6 ms·

What, really, is the impact of a compromised nuclear casket in a remote, unpopulated area above ground? What is the impact buried just 100 feet deep in an unpop

What, really, is the impact of a compromised nuclear casket in a remote, unpopulated area above ground? What is the impact buried just 100 feet deep in an unpopulated area? Someone would have to excavate the uranium and either spend loads of time around it or move it to a populated area. Water contamination from naturally occurring uranium is a bigger risk than nuclear waste (uranium, like lead, can cause heavy metal poisoning independent of radioactivity). Chemical waste from non-nuclear industries are far more hazardous than nuclear waste, yet the latter is for some reason an enormously larger concern. If you're worried about generational risk, there are plenty of things an order of magnitude more concerning than nuclear waste.

w-ll 3y ago
Yea, isn't coal ash way worst regardless of how "green" they capture the emissions. They always seem to leek into other water sources and do way more. How did we get this way?
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  It's so tiresome that nuclear proponents pretend the only alternative to nuclear is coal.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    His point is that other technologies are not held to the same standard. And that is still true. Even above ground nuclear storage is far better waste management then virtually anything else, including wind and solar. The likely hood of people dying from old wind and solar projects is quite a bit higher then people dying from nuclear waste.
    - cinntaile 3y ago
      The difference between the two scenario's is quite obvious. In coal ash it's highly diluted, in nuclear waste it's highly concentrated.
      - panick21_ 3y ago
        Being highly concentrated is exactly what makes it easy store and protect people from any impacts. Every input into the nuclear reactor is just coming out the other side in a very controlled way. There is no dispersal of anything into the environment (except potentially heat). The lifecycle of materials is handled way better then any other form of energy.
culopatin 3y ago
Thing is that maybe in 300 years someone wants to develop that land and the documents that say to not do that there are in an old version of .docx in an obsolete storage form buried under layers of bureaucracy. That’s how someone ends up living on the casket growing a massive thyroid. Same reason that makes us not write code that only the author can understand (when working in a team), we need to plan ahead in the same way. We can’t rely on the future solving our current problems or even understanding them fully.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Or somebody spends 100$ on a Geiger counter ... Nuclear waste will not simply be lost. The only way it gets lost if society literally collapses. And if that happens the small amount of nuclear waste is the least important problem anybody will have.
  - tstrimple 3y ago
    Nuclear waste has been lost multiple times throughout history and has killed people. Kind of amazing someone could think it cannot happen. https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/overview-of-the-cns-global-incidents-and-trafficking-database/#report https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/overview-of-the-cns-gl...
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      We are talking about spent nuclear fuel casks from civilian nuclear. Not medical isotopes that fell of a truck. We are mostly talking about many meters long fuel casks. They might get rerouted on a train once but they are rarely lost and even if they are, even during transport they are packaged to be save for a considerable amount of time. And I couldn't find a clear indication of how many people died from civilian nuclear waste. The article you linked does not really give much information and I'm not gone read the whole report. Every study shows that that nuclear energy has the lowest death per person. People are more likely to die during construction then anything else.
    - throwuwu 3y ago
throwbadubadu 3y ago
> a remote, unpopulated area above ground? European countries and other denser ones may want to know where it finds those.. and as if we are not in a big change that will start a lot of instability, conflicts and migration.

w-ll 3y ago

Yea, isn't coal ash way worst regardless of how "green" they capture the emissions. They always seem to leek into other water sources and do way more. How did we get this way?

KennyBlanken 3y ago
It's so tiresome that nuclear proponents pretend the only alternative to nuclear is coal.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  His point is that other technologies are not held to the same standard. And that is still true. Even above ground nuclear storage is far better waste management then virtually anything else, including wind and solar. The likely hood of people dying from old wind and solar projects is quite a bit higher then people dying from nuclear waste.
  - cinntaile 3y ago
    The difference between the two scenario's is quite obvious. In coal ash it's highly diluted, in nuclear waste it's highly concentrated.
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      Being highly concentrated is exactly what makes it easy store and protect people from any impacts. Every input into the nuclear reactor is just coming out the other side in a very controlled way. There is no dispersal of anything into the environment (except potentially heat). The lifecycle of materials is handled way better then any other form of energy.

culopatin 3y ago

Thing is that maybe in 300 years someone wants to develop that land and the documents that say to not do that there are in an old version of .docx in an obsolete storage form buried under layers of bureaucracy. That’s how someone ends up living on the casket growing a massive thyroid. Same reason that makes us not write code that only the author can understand (when working in a team), we need to plan ahead in the same way. We can’t rely on the future solving our current problems or even understanding them fully.

panick21_ 3y ago
Or somebody spends 100$ on a Geiger counter ... Nuclear waste will not simply be lost. The only way it gets lost if society literally collapses. And if that happens the small amount of nuclear waste is the least important problem anybody will have.
- tstrimple 3y ago
  Nuclear waste has been lost multiple times throughout history and has killed people. Kind of amazing someone could think it cannot happen. https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/overview-of-the-cns-global-incidents-and-trafficking-database/#report https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/overview-of-the-cns-gl...
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    We are talking about spent nuclear fuel casks from civilian nuclear. Not medical isotopes that fell of a truck. We are mostly talking about many meters long fuel casks. They might get rerouted on a train once but they are rarely lost and even if they are, even during transport they are packaged to be save for a considerable amount of time. And I couldn't find a clear indication of how many people died from civilian nuclear waste. The article you linked does not really give much information and I'm not gone read the whole report. Every study shows that that nuclear energy has the lowest death per person. People are more likely to die during construction then anything else.
  - throwuwu 3y ago

throwbadubadu 3y ago

> a remote, unpopulated area above ground? European countries and other denser ones may want to know where it finds those.. and as if we are not in a big change that will start a lot of instability, conflicts and migration.