15 ms·
Long-term nuclear waste warning messages
- throw0101b 3y agoAs I understand it (AIUI), the stuff that will still be around in 10,000 won't be that (relatively) dangerous: you would have to either eat the pellets or grind them up and snort them like cocaine for them to have major health effects. It's mostly alpha (α) radiation (helium) that's being thrown off at that point, which can be stopped by even paper; and some beta (β) radiation (electrons/positrons), which can be stopped by thin metal. If things are encased in (e.g.) concrete and rebar there isn't much escaping. It's generally the 'hot' stuff early on (right out of the reactor, and sits in the water tanks for a few decades) throwing off gamma (γ) radiation that will really get you.
- technol0gic 3y agobruce banners throwaway acct be like
- throw_a_grenade 3y agoThat's why they discuss hydrology: if the stuff goes into drinking water, then oops. IIRC Litvinenko was killed with something like 10^-4 g (hundred micrograms) of polonium-210 added to his food. That stuff is quite active (half life of less than half a year), but still.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cj 3y ago> The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited. If we found anything resembling this today (presumably in some language we don't understand or by a culture we assume isn't stating this as a fact of science), the first thing that would happen is someone would dig it up. Maybe the safest solution is no marking.
- le-mark 3y agoConsidering large numbers of Russian troops were sickened after digging trenches and fortification near Chernobyl during the current war Ukraine, I tend think these warnings will go unheeded in the far future.
- elzbardico 3y ago[flagged]
- ashwoods 3y agoI don’t know, there seems to be more evidence in support of this fact than there seems to be of it being propaganda: https://www.twz.com/45098/ukraine-situation-report-evidence-russia-dug-trenches-in-contaminated-chernobyl-forest-emerges# https://www.twz.com/45098/ukraine-situation-report-evidence-...
- themaninthedark 3y agoFrom the article you linked: >Previous reports had also indicated that some number of Russian troops operating in the Red Forest experienced the effects of acute radiation syndrome after preparing this base area, but there remains nothing to substantiate this.
- Faaak 3y agoI'm curious, do you have any source (for or against)?
- lawn 3y agoCareful to not propagate the stupid Russian propaganda that aims to hide all the stupid things the Russians are up to.
- acidburnNSA 3y agoI don't think that any were sickened from radiation. The increases found were quite small, and would not cause any radiation sickness. You need dose rates thousands of times higher than what was reported to get radiation sickness. From https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60528828 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60528828: Prof Claire Corkhill, a nuclear materials expert from Sheffield University, told the BBC the spike was "quite localised" and there had been increases along the main routes in and out of the zone around the reactor. "The increased movement of people and vehicles in and around the Chernobyl zone will have kicked up radioactive dust that's on the ground," Prof Corkhill said. "Provided there's no further movement, it should decrease again over the next couple of days." But any military activity in the zone is concerning.
- cl3misch 3y agoThe section about the "atomic priesthood" is interesting and reads like scifi: > [Thomas Sebeok] proposed the creation of an atomic priesthood, a panel of experts where members would be replaced through nominations by a council. Similar to the Catholic church – which has preserved and authorized its message for almost 2,000 years – the atomic priesthood would have to preserve the knowledge about locations and dangers of radioactive waste by creating rituals and myths.
- time0ut 3y agoThat is an interesting idea. It would need a mechanism for attaching itself to the economic and/or political systems over millennia. Otherwise it would not be self sustaining. A possible alternative is to somehow attach this mission to an institution that has already managed to do this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- snapcaster 3y agoVery cool Dune-esque idea, but I'm skeptical they could do this without finding a way to link it to existing religious beliefs. It's not like the Bene Gesserit created brand new religions, just influenced existing ones and added myths here and there
- postepowanieadm 3y agoIn Poland someone had a similar idea regarding a church bell - it's heart has to be rotated 60 degrees in 2072, so 50 "guards" were chosen. https://dzienniklodzki.pl/serce-lodzi-mali-straznicy-przeprowadzili-inspekcje-dzwonu-zdjecia/ar/8165265 https://dzienniklodzki.pl/serce-lodzi-mali-straznicy-przepro...
- krisoft 3y agoThis is weird. Presumably if the bell stops ringing right they will notice it from the fact that it stops ringing right?
- throw310822 3y agoThese studies and ideas are fascinating, but frankly they sound like someone got a little bit too excited by the task. Dig a hole a few hundred metres deep in an unattractive, geologically stable area without risk of polluting water sources; put the stuff there, cover with concrete, close and forget. Any future civilization advanced enough to actually dig up the hole will also have the tools and knowledge needed to detect the danger.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoIf society is collapsing who will cover up the hole? It does seem like an excessive amount of work to theoretically save a few lives tops in a theoretical future cataclysm.
- throw310822 3y agoThe same ones who should have put up the eerie hostile architecture and system of universal menacing messages. With the help of those who should have dismantled the nuclear plants and disposed of the nuclear weapons. Seriously, filling the hole and covering it should be a one-time operation. Although in a sense you're right, if society collapses suddenly all that stuff stays there. But then we have a lot of other problems.
- throw0101b 3y ago> If society is collapsing who will cover up the hole? You pre-wire the site for demolition and set a countdown timer: if the counter is not resent regularly it goes down to zero and the charges go off sealing things off. Society is needed to prevent closing things off, so if it's gone then it happens without intervention. If they accidentally go off, then things are fail-safed closed, and you have to expend resources to re-open things. If you don't want (or have) the resource to re-open then you don't have to worry about it.
- ben_w 3y agoWhile I agree the danger is overstated, if I'm wrong about that then it is important that humans were doing substantial mining even in antiquity.
- Macuyiko 3y agoThis reminds me of a short story by Ken Liu, The Message, which details a xeno-archaeologist digging into a place full of radiation. The main character doesn't get the warning message until it is too late and almost loses his daughter. Googling it now it seems at one point is was going to get adapted to film [1], but seems like that went nowhere. [1]: https://reactormag.com/ken-lius-the-message-to-get-big-screen-treatment-from-arrival-team/ https://reactormag.com/ken-lius-the-message-to-get-big-scree...
- xeonmc 3y agoRead here: https://archive.org/details/interzone-magazine-242-2012-09-10/page/n15/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/interzone-magazine-242-2012-09-1...
- acadapter 3y agoMake sure to include warnings in dead languages that people from many cultures have taken an interest in, such as Latin and Ancient Greek.
- jcmontx 3y ago> This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. That one's a classic
- rsynnott 3y agoThat one's specifically to keep away Klingons.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoIn the documentary "Into Eternity" about Onkalo - the Finnish deep nuclear waste repository. One of the engineers mentions that when they were digging the first holes, they joked they would find copper canisters full of (now unradioactive) waste - buried by a long lost forgotten civilisation. A large part of the film is all about how to mark the site, deter future civilisations from digging it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBqyb3qfHCE&t=63s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBqyb3qfHCE&t=63s
- zoom6628 3y agoDo we need this for JavaScript ? ;-p
- joshstrange 3y ago> This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. I've used this a comment on more than block of code. I'm not sure what it is about these warnings but I always enjoy reading through them and thinking about how they might be perceived but future generations.
- PaulHoule 3y agoMakes more sense to separate out the U and Pu (almost all of the "spent" fuel) and consume them completely, then the remaining fission products are as radioactive as the original uranium in about 1000 years, well in the range of structures we've built and literature we still read.
- daft_pink 3y agoWe should just recycle it proliferation concerns be damned
- acidburnNSA 3y agoSadly that increases overall fuel cycle costs due to the remote chemistry and management of radioactive liquid wastes. If nuclear power was expanding rapidly and we were challenging our uranium resources, then sure. But right now, nuclear is struggling economically. Adding more costs for recycling would make it worse.
- delichon 3y agoI met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. Build this statue, already in ruins, with a different message on the pedestal with a different warning of our species' dangerous hubris.
- throw0101b 3y ago* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias
- thrdbndndn 3y agoI've heard this topic before, but I never find it a big deal (I'm sure I might be naive). Surely the future human being would have ways to detect nuclear waste before digging around, regardless if there is any sign? And even in worst scenario, they did dig without testing -- they will learn their lesson very quickly. It's not like one accident would be too catastrophic, in the grand scheme of things.
- NeoTar 3y ago> Surely the future human being would have ways to detect nuclear waste before digging around Technology doesn't inevitably progress. Its certainly possible that we lose even relatively simple nuclear detection technology (e.g. a Geiger counter) in the future (or fail to deploy it - I wonder how many construction sites have a radiation check performed?) And I believe, if we had an idea nuclear waste store, we'd not be able to detect it - i.e. the excess radiation outside of the store would be comparable to natural variation between locations on the earth.
- fortran77 3y agoIt would also be useful to take the longest living languages so far (Hebrew, Greek, COBOL, JavaScript) and label it in those, on the chance that these two cultures may figure out how to be around in 10,000 more years.
- roenxi 3y ago> within or above the order of magnitude of 10,000 years This whole idea is almost aggressively stupid. We're talking about a bigger gap than all of recorded history. The civilisation we're trying to communicate with either doesn't see this waste heap as even a minor threat, or the situation is so dire that radiation poisoning doesn't matter. This is even more futile than the vikings trying to send us a message that we need to keep an eye out for depleting our lumber stocks.
- acidburnNSA 3y agoWhat I want to know is why we don't put messages like this on underground repositories for hazardous material that doesn't become benign over time, like mercury.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoOr enough arsenic to kill every living thing on earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Mine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Mine
- XorNot 3y agoYep: I've long said now that heavy metal contamination is worse then radiation, because you can detect radiation with cheap, non-consumable equipment. Try analysing lead in water or mercury in soil as easily.
- themaninthedark 3y agoThe reason why is because the entire situation is a concern troll but those who dislike nuclear power. But what are you going to do with the waste that is highly radioactive for thousands of years, what if everyone forgets how to read! Think of the hypothetical children!
- Tabular-Iceberg 3y agoNot to mention that most of those hypothetical children won’t make it to adulthood to go dig for nuclear waste due to disease and starvation. A society that has fallen that far will have far greater problems to deal with than accidentally digging up radioactive waste.
- pythonguython 3y agoThis problem is cute and all, but completely overblown. Just put it in a deep hole. Meanwhile we have waste storage issue right now. In Japan for example, there are many tons of waste sitting in random poorly secured warehouses right now.
- m101 3y agoIf we're looking out for civilisations descended from ours then there's likely no need for this because they will likely be able to deal with it, or might even find it a valuable resource of elements. Someone else knows better here, but I think a lot of the waste exists because we don't burn it all in nuclear reactors - in which case why not make reactors that can burn it rather than leave it as waste.
- acidburnNSA 3y agoThe reason most nuclear operating countries don't run partition and transmute their waste into faster-decaying, less radiotoxic material is that it is a very expensive remote chemical process that has been historically met with deafening activist/public opposition. Much easier and cheaper to just mine barely radioactive uranium, enrich it, fabricate it, and do once through. If/when uranium prices reach roughly $360/kg, then the overall economics of recycling and breeding may start to make more sense.
- bckr 3y agoSomething I just realized I don’t know—are there no radioactive waste materials from using recycled materials? It makes sense to a degree that if the usage is circular, problem solved. But am I wrong? Is it theoretically or actually possible to achieve 100% “reclamation”?
- acidburnNSA 3y agoThere are lots of radioactive waste materials when using nuclear recycling. Basically, all recycling allows you to do is to split ~90% of the uranium atoms into fission products rather than the more typical 5% that we do in our current fleet. The leftover fission products are still radioactive, but they decay a bit faster than the material in non-recycled spent fuel (actinides like Np, Pu, Am, Cm). While there may be less total solid waste per kWh when you recycle, you do add the complexity of having lots of more diluted liquified radioactive waste streams from the processing. Liquified waste management has proved challenging from our weapons programs, e.g. at Hanford, though it could certainly be handled better than that. I wrote up a small primer on nuclear recycling with more details here: https://whatisnuclear.com/recycling.html https://whatisnuclear.com/recycling.html
- acidburnNSA 3y agoIf only we were half this creative with communicating to our current civilization about the serious environmental and health problems caused by the world's current energy mix (air pollution causing ~8 million deaths/yr and greenhouse gasses causing climate change). Then perhaps it'd be more clear that implementing a few small geologic repositories are a fine price to pay to solve our problems.
- willcipriano 3y agoNuclear having to demonstrate safety in a theoretical future where human beings are no longer human I think is a great demonstration of the sort of nonsense road blocks environmentalists have thrown in front of it. Imagine you go to put solar on your house and some people show up screaming "What if Dr. Zaius cuts himself on one of those panels a million years into the future?". That's what they did every step of the way with nuclear.
- schnitzelstoat 3y agoWaste reprocessing and sub-seabed disposal would be much better. But at the moment most waste is held on-site and not reprocessed as sub-seabed disposal, waste reprocessing and even constructing a land-based waste depository have all been prohibited. So it's actually ended up more dangerous than it needs to be.
- Daub 3y agoI present the long-term safety of radioactive hazards as an design task to my students. Effectively, a limit-case test of their design know-how. These are my notes on the subject: https://rmit.instructure.com/courses/87565/modules/1193362 https://rmit.instructure.com/courses/87565/modules/1193362 Nothing other that speculative solutions have so far been proposed. In the same module, I also address the problem of communicating with alien intelligence using the Voyager 'Golden Record' as an exemplar.
- Tabular-Iceberg 3y agoIt sounds like the most important lesson to give the students is not wasting time looking for solutions to problems that do not exist and likely never will in the future, nuclear semiotics and golden records both being prime examples of that.
- Daub 2y ago> It sounds like the most important lesson to give the students is not wasting time looking for solutions to problems that do not exist and likely never will in the future, The value of giving students such impossible speculative tasks is that it tests the limits of the students' thinking. Also, they really enjoy these kind of things :)
- high_5 3y agoThe pharaoh's tombs had a lot of warnings and curses against opening them up. Didn't help much not long after and even millennia after that.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thmsths 3y agoI have always seen this as the ultimate exercise in bike shedding. We can't make any progress on how to properly store nuclear waste because nothing short of perfection seems to satisfy the critics, the goalpost is constantly moving and somehow we are now in the "can you guarantee it will never harm anyone in the next five millennia?" phase. This "crisis" is then used as a justification for why we certainly can't build more reactors.
- frob 3y agoOne challenge here is that pictographs assume an order of viewing. The same set of pictographs that show someone decaying away and dieing by staying in the exclusion zone depicts a magical fountain of healing and youth when viewed backwards.
- CWuestefeld 3y agoThis reminds me of my time at IBM a million years ago. Attempting to boot your PC with a non-system floppy that was formatted by OS/2 would yield an error message like (I forget the actual numbers) SYS!00026 SYS!00153 It was pointed out that absolutely zero people would ever understand this. The response was, "well, we can't write it in English because that would unfairly privilege one language, and we need something very small to fit in the boot sector of the floppy". Somebody responded to that with an ASCII art floppy, something like +--+-+--\ | +-+ | | O | | | +-------+ That seemed a really good compromise to me, but those responsible shrugged and stuck with the inscrutable error codes.
- Tabular-Iceberg 3y agoWhy does the waste need to be hidden away under ground in the first place? To me it seems to just create more problems than it solves. What’s actually wrong with above-ground dry cask storage? The best long term warning system is to keep the actual waste on display and on people’s minds.