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This also makes the waste accessible enough that should a future civilisation be advanced enough, they can possibly extract the waste and better process it to e
by beAbU 3y ago
This also makes the waste accessible enough that should a future civilisation be advanced enough, they can possibly extract the waste and better process it to either make it safe or make it usable again.
I expect that historic landfill mining will be a thing in the distant future, where it'll be economically viable to mine old landfills because of the high concentration of valuable plastics and metal resources.
- throwanem 3y agoIt depends a bit on how far out the civilization is, since even what's now high-level waste will decay over time, but there do exist some speculative reactor designs intended to be powered by reprocessed waste - with output in the single-digit megawatt range, granted, but a megawatt just where you want it is nothing to sneer at. The thought does appeal, on the whole: archaeologists and engineers working side by side, the former chronicling the deep and long-dead human past through its garbage, before the latter haul it away to melt down and rebuild into a new human future. There's a story in that, I think.