4 ms·

The best thing about nuclear, IMHO, is that all of the highly radioactive waste ever produced by nuclear power plants in the US could fit into a single football

The best thing about nuclear, IMHO, is that all of the highly radioactive waste ever produced by nuclear power plants in the US could fit into a single football stadium. Compare that to coal, oil, natural gas, etc. It's not too hard of a problem to solve, it just requires political will to bury it in a dry geologically stable desert somewhere in the US, which we have plenty of.

consumer451 2y ago
> all of the highly radioactive waste ever produced by nuclear power plants in the US could fit into a single football stadium. I have heard this before, but is this just the physical waste's volume? Isn't that a useless metric? What would happen if you included the volume of the containers required to safely house it?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > What would happen if you included the volume of the containers required to safely house it? Immensely more manageable than e.g. toxic, radioactive coal ash [1]. TL; DR Spent fuel isn't a real problem. We dispose of tonnes of similarly-nasty stuff every day without mention. (And unlike with radiation, it's difficult to indpendently check chemical toxicity.) [1] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/coal-ash-cancer-epa-north-carolina-b39ddf6a https://www.wsj.com/us-news/coal-ash-cancer-epa-north-caroli...
  - consumer451 2y ago
    Sure, but I just mean that if you put all the nuclear waste into a pool-sized container, is there not a chance that it would go critical without safe housing and separation? Coal ash doesn't have that feature.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > if you put all the nuclear waste into a pool-sized container, is there not a chance that it would go critical without safe housing and separation? Not really. Even intentionally turning nuclear waste into a critical mass would take some effort, assuming it's been minimally reprocessed.
    - waveBidder 2y ago
      if you could, that's no longer waste, it's unused fuel.
  - ipdashc 2y ago
    > And unlike with radiation, it's difficult to independently check chemical toxicity. This was always kind of interesting to me, and I'm surprised it's not mentioned more. Not for any practical purpose, but just because you'll often hear people talk about how radiation is super scary because it's "invisible". Which is the case, sure, but it seems like it's hardly unique? As you implied, there's countless chemical contaminants that are just as dangerous, and just as undetectable by human senses. At least with radioactive contaminants you can (at least in most situations) use Geiger counters and dosimeters and whatnot - with some of the chemical threats humanity has cooked up, it seems like you need an entire study just to determine if they're present or not.
justatdotin 2y ago
`not too hard a problem` - just hard enough that it hasn't been progressed for decades. but the great thing about next gen reactors is that the waste solution does not need to be addresed; any waste from next gen reactors will simply go wherever the final solution for existing waste engines lands.
- usrnm 2y ago
  > just hard enough that it hasn't been progressed for decades That's the thing, though: it doesn't need to progress, it's essentially solved. At least, for our current usage

consumer451 2y ago

> all of the highly radioactive waste ever produced by nuclear power plants in the US could fit into a single football stadium. I have heard this before, but is this just the physical waste's volume? Isn't that a useless metric? What would happen if you included the volume of the containers required to safely house it?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> What would happen if you included the volume of the containers required to safely house it? Immensely more manageable than e.g. toxic, radioactive coal ash [1]. TL; DR Spent fuel isn't a real problem. We dispose of tonnes of similarly-nasty stuff every day without mention. (And unlike with radiation, it's difficult to indpendently check chemical toxicity.) [1] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/coal-ash-cancer-epa-north-carolina-b39ddf6a https://www.wsj.com/us-news/coal-ash-cancer-epa-north-caroli...
- consumer451 2y ago
  Sure, but I just mean that if you put all the nuclear waste into a pool-sized container, is there not a chance that it would go critical without safe housing and separation? Coal ash doesn't have that feature.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > if you put all the nuclear waste into a pool-sized container, is there not a chance that it would go critical without safe housing and separation? Not really. Even intentionally turning nuclear waste into a critical mass would take some effort, assuming it's been minimally reprocessed.
  - waveBidder 2y ago
    if you could, that's no longer waste, it's unused fuel.
- ipdashc 2y ago
  > And unlike with radiation, it's difficult to independently check chemical toxicity. This was always kind of interesting to me, and I'm surprised it's not mentioned more. Not for any practical purpose, but just because you'll often hear people talk about how radiation is super scary because it's "invisible". Which is the case, sure, but it seems like it's hardly unique? As you implied, there's countless chemical contaminants that are just as dangerous, and just as undetectable by human senses. At least with radioactive contaminants you can (at least in most situations) use Geiger counters and dosimeters and whatnot - with some of the chemical threats humanity has cooked up, it seems like you need an entire study just to determine if they're present or not.

justatdotin 2y ago

`not too hard a problem` - just hard enough that it hasn't been progressed for decades. but the great thing about next gen reactors is that the waste solution does not need to be addresed; any waste from next gen reactors will simply go wherever the final solution for existing waste engines lands.

usrnm 2y ago
> just hard enough that it hasn't been progressed for decades That's the thing, though: it doesn't need to progress, it's essentially solved. At least, for our current usage