3 ms·
No amount of hand waving can get past the fact that all forms of nuclear energy in use these days generates long term waste that must be stored for a very long
by worik 3y ago
No amount of hand waving can get past the fact that all forms of nuclear energy in use these days generates long term waste that must be stored for a very long time.
The time-scale is so long that there are no geological formations that last that long
For the entire period the waste must be monitored to ensure that it does not come into contact with humans, whom it will make very sick.
The waste does not look, taste or smell poisonous so some sort of warning sign has to be placed on it.
That sign must be readable over a time scale many times longer than we have had writing.
What selfishness. Making the next thousand generations pay for our current consumption.
The most expensive energy possible to imagine.
But because it is not our generation, but the next thousand generations (plus) that pay the bill....
Golly.
- maxerickson 3y agoWe could hand wave around fuel cycles that would reduce the amount of concentrated, long halflife material. We aren't really on a path to develop the technology, but not having the technology is probably the primary roadblock.
- cossatot 3y agoThe time-scale is so long that there are no geological formations that last that long Geologist here, highly skeptical of this statement. Most of the land area of each continent has had essentially no seismic/tectonic activity for tens to hundreds of millions of years. With sufficient burial depth (which doesn't have to be super deep, less than a kilometer certainly) there is little reason to suspect that in most areas that haven't been disturbed in 200 million years, they will be disturbed in another 200 million years. The surface of the earth has had cycles of erosion and deposition associated with climate variations (i.e. ice ages) but the effects of these aren't always that deep. This isn't to say that the other issues aren't important--communication of dangers to future humans (or other intelligent creatures) that may not share our language, especially. However it's a social/political problem, not a geological one.
- dontreact 3y agoBut the waste is just SO small and just needs to stay inside of concrete to be considered contained. I would rather burden future generations with this rather than continuing to produce CO2 at the scale we are doing now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... It feels more solvable than trying to figure out how to reduce CO2 without nuclear (to me)
- worik 3y ago> I would rather burden future generations with this rather than continuing to produce CO2 at the scale we are doing now. Thank you for making my point We can stop producing co2. There is a price we have to pay But our greed means "I would rather burden future generations"
- dontreact 3y agoOk but I can't change the fact that everyone is greedy. What I can control is whether I support nuclear, which seems like a better tradeoff for the future than not supporting nuclear. We are all human and have flaws and it's best to work around them rather than idealize about a world that doesn't exist.
- defrost 3y agoIndeed. Imagine, the lead in our pipes (for those of us that live in Roman settlements or small American towns) is sooo radioactive Lead-205 has a half-life of around 1.73×10^7 years. That's nearly 20 million years!! Wait, is that a good thing or a bad thing, having a long half life? Is that related to the toxicity of lead, or is that something else? Are the really toxic isotopes long lived or short lived? Still, at least we can all agree that just having a nuclear fission reactor out in the open is absolutely going to poison the planet forever. Maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
- Turing_Machine 3y ago"Long half-life" = "less radioactive". By definition.