4 ms·

Sorry, but you're wrong. I took some radiation safety classes, and the main point I got from that is that "it depends". For example, alpha- and beta-radiation a

Sorry, but you're wrong. I took some radiation safety classes, and the main point I got from that is that "it depends". For example, alpha- and beta-radiation are often more dangerous than gamma, because gamma is easier to detect and measure. People often focus on "radiation" part forgetting the "contamination" part. You can literally walk into the Chernobyl reactor active zone today for up to 2 minutes. But you cannot produce any food in soils around it for thousand years. And there's dozens of dangerous isotopes, each one accumulating and affecting human tissues differently. Public generally only knows about Geiger counter. Yes, it will scream if everything is FUBAR, but it's useless for estimating safety of a food product.

throw0101d 1y ago
So nuclear waste is stored in casks: * 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_flask https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_flask Are you telling me it's unsafe? Someone better tell Madison Hill: * https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-prove-point-about-radiation-idaho-1809500 https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-... * https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856 https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856 * https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 Or Paris Ortiz-Wines: * https://twitter.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/1195184970613936129 https://twitter.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/11951849706139361... (The context here is not walking down some road and getting bombarded with particles: but about the storage of industrial material and the risks it involves. Yes, stuff gets shot out at >300 years: but it's not just lying around randomly.)
- blibble 1y ago
  it's fine as long as it doesn't get out of its flask which it will do eventually, if it's left out in the open it needs to be buried reducing the volume via reprocessing helps assuming you can do something with the 97% of "useful" stuff extracted (which the UK has mostly failed at, and now stores it in a warehouse)
  - 74B5 1y ago
    And then eventually, water seeps in. Like in the german Asse II mine, that is planned to be evacuated, which will be a major challenge. https://www.bge.de/en/asse/short-information/history-of-the-asse-ii-mine/ https://www.bge.de/en/asse/short-information/history-of-the-... It might be true that nuclear power produces less waste but we have to consider the scales of global energy demand, multiply it by the time scales of nuclear waste to reach what threshold exactly? When and how would nuclear waste become a problem. Would it take ~200 years like the industrial revolution with CO2? Would it be okay if it where 300 years? or 500? What do we do, when background radiation is rising from ground water and soil? Switch back to natural instead of green energy, hoping the next millenias will be fine? I dont think nuclear power is a solution. It can be step in an energy transition strategy, but no solution.
    - somanyphotons 1y ago
      Ok lets send it on a rocket to a graveyard orbit
      - greenavocado 1y ago
        What happens when the rocket explodes on the launchpad or at several thousand feet ASL?
    - throw0101a 1y ago
      > And then eventually, water seeps in. Not if it's below non-porous rock… * https://www.nwmo.ca/who-we-are/how-were-governed/peer-review/geoscientific-review-group https://www.nwmo.ca/who-we-are/how-were-governed/peer-review... * https://www.nwmo.ca/Site-selection/Steps-in-the-site-selection-process/Step-3-Preliminary-assessments-of-suitability/Step-3-Phase-2-Field-studies-and-engagement/2-D-seismic-surveys-in-sedimentary-rocks https://www.nwmo.ca/Site-selection/Steps-in-the-site-selecti... …below the water table… * https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-plan/canadas-deep-geological-repository https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-plan/canadas-deep-geological-rep... …packed in non-porous soil/clay: * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports/NWMO-TR-2014-10-Characterization-of-Natural-Organic-Matter-in-Bentonite-Clays-2014-05.ashx https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports... * https://www.nwmo.ca/Canadas-plan/Multiple-barrier-system https://www.nwmo.ca/Canadas-plan/Multiple-barrier-system > When and how would nuclear waste become a problem. Never. If there is ever "too much" of it we reprocess it as per OP article to remove the "non-usable" stuff and burn up the rest. It seems that there's an order of magnitude reduce by recycling (96% is usable fuel, so 4% is left over): * https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radioactive-waste-in-france https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radio...
- deepsun 1y ago
  Why, if it's in sealed casks underground, than yes, gamma is the only thing to worry about. My whole comment was about nuclear waste danger and its associated costs, not about danger of an non-compromised waste storage facility. Sorry, I don't have a Twitter account to read the posts, but they look like my point exactly.
  - throw0101a 1y ago
    > Sorry, I don't have a Twitter account to read the posts, but they look like my point exactly. Neither to I: * https://status.d420.de https://status.d420.de
roenxi 1y ago
> But you cannot produce any food in soils around it for thousand years. Is that actually based on some sort of science though, or is it the same woolly thinking as the linear-no-threshold modelling that was popular around the time of Chernobyl? What are the actual risks here and how does it compare to low exercise or the typical amount of air pollution in a large city?
- tehjoker 1y ago
  afaik LNT is correct last time i looked into it. LNT had to be proven as powerful agencies much preferred the hormesis hypothesis because it let them off the hook.
  - gregbot 1y ago
    LNT has never been established and probably never will be. It is still used in some contexts for conservative safety analysis. Places with multiple times typical background activity do not have measurably higher cancer rates.
    - tehjoker 1y ago
      BEIR VII still supports LNT. There's some criticisms, but it seems like a pretty safe guess that just because the uncertainty climbs at low doses it's not just a straight line projection from the closest easier to ascertain value. Maybe some people are better at DNA repair, but some people have DNA repair defects too. The number of ion tracks is going to correlate with number of DNA breaks, and DNA breaks correlate with increased cancer. https://www.epa.gov/radiation/blue-book-epa-radiogenic-cancer-risk-models-and-projections-us-population#getacopy https://www.epa.gov/radiation/blue-book-epa-radiogenic-cance...
throw0101a 1y ago
> You can literally walk into the Chernobyl reactor active zone today for up to 2 minutes. But you cannot produce any food in soils around it for thousand years. And there's dozens of dangerous isotopes, each one accumulating and affecting human tissues differently. Geraldine Thomas, the co-founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, says there are more worrisome things 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
- deepsun 1y ago
  Yup. And managing nuclear waste is not really a big problem that needs immediate solution, if ever. Shoving it deep underground seems to be the optimal way for the next thousand years. So there's no need in recycling really.

throw0101d 1y ago

So nuclear waste is stored in casks: * 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_flask https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_flask Are you telling me it's unsafe? Someone better tell Madison Hill: * https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-prove-point-about-radiation-idaho-1809500 https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-... * https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856 https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856 * https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 Or Paris Ortiz-Wines: * https://twitter.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/1195184970613936129 https://twitter.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/11951849706139361... (The context here is not walking down some road and getting bombarded with particles: but about the storage of industrial material and the risks it involves. Yes, stuff gets shot out at >300 years: but it's not just lying around randomly.)

blibble 1y ago
it's fine as long as it doesn't get out of its flask which it will do eventually, if it's left out in the open it needs to be buried reducing the volume via reprocessing helps assuming you can do something with the 97% of "useful" stuff extracted (which the UK has mostly failed at, and now stores it in a warehouse)
- 74B5 1y ago
  And then eventually, water seeps in. Like in the german Asse II mine, that is planned to be evacuated, which will be a major challenge. https://www.bge.de/en/asse/short-information/history-of-the-asse-ii-mine/ https://www.bge.de/en/asse/short-information/history-of-the-... It might be true that nuclear power produces less waste but we have to consider the scales of global energy demand, multiply it by the time scales of nuclear waste to reach what threshold exactly? When and how would nuclear waste become a problem. Would it take ~200 years like the industrial revolution with CO2? Would it be okay if it where 300 years? or 500? What do we do, when background radiation is rising from ground water and soil? Switch back to natural instead of green energy, hoping the next millenias will be fine? I dont think nuclear power is a solution. It can be step in an energy transition strategy, but no solution.
  - somanyphotons 1y ago
    Ok lets send it on a rocket to a graveyard orbit
    - greenavocado 1y ago
      What happens when the rocket explodes on the launchpad or at several thousand feet ASL?
  - throw0101a 1y ago
    > And then eventually, water seeps in. Not if it's below non-porous rock… * https://www.nwmo.ca/who-we-are/how-were-governed/peer-review/geoscientific-review-group https://www.nwmo.ca/who-we-are/how-were-governed/peer-review... * https://www.nwmo.ca/Site-selection/Steps-in-the-site-selection-process/Step-3-Preliminary-assessments-of-suitability/Step-3-Phase-2-Field-studies-and-engagement/2-D-seismic-surveys-in-sedimentary-rocks https://www.nwmo.ca/Site-selection/Steps-in-the-site-selecti... …below the water table… * https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-plan/canadas-deep-geological-repository https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-plan/canadas-deep-geological-rep... …packed in non-porous soil/clay: * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports/NWMO-TR-2014-10-Characterization-of-Natural-Organic-Matter-in-Bentonite-Clays-2014-05.ashx https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-reports... * https://www.nwmo.ca/Canadas-plan/Multiple-barrier-system https://www.nwmo.ca/Canadas-plan/Multiple-barrier-system > When and how would nuclear waste become a problem. Never. If there is ever "too much" of it we reprocess it as per OP article to remove the "non-usable" stuff and burn up the rest. It seems that there's an order of magnitude reduce by recycling (96% is usable fuel, so 4% is left over): * https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radioactive-waste-in-france https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radio...
deepsun 1y ago
Why, if it's in sealed casks underground, than yes, gamma is the only thing to worry about. My whole comment was about nuclear waste danger and its associated costs, not about danger of an non-compromised waste storage facility. Sorry, I don't have a Twitter account to read the posts, but they look like my point exactly.
- throw0101a 1y ago
  > Sorry, I don't have a Twitter account to read the posts, but they look like my point exactly. Neither to I: * https://status.d420.de https://status.d420.de

roenxi 1y ago

> But you cannot produce any food in soils around it for thousand years. Is that actually based on some sort of science though, or is it the same woolly thinking as the linear-no-threshold modelling that was popular around the time of Chernobyl? What are the actual risks here and how does it compare to low exercise or the typical amount of air pollution in a large city?

tehjoker 1y ago
afaik LNT is correct last time i looked into it. LNT had to be proven as powerful agencies much preferred the hormesis hypothesis because it let them off the hook.
- gregbot 1y ago
  LNT has never been established and probably never will be. It is still used in some contexts for conservative safety analysis. Places with multiple times typical background activity do not have measurably higher cancer rates.
  - tehjoker 1y ago
    BEIR VII still supports LNT. There's some criticisms, but it seems like a pretty safe guess that just because the uncertainty climbs at low doses it's not just a straight line projection from the closest easier to ascertain value. Maybe some people are better at DNA repair, but some people have DNA repair defects too. The number of ion tracks is going to correlate with number of DNA breaks, and DNA breaks correlate with increased cancer. https://www.epa.gov/radiation/blue-book-epa-radiogenic-cancer-risk-models-and-projections-us-population#getacopy https://www.epa.gov/radiation/blue-book-epa-radiogenic-cance...

throw0101a 1y ago

> You can literally walk into the Chernobyl reactor active zone today for up to 2 minutes. But you cannot produce any food in soils around it for thousand years. And there's dozens of dangerous isotopes, each one accumulating and affecting human tissues differently. Geraldine Thomas, the co-founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, says there are more worrisome things 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

deepsun 1y ago
Yup. And managing nuclear waste is not really a big problem that needs immediate solution, if ever. Shoving it deep underground seems to be the optimal way for the next thousand years. So there's no need in recycling really.