusing ignorance and apathy of individuals with institutional apathy.
    - whatshisface 4y ago
      The soldiers who got sick from the burn pits often knew it was bad for them, but had to follow orders. Personal apathy on the part of people who are giving the orders is institutional apathy.
  - 4y ago
tcmart14 4y ago
Or more importantly, would the same motivators for the military exist for private industries. My example would not be nuclear, but waste in general. I did 5 years in the Navy. Out at sea, by regulations, we have really strict standards of how certain materials get disposed. Clean metal, like aluminum cans from the galley can go overboard, into the ocean, and so can food waste. Plastic can't, batteries cant, etc. Do batteries and cut up fuel hoses find their way into the ocean? Yes. Is it because the Navy said so, no. From what I noticed, its about how easy it is to dispose of properly and you could notice it. When someone who made the process easier to dispose of batteries properly, most to everyone did it properly. When they changed out who was in charge of the trash detail and the new person in charge of the trash detail damn near required a 7 page dissertation and interrogation to allow you to turn in your dead batteries, people threw that shit in the ocean late at night when no one was out and about on the skin of the ship. My point being, usually when waste disposal is an issue in the military, its not necessarily because the military doesnt care. Its because the process to do things properly became to grueling for people to put up with (not right, but it happens). Sometimes that grueling process is from big Navy, sometimes it is because DC1 had a bad day and making your day a pain in the ass somehow makes him feel better.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  So, what you are expressing is one perspective on accidents, and it's true - the one guy who cares about cleaning up a spill is a good guy, the one guy who hoses it into a drain is a bad guy. I would like to offer another one. The water is going to take all of the people who did it right, and all of the people who did it wrong, and average their actions together into a single number, the amount of contamination. On the other side, although an individual person can decide whether they're going to make disposing of those batteries easy or a bureaucratic power trip, when you are at the top and are going to fill 1,000 positions like that, you know in advance that some of them are going to be awful about it. So, from the top like from below, individual personal decisions become fixed quantities. Sending out 1,000 people and allowing 250 of them to make the independent personal decision to do it wrong is really the same thing as doing it wrong yourself, because it's guaranteed to happen. That's essentially the story behind why you should think about accidents as an institutional problem even when they involve bad personal choices on the part of the people who did them. That One Guy is actually hundreds of people and although you can't tell in advance whether one person will do it you know that out of thousands, hundreds will.
Taywee 4y ago
We know this quite well here in Colorado Springs: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/chemical-colorado-springs-military-communities-pfcs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/chemical-col...
ryanjshaw 4y ago
Nuclear reactor fuel is pre-assembled. There are licenses to produce/consume/export/import/store/dispose the fuel assemblies, with the quantities and weights being an exactly known scientific fact. Everything is meticulously recorded and tracked from source to destination, with stringent security measures. Local, international and inter-governmental regulators monitor, inspect and verify; penalties are serious. Why would you compare commercial nuclear energy production to the military scenarios, which have a completely different legal, supervisory, penalty and authority structure?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Accujack 4y ago
  >Why would you compare commercial nuclear energy production to the military scenarios, which have a completely different legal, supervisory, penalty and authority structure? Because the article took away their usual talking points regarding "nuclear waste bad" and "dangerous for 10,000 years!". They're moving the goalposts to "You can't argue that nuclear waste disposal from power plants wouldn't cause a problem because the military doesn't dispose of most things correctly and private companies are probably just as bad or worse than the military, therefore you're wrong." Which doesn't make much sense.
Accujack 4y ago
>That is a rhetorical tactic that kind of misses the point - it's not that weapons reactors produce fundamentally leakier waste than civilian reactors, it's that the military has a long history of not disposing of dangerous chemicals the right way. It happens with non-radioactive toxic waste too and a lot of bases and the areas around them are contaminated. No, it's a plain statement, not a "tactic". Power plant waste is different from weapons waste, and disposing of power plant waste has never been a real problem. She's talking about power plant waste because one major barrier to replacing climate changing coal fired power plants is the usual indoctrination people face regarding nuclear waste, with no distinction drawn between power plants and nuclear weapons waste. Talking about weapons reactors or the military not disposing of chemicals properly is entirely irrelevant to the article and the discussion at hand.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  >Power plant waste is different from weapons waste, and disposing of power plant waste has never been a real problem. If power plant waste was handled as badly as weapons waste was historically, it would be a problem. That's all I am saying, really.
  - Accujack 4y ago
    Yes, but that's irrelevant. If prescription drugs were handled as badly as weapons waste was historically, it would be a problem too. Same for e.g. plastic waste, food waste, or just about anything else. Military developing weapons tends to make a mess, which is why most countries are trying to change that.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Separating plutonium is separating plutonium. It's filthy no matter why you do it, and the past military fuckups are used to cover for the ongoing civilian fuckups. This is conveniently forgotten whenever the subject of breeders is used to deflect from the lack of U235
- dirkt 4y ago
  > disposing of power plant waste has never been a real problem. Germany has been trying to find a location to safely dispose power plant waste for about 40 years or so. All the solutions so far didn't work out [1], they are still searching. If you have a recommendation that actually works, I am sure they'd be happy to hear it... [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Endlagerung_radioaktiver_Abfälle_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Endlage...
ghusto 4y ago
> That is a rhetorical tactic that kind of misses the point As nearly everyone here has pointed out, it not only doesn't miss the point, it _is_ the point, and it's not rhetorical, it's a statement of fact. Weapons waste is completely different to power-plant waste. That's the whole point of that sentence.
trompetenaccoun 4y ago
Well the author by her own disclosure is the founder of a nuclear energy lobby group. Or as she calls it "climate activist group". So yeah, I'm sure she was very confused and in doubt with herself, I'm happy it all turned out fine and she finally discovered that nuclear power is the solution to all our problems.

erentz 4y ago

I think this part stems from a common response you see from anti-nuclear folks, who frequently point to the issues at Hanford as a reason to be against civilian nuclear power. She's trying to make clear the difference between civilian nuclear power and waste management and historical waste from military nuclear weapons programs. Remembering also Hanford waste issues date as far back as the Manhattan Project during WW2.

whatshisface 4y ago
Civilian nuclear waste management has a better track record than military nuclear waste management and civilian chemical waste management. Is that a permanent condition, or a fluke?
- erentz 4y ago
  We are talking about 32 countries with civilian nuclear power operating for several decades. With oversight by an international body that tracks every bit of nuclear material. Using processes that differ from what was done at Hanford, producing waste different from Hanford. That has been working well, stored well and safely without issue. The military didn't start from that position, it started from "Joe just throw that shit in a pit over there, don't even bother keeping records." Hanford has no resemblance to civilian nuclear power. I think the onus is on those who keep saying it does (despite the evidence to the contrary) to demonstrate it.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    > That has been working well, stored well and safely without issue. Fukushima Daiichi. In case those two words aren't enough to jog your memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe... > "leading to releases of radioactivity and triggering a 30 km (19 mi) evacuation zone surrounding the plant" > "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years." I'm hopeful that when/if fusion reactors become prevalent that we will prioritize burning up the fusion waste radioactives. https://cns.utexas.edu/news/fusion-fission-hybrid https://cns.utexas.edu/news/fusion-fission-hybrid But, of course, that's an if: https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run...
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      > "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years." A minuscule amount of tritium, dumped into an ocean that has billions of tons of uranium dissolved in it. This Fukushima water issue is a perfect example of people letting emotions overrule rational thought.
      - pvaldes 4y ago
        > A minuscule amount of tritium, dumped into an ocean that has billions of tons of uranium (And then marine life enters the room, accumulating this while ignoring that, and all those carefully raised math models, simulations and speeches fall like a house of cards).
        natmaka 4y ago
        The "National Association of Marine Laboratories" publishes a Position Paper titled "Scientific opposition to Japan’s planned release of over 1.3 million tons of radioactively contaminated water from the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster into the Pacific Ocean." https://www.naml.org/policy/documents/2022-12-12%20Position%20Paper,%20Release%20of%20Radioactively%20Contaminated%20Water%20into%20the%20Ocean.pdf https://www.naml.org/policy/documents/2022-12-12%20Position%...
- troupe 4y ago
  It is probably the result of military being secretive in nature and civilian efforts being more open so there is more oversight and awareness.

LarryMullins 4y ago

> It happens with non-radioactive toxic waste too It tends to be a lot harder to detect too. With radioactive waste, we're fortunate to have very cheap and extremely sensitive instruments that can detect the tiniest leaks. This allows the nuclear industry to be held to a much higher standard than most other industries. This is also the reason we can say with a high degree of confidence that first-world militaries have actually been very good at handling nuclear waste for a while now. The Manhattan Project era and a few years after that were very messy, but they have demonstrably cleaned up their act and figured out how to do things safely. Meanwhile the non-radioactive chemical pollution continues largely unabated. Never live near a military base if you value the well-being of any children you might have.

whatshisface 4y ago
>we're fortunate to have very cheap and extremely sensitive instruments that can detect the tiniest leaks. This allows the nuclear industry to be held to a much higher standard than most other industries. The military has no problems detecting the chemicals that get leaked around bases, taking soil samples might be more expensive than walking around with a Geiger counter but it's well within the budgets of even local municipalities. The problem is that they don't really care all that much. Even something as simple as "standing far away from the pit where you're burning plastic," a practice that even law-breaking rural trash burners can manage, was too much for them in Iraq, shows you something about their institutional culture.
- willnonya 4y ago
  You're confusing ignorance and apathy of individuals with institutional apathy.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    The soldiers who got sick from the burn pits often knew it was bad for them, but had to follow orders. Personal apathy on the part of people who are giving the orders is institutional apathy.
- 4y ago

tcmart14 4y ago

Or more importantly, would the same motivators for the military exist for private industries. My example would not be nuclear, but waste in general. I did 5 years in the Navy. Out at sea, by regulations, we have really strict standards of how certain materials get disposed. Clean metal, like aluminum cans from the galley can go overboard, into the ocean, and so can food waste. Plastic can't, batteries cant, etc. Do batteries and cut up fuel hoses find their way into the ocean? Yes. Is it because the Navy said so, no. From what I noticed, its about how easy it is to dispose of properly and you could notice it. When someone who made the process easier to dispose of batteries properly, most to everyone did it properly. When they changed out who was in charge of the trash detail and the new person in charge of the trash detail damn near required a 7 page dissertation and interrogation to allow you to turn in your dead batteries, people threw that shit in the ocean late at night when no one was out and about on the skin of the ship. My point being, usually when waste disposal is an issue in the military, its not necessarily because the military doesnt care. Its because the process to do things properly became to grueling for people to put up with (not right, but it happens). Sometimes that grueling process is from big Navy, sometimes it is because DC1 had a bad day and making your day a pain in the ass somehow makes him feel better.

whatshisface 4y ago
So, what you are expressing is one perspective on accidents, and it's true - the one guy who cares about cleaning up a spill is a good guy, the one guy who hoses it into a drain is a bad guy. I would like to offer another one. The water is going to take all of the people who did it right, and all of the people who did it wrong, and average their actions together into a single number, the amount of contamination. On the other side, although an individual person can decide whether they're going to make disposing of those batteries easy or a bureaucratic power trip, when you are at the top and are going to fill 1,000 positions like that, you know in advance that some of them are going to be awful about it. So, from the top like from below, individual personal decisions become fixed quantities. Sending out 1,000 people and allowing 250 of them to make the independent personal decision to do it wrong is really the same thing as doing it wrong yourself, because it's guaranteed to happen. That's essentially the story behind why you should think about accidents as an institutional problem even when they involve bad personal choices on the part of the people who did them. That One Guy is actually hundreds of people and although you can't tell in advance whether one person will do it you know that out of thousands, hundreds will.

Taywee 4y ago

We know this quite well here in Colorado Springs: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/chemical-colorado-springs-military-communities-pfcs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/chemical-col...

ryanjshaw 4y ago

Nuclear reactor fuel is pre-assembled. There are licenses to produce/consume/export/import/store/dispose the fuel assemblies, with the quantities and weights being an exactly known scientific fact. Everything is meticulously recorded and tracked from source to destination, with stringent security measures. Local, international and inter-governmental regulators monitor, inspect and verify; penalties are serious. Why would you compare commercial nuclear energy production to the military scenarios, which have a completely different legal, supervisory, penalty and authority structure?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Accujack 4y ago
>Why would you compare commercial nuclear energy production to the military scenarios, which have a completely different legal, supervisory, penalty and authority structure? Because the article took away their usual talking points regarding "nuclear waste bad" and "dangerous for 10,000 years!". They're moving the goalposts to "You can't argue that nuclear waste disposal from power plants wouldn't cause a problem because the military doesn't dispose of most things correctly and private companies are probably just as bad or worse than the military, therefore you're wrong." Which doesn't make much sense.

Accujack 4y ago

>That is a rhetorical tactic that kind of misses the point - it's not that weapons reactors produce fundamentally leakier waste than civilian reactors, it's that the military has a long history of not disposing of dangerous chemicals the right way. It happens with non-radioactive toxic waste too and a lot of bases and the areas around them are contaminated. No, it's a plain statement, not a "tactic". Power plant waste is different from weapons waste, and disposing of power plant waste has never been a real problem. She's talking about power plant waste because one major barrier to replacing climate changing coal fired power plants is the usual indoctrination people face regarding nuclear waste, with no distinction drawn between power plants and nuclear weapons waste. Talking about weapons reactors or the military not disposing of chemicals properly is entirely irrelevant to the article and the discussion at hand.

whatshisface 4y ago
>Power plant waste is different from weapons waste, and disposing of power plant waste has never been a real problem. If power plant waste was handled as badly as weapons waste was historically, it would be a problem. That's all I am saying, really.
- Accujack 4y ago
  Yes, but that's irrelevant. If prescription drugs were handled as badly as weapons waste was historically, it would be a problem too. Same for e.g. plastic waste, food waste, or just about anything else. Military developing weapons tends to make a mess, which is why most countries are trying to change that.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Separating plutonium is separating plutonium. It's filthy no matter why you do it, and the past military fuckups are used to cover for the ongoing civilian fuckups. This is conveniently forgotten whenever the subject of breeders is used to deflect from the lack of U235
dirkt 4y ago
> disposing of power plant waste has never been a real problem. Germany has been trying to find a location to safely dispose power plant waste for about 40 years or so. All the solutions so far didn't work out [1], they are still searching. If you have a recommendation that actually works, I am sure they'd be happy to hear it... [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Endlagerung_radioaktiver_Abfälle_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Endlage...

ghusto 4y ago

> That is a rhetorical tactic that kind of misses the point As nearly everyone here has pointed out, it not only doesn't miss the point, it _is_ the point, and it's not rhetorical, it's a statement of fact. Weapons waste is completely different to power-plant waste. That's the whole point of that sentence.

trompetenaccoun 4y ago

Well the author by her own disclosure is the founder of a nuclear energy lobby group. Or as she calls it "climate activist group". So yeah, I'm sure she was very confused and in doubt with herself, I'm happy it all turned out fine and she finally discovered that nuclear power is the solution to all our problems.