20 ms·

In general, currently mostly held in Spent fuel pools and or moved to decommissioned facilities because no one wants it in there back yard. Even after its finis

In general, currently mostly held in Spent fuel pools and or moved to decommissioned facilities because no one wants it in there back yard. Even after its finished the short initial cool-down decay period. Hardly a dirty secret... There is also the 5" thick stainless-steel tanks filled with low-grade UF6 slowly decaying in the hot sun, in one of the many facilities now blurred out on google maps. There is also one of several concrete disposal facilities that leaks into the local river every time it rains. One can still find it with a kayak and a cheap Geiger counter in about 3 hours. The billions for repair mitigation have never seemed to take priority for several decades. How about you find 3 filled disposal facilities that haven't leaked within 20 years. Note, trace exposure to tritiated and heavy water isn't so bad anyway, as far as we currently know. =) "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." ('The Divine Afflatus', The New York Evening Mail, November 16, 1917) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D22pE_9LAxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D22pE_9LAxg

troupo 2y ago
> Until anyone proves 1 facility that doesn't leak radioactive material after 20 years became > How about you find 3 filled disposal facilities After you yourself apparently found one. Curious. Meanwhile "As of April 2024, there are 416 operable power reactors in the world" [1] Something tells me it won't be hard to find one, or three, or ten. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  All areas I alluded to read hot to warm, and are considered well beyond prolonged exposure recommendations for above ground inhalation hazards. Active facilities themselves are kept cleaner than most places, but the disposal sites rapidly fall into neglect. Minimally 3 points show a trend, and should be trivial to find right... the key added detail was "filled" i.e. used for awhile... as an empty facility would also be considered leak free as long as it remained unused. Goat carts for the win... =3
  - troupo 2y ago
    > Goat carts for the win It's not "goat carts for the win", it's "moving goal posts for the win".
    - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
      True, only if you: 1. find 1 example that isn't hiding a well known problem 2. meets the secondary requirement of showing long term use at capacity 3. I cheated more than you know for #2, as I already know modern concrete tends to fail in less than 65 years. And even if you use the premium long-term stuff, it still generally becomes permeable to liquids even surrounded by mostly solid rock 4. a three data-point trend would prove your point better if my knowledge is antiquated, and my opinion is out of date (more data is not changing requirements) 5. Goats can survive radiation levels several times higher than primates, and are still used for transportation in many primitive cultures 6. Radon poisoning is a thing too... Goat carts are likely our future, as they are self-replicating and do not require sophisticated agriculture. =3
nick238 2y ago
> ...held in spent-fuel pools and/or moved to decommissioned facilities... Nuclear fuel is usually stored in dry casks on-site at running or decommissioned power plants. "Decommissioned" doesn't mean abandoned, there is still ferocious security present. No dry casks have ever been found to leak, or have been damaged intentionally or accidentally since they came into use in 1986. [1] > ...tanks filled with UF6... UF6 is a gas that reacts with water to form a corrosive acid. The fact that it's mildly radioactive is gilding the lily, as exposure to it would be pretty similar to any reactive fluorine compound and/or heavy metal (think mine waste). It's a problem, but UF6, a gas, is the polar opposite of dry cask storage, where even if the contents of a cask were sat in the open, they'd just sit there because they're vitrified (mixed into a glass). > ...concrete disposal facilities... Is this something related to nuclear energy? I don't know what this is referring to. > ...3 filled disposal facilities Here are 81: [2] [1]: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dry-cask-storage.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/d... [2]: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2316/ML23165A245.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2316/ML23165A245.pdf
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  Indeed, my point was to encourage folks to reason 30000 years of facility maintenance costs into their Total cost of ownership calculation. No known container is resilient enough to retain 100% structural containment in that time frame. Most thick-walled structures including stainless tanks undergo degradation from decaying materials, and will slowly form leaks over time. Hydrogen embrittlement from water-sources/cleaning-acids/anaerobic-bacteria in particular will slowly tear small fissures in most alloys. Note for dry casks the water presence is necessarily kept under tight control. My point was the existing solutions people were sure would work still leaked in relatively short time frames. Until a real long term solution is found, no one should accept the liability of long term waste stewardship. The best short-term solution, is mandating fuel recovery like Frances program. At least there would be better utility in that decision. I expect people on goat carts will be unconcerned about decaying plastics, concrete degradation, and alloy specific issues. After all, neither were you... Have a great day, =3
  - 2y ago
throw0101c 2y ago
> In general, currently mostly held in Spent fuel pools […] For the first 7-10 years. > and or moved to decommissioned facilities because no one wants it in there back yard. It's generally stored on-site, at least Canada: > Canada’s used nuclear fuel is currently safely managed in facilities licensed for interim storage. These facilities are located at nuclear reactor sites in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's sites in Manitoba and Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario. * https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-used-nuclear-fuel/how-is-it-stored-today https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-used-nuclear-fuel/how-is-it-stor... * https://www.opg.com/power-generation/our-power/nuclear/nuclear-sustainability-services/managing-nuclear-waste-and-materials/ https://www.opg.com/power-generation/our-power/nuclear/nucle...
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  Indeed, one thing that happens after people dig that deep hole in the shield is it will fill with water sooner or later. Ontario already has a natural Radon contamination risk in many places, so maybe no one will notice the increasing lung cancer stats. Best regards, =)
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    > Indeed, one thing that happens after people dig that deep hole in the shield is it will fill with water sooner or later. The hydraulic conductivity of both considered sites (Revell, South Bruce) is quite low: * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports/NWMO-TR-2023-07-Confidence-in-Safety---Revell-Site---2023-Update.ashx https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports... * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports/NWMO-TR-2023-08-Confidence-in-Safety---South-Bruce-Site---2023-Update.ashx https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports... The repository will be >500m deep, and the geology at those depths is such that water penetrates it at a rate of a few centimetres per century. And then it would hit the human constructed structure, and then it'd have to penetrate storage flasks, and then it'd have to get through the metal bundles that hold the pellets. And only then it could it start dissolving/absorbing the nuclear stuff. And then it would have to go through all those layers again to escape the facility. > […] so maybe no one will notice the increasing lung cancer stats. From Geraldine Thomas, co-founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, "Look at the science – smoking and obesity are more harmful than radiation" * https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-smoking-more-dangerous-radiation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas

troupo 2y ago

> Until anyone proves 1 facility that doesn't leak radioactive material after 20 years became > How about you find 3 filled disposal facilities After you yourself apparently found one. Curious. Meanwhile "As of April 2024, there are 416 operable power reactors in the world" [1] Something tells me it won't be hard to find one, or three, or ten. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...

Joel_Mckay 2y ago
All areas I alluded to read hot to warm, and are considered well beyond prolonged exposure recommendations for above ground inhalation hazards. Active facilities themselves are kept cleaner than most places, but the disposal sites rapidly fall into neglect. Minimally 3 points show a trend, and should be trivial to find right... the key added detail was "filled" i.e. used for awhile... as an empty facility would also be considered leak free as long as it remained unused. Goat carts for the win... =3
- troupo 2y ago
  > Goat carts for the win It's not "goat carts for the win", it's "moving goal posts for the win".
  - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
    True, only if you: 1. find 1 example that isn't hiding a well known problem 2. meets the secondary requirement of showing long term use at capacity 3. I cheated more than you know for #2, as I already know modern concrete tends to fail in less than 65 years. And even if you use the premium long-term stuff, it still generally becomes permeable to liquids even surrounded by mostly solid rock 4. a three data-point trend would prove your point better if my knowledge is antiquated, and my opinion is out of date (more data is not changing requirements) 5. Goats can survive radiation levels several times higher than primates, and are still used for transportation in many primitive cultures 6. Radon poisoning is a thing too... Goat carts are likely our future, as they are self-replicating and do not require sophisticated agriculture. =3

nick238 2y ago

> ...held in spent-fuel pools and/or moved to decommissioned facilities... Nuclear fuel is usually stored in dry casks on-site at running or decommissioned power plants. "Decommissioned" doesn't mean abandoned, there is still ferocious security present. No dry casks have ever been found to leak, or have been damaged intentionally or accidentally since they came into use in 1986. [1] > ...tanks filled with UF6... UF6 is a gas that reacts with water to form a corrosive acid. The fact that it's mildly radioactive is gilding the lily, as exposure to it would be pretty similar to any reactive fluorine compound and/or heavy metal (think mine waste). It's a problem, but UF6, a gas, is the polar opposite of dry cask storage, where even if the contents of a cask were sat in the open, they'd just sit there because they're vitrified (mixed into a glass). > ...concrete disposal facilities... Is this something related to nuclear energy? I don't know what this is referring to. > ...3 filled disposal facilities Here are 81: [2] [1]: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dry-cask-storage.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/d... [2]: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2316/ML23165A245.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2316/ML23165A245.pdf

Joel_Mckay 2y ago
Indeed, my point was to encourage folks to reason 30000 years of facility maintenance costs into their Total cost of ownership calculation. No known container is resilient enough to retain 100% structural containment in that time frame. Most thick-walled structures including stainless tanks undergo degradation from decaying materials, and will slowly form leaks over time. Hydrogen embrittlement from water-sources/cleaning-acids/anaerobic-bacteria in particular will slowly tear small fissures in most alloys. Note for dry casks the water presence is necessarily kept under tight control. My point was the existing solutions people were sure would work still leaked in relatively short time frames. Until a real long term solution is found, no one should accept the liability of long term waste stewardship. The best short-term solution, is mandating fuel recovery like Frances program. At least there would be better utility in that decision. I expect people on goat carts will be unconcerned about decaying plastics, concrete degradation, and alloy specific issues. After all, neither were you... Have a great day, =3
- 2y ago

throw0101c 2y ago

> In general, currently mostly held in Spent fuel pools […] For the first 7-10 years. > and or moved to decommissioned facilities because no one wants it in there back yard. It's generally stored on-site, at least Canada: > Canada’s used nuclear fuel is currently safely managed in facilities licensed for interim storage. These facilities are located at nuclear reactor sites in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's sites in Manitoba and Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario. * https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-used-nuclear-fuel/how-is-it-stored-today https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-used-nuclear-fuel/how-is-it-stor... * https://www.opg.com/power-generation/our-power/nuclear/nuclear-sustainability-services/managing-nuclear-waste-and-materials/ https://www.opg.com/power-generation/our-power/nuclear/nucle...

Joel_Mckay 2y ago
Indeed, one thing that happens after people dig that deep hole in the shield is it will fill with water sooner or later. Ontario already has a natural Radon contamination risk in many places, so maybe no one will notice the increasing lung cancer stats. Best regards, =)
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Indeed, one thing that happens after people dig that deep hole in the shield is it will fill with water sooner or later. The hydraulic conductivity of both considered sites (Revell, South Bruce) is quite low: * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports/NWMO-TR-2023-07-Confidence-in-Safety---Revell-Site---2023-Update.ashx https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports... * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports/NWMO-TR-2023-08-Confidence-in-Safety---South-Bruce-Site---2023-Update.ashx https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports... The repository will be >500m deep, and the geology at those depths is such that water penetrates it at a rate of a few centimetres per century. And then it would hit the human constructed structure, and then it'd have to penetrate storage flasks, and then it'd have to get through the metal bundles that hold the pellets. And only then it could it start dissolving/absorbing the nuclear stuff. And then it would have to go through all those layers again to escape the facility. > […] so maybe no one will notice the increasing lung cancer stats. From Geraldine Thomas, co-founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, "Look at the science – smoking and obesity are more harmful than radiation" * https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-smoking-more-dangerous-radiation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas