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Just on technical grounds, this is just not a very educational article. Any discussion of waste from the nuclear fission process should begin with an image of

Just on technical grounds, this is just not a very educational article. Any discussion of waste from the nuclear fission process should begin with an image of the periodic table and a chart of the curve of binding energy (whose peak, or trough, sits on Iron, which the most stable nuclei relative to fusion or fission processes). From there we can take a look at thermal fission product yield: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product_yield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product_yield Notably there are two peaks in isotopic distribution, but there are a great many species generated, with varying impact on human health if ingested, depending on whether they mimic species like calcium (in the same column on the periodic table) or are actually used (iodine in the thryoid gland for example). Note also there are some transuranics (plutonium etc.) formed by neutron capture in addition to the fission products. The risk is that these products don't stay sealed in their cooling pond containers (note that 'spent' is hardly the right term, it's really 'too hot to safely remain in the reactor' as they're still generating lots of energy by decay of the unstable isotopes). Eventually they cool off enough to go into dry cask storage (also a long-term risk). Usually in these discussions someone trots out a line like 'airplanes are risky, too, but we don't stop flying just because of the rare plane crash, do we?'. The answer to this is that if every plane crash created a 50-mile diameter exclusion zone that had to be kept off-limits for 50-100 years without extensive decontamination, then we'd think twice about flying (note the nuclear-reactor-powered airplane was on the drawing boards for a while). The end result of this issue is that nuclear reactors have to be heavily over-engineered to take into account so-called 'black swan' events, see Fukushima. This inevitably raises the costs of nuclear power well above those for any other energy source, which is why many people (myself included) think it doesn't have much of a future except in certain niche situations. There are other issues, of course - high demand for cooling water, nuclear weapons material proliferation, uncertainties over high-grade uranium ore supplies (i.e. price fluctuations etc.), and so on, but attempting to claim long-term storage of nuclear waste is not a seriously problematic issue is just blatantly dishonest.

Aloisius 4y ago
> The answer to this is that if every plane crash created a 50-mile diameter exclusion zone that had to be kept off-limits for 50-100 years without extensive decontamination, then we'd think twice about flying I'm not sure we would if planes only crashed once a thirty years. Especially if crashes were limited to experimental or old planes with known design flaws.
Accujack 4y ago
> if every plane crash created a 50-mile diameter exclusion zone that had to be kept off-limits for 50-100 years without extensive decontamination, then we'd think twice If every reactor accident created an exclusion zone like this that had to be kept off limits for that long, we likely wouldn't use reactors at all. Most of the nuclear accidents that have happened don't create problems that big, only Chernobyl and Fukushima. There have been hundreds of other incidents, but almost all of those have no after effects at all. For example, another well known accident was Three Mile Island. There were no detectable health effects from it and the background radiation was increased by 0.5% or so in the immediate area. No exclusion zone required.
- vidarh 4y ago
  The exclusion zone from Chernobyl was, and is, also wildly excessive, because at the time we just didn't know.
concordDance 4y ago
> The answer to this is that if every plane crash created a 50-mile diameter exclusion zone that had to be kept off-limits for 50-100 years without extensive decontamination Thing is, that's genuinely not what's needed. You can live quite happily within a couple of miles of Chernobyl with a life expectancy difference much smaller than going from middle class to working class. Fukushima today is even less dangerous, basically negligible danger unless you're on the plant grounds.

Aloisius 4y ago

> The answer to this is that if every plane crash created a 50-mile diameter exclusion zone that had to be kept off-limits for 50-100 years without extensive decontamination, then we'd think twice about flying I'm not sure we would if planes only crashed once a thirty years. Especially if crashes were limited to experimental or old planes with known design flaws.

Accujack 4y ago

> if every plane crash created a 50-mile diameter exclusion zone that had to be kept off-limits for 50-100 years without extensive decontamination, then we'd think twice If every reactor accident created an exclusion zone like this that had to be kept off limits for that long, we likely wouldn't use reactors at all. Most of the nuclear accidents that have happened don't create problems that big, only Chernobyl and Fukushima. There have been hundreds of other incidents, but almost all of those have no after effects at all. For example, another well known accident was Three Mile Island. There were no detectable health effects from it and the background radiation was increased by 0.5% or so in the immediate area. No exclusion zone required.

vidarh 4y ago
The exclusion zone from Chernobyl was, and is, also wildly excessive, because at the time we just didn't know.

concordDance 4y ago

> The answer to this is that if every plane crash created a 50-mile diameter exclusion zone that had to be kept off-limits for 50-100 years without extensive decontamination Thing is, that's genuinely not what's needed. You can live quite happily within a couple of miles of Chernobyl with a life expectancy difference much smaller than going from middle class to working class. Fukushima today is even less dangerous, basically negligible danger unless you're on the plant grounds.