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Interesting fact: Belgium's neighbor Germany has commenced a search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste indefinitely in the 1970s. Given that such a pla

by kleiba2 6mo ago

Interesting fact: Belgium's neighbor Germany has commenced a search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste indefinitely in the 1970s. Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one. All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites. The search is not expected to conclude before 2040 at the very earliest.

cbg0 6mo ago
This sounds like a "perfect is the enemy of good" situation. There are certain types of reactors that can reuse uranium to further reduce its half life to around 6000 years so the one million years legal requirement is an unreasonable target.
- bell-cot 6mo ago
  IIR, those "certain types of reactors" and their supporting infrastructure are (1) very handy for producing weapons-grade nuclear material, and (2) extremely difficult to operate (historically) without sundry environmental disasters. Which problems make them considerably hotter - politically - than no-reuse type reactors.
  - peterfirefly 6mo ago
    That's an argument in favour of using such reactors in the EU, isn't it? We need EU-level nuclear missiles and we need them fast. We also need EU-level nuclear-powered submarines and maybe carrier groups.
- nikanj 6mo ago
  Any material that is still radioactive after a hundred years wasn’t that deadly to begin with. There is a strong link between ”hotness” and short half-lifes, fast-decaying extra spicy isotopes are..fast-decaying
  - jonkoops 6mo ago
    Actually, those materials can be MUCH more radioactive in the beginning compared to 'conventional' nuclear waste, the half-life is just so short that you can let them sit for a couple of decades and then deal with it.
dbvn 6mo ago
The most bureaucratic thing ever done... search for a place to store something for 56 years. still not done
jlnthws 6mo ago
I wonder where they store coal waste.
- kleiba2 6mo ago
  In their lungs.
- selfmodruntime 6mo ago
  On ash and slag heaps that are incredibly toxic to their surroundings. Current research suggests that living in the vicinity of such a heap has an immense effect on cancer rates.
toasty228 6mo ago
This is such a non problem, here is the waste from the entire french nuclear production ever (the red cube): https://www.discoverthegreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/image-9.png https://www.discoverthegreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023... Meanwhile I've been filtering the german coal byproducts with my lungs, and paying my electricity 2-3x more per kwh than the french
- croes 6mo ago
  How much of that waste is needed for a dirty bomb? Do hear the fears that russia could hit a Ukrainian wind turbine with a rocket? Me neither. BTW did you also hear that the French government hat to rise the nuclear subsidies because the nuclear energy is so expensive? The prices for consumers were still raised
  - toasty228 6mo ago
    > Do hear the fears that russia could hit a Ukrainian wind turbine with a rocket? That's a very dumb point actually, without nuclear Ukraine would be in a much tougher situation energy wise. They're getting their shit fucked regardless, and they seemingly have 15 active reactors producing energy right now, if russians wanted to blow them up they would be long gone. > BTW did you also hear that the French government hat to rise the nuclear subsidies because the nuclear energy is so expensive? So what? Energy is a national security matter, electricity is a service, subsidies are fine. Btw these prices are inflated because of European wide electricity schemes (or scams, depending on how you want to see it) Even if germany got free, unlimited and non polluting electricity right now they'd need 50+ years to make up for how much pollution they released compared to france since ww2
  - mpweiher 6mo ago
    "Fears" is the correct word. See also: Radiophobia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia Reality, on the other hand, is that nuclear power is what keeps the lights on in Ukraine in this war, and Ukraine is looking to expand. The ARENH program is not a subsidy, it is, in fact, a reverse subsidy. It requires EDF to sell electricity cheaply to its competitors.
throwaway_20357 6mo ago
Why would it need to be safe for "hundreds of thousands of years" in the first place? Do we not think we would find some other use of nuclear waste within the next decades/centuries, and if not, just send it to space?
- croes 6mo ago
  Terrorists already have a use case
- crote 6mo ago
  > if not, just send it to space So what do you think is going to happen when (not "if") one of those rockets has a malfunction and blows up?
1718627440 6mo ago
> they have not yet found one. Meaning no region can be selected by a politician with out committing political suicide.
- polski-g 6mo ago
  Yes, putting it in a swing state is a non-starter. But putting the waste in a solid red or blue state? Makes perfect sense.
  - 1718627440 6mo ago
    I was referring to Germany and I am not aware, that a concept such as "swing states" exists there. Is declaring a suitable place for nuclear waste an issue in the USA as well?
- mpweiher 6mo ago
  I think it's the other way around: Rejecting nuclear waste site is an easy and almost cost-free way of garnering browny points with the part of your electorate that has been indoctrinated into massive radiophobia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia It is almost cost-free because in reality, nuclear waste is so low in quantity and so easy/unproblematic to store "temporarily" that it just isn't a real problem. Politicians know this. So they can play this game. And once pressure builds enough you dig a hole in the ground like you always could have and like the Fins just did and start storing.
EdiX 6mo ago
Yes, nuclear power regulations are unreasonably strict because that was the method we used to soft-ban it.
mpweiher 6mo ago
Interesting fact: Finland just built one, for €1 billion. How can that be, if it's so incredibly difficult that Germany has not managed to do this? The simple fact is that it has virtually nothing to do with any "difficulty" of finding a repository site, the problems are purely political, same as the US: "The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.[6]" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r... Some German state governments even made this explicit, stating that they would not allow a repository to be designated until the German nuclear exit was finalized in their official coalition agreements. Another nice little trick was changing the language to require the "best possible" site, rather than a suitable one. Sounds innocuous, but anyone with a bit of experience in algorithms know that in theory, this actually makes the task impossible, because how can you definitively prove that there isn't an even better site that you haven't looked at yet? In practice it has made the process of finding a site incredibly lengthy, difficult and expensive. It doesn't help that the BASE, the Germany federal agency for nuclear waste has been completely taken over by the Green Party, so there is no interest in actually finding a site, and they spend almost their entire budget every year on spreading anti-nuclear propaganda.
- toasty228 6mo ago
  > if it's so incredibly difficult that Germany has not managed to do this? The german government and institutions were (are?) full of pro gas (pro russian/russian tied) people who spend decades in the government before bouncing of to russia to work for petro companies. It's hard enough when you try, so imagine how hard it is if you don't even try > Gerhard Schröder, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005, has worked extensively for Russian state-owned energy companies since leaving office.
  - declan_roberts 6mo ago
    Isn't it rumored that many of the activists who lobbied (successfully) for Germany to shut down all of their nuclear power plants were being unwittingly funded by Russian interests?
- 6mo ago
martinald 6mo ago
Most of the "danger" from nuclear waste passes in a few years as the most radioactive isotopes decay quickly (which is obvious when you think about it). Interestingly the US/UK/USSR dumped loads of nuclear waste in the ocean in the 1950s-70s and I recently read that there was basically no trace detectable of any of it.
- lucb1e 6mo ago
  If you have more info on that, I'd be interested. They're currently trying to keep it geologically stable and far away from any water that might disperse it, but then dispersion by just putting tiny tiny quantities per m³ of sea water sounds... almost too easy to be true tbh. Would be interesting to read about. (Surely they've looked into this and found that stable geology was the better solution, rather than that it's just more palatable to the public!) And do you know, even if there's no trace today (sufficient dilution), if it also didn't have an impact on the ecosystem in the area at the time?
aeyes 6mo ago
> All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites. Some was stored underground in the past with bad results because the former mines were unstable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morsleben_radioactive_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morsleben_radioactive_waste_re...
0x000xca0xfe 6mo ago
Dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years is pure fearmongering. There are loads of chemicals, metals and other nasty stuff that are dangerous forever and also need to be stored somewhere safely, indefinitely. I personally live close to a commercial Asbestos dump (an old mine) and absolutely nobody cares about it. It's so unimportant it doesn't even have a Wikipedia article. Yet the second radioactive waste is concerned (even if it's just old rubble) everybody seems to lose their minds and refuses to even think rational.
Moldoteck 6mo ago
they havent found one bc they dont want to. Otherwise they would approve storing in say, herfa neurode
selfmodruntime 6mo ago
> Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one. Pah! We have a lot of those places but excessive federalism has every German state blocking any concrete plan.
TheAlchemist 6mo ago
Naive question - why couldn't we just launch this nuclear waste into ... space ?
joegibbs 6mo ago
What if they dump it in a trench in the ocean, what will actually happen? The ocean is very large...

by kleiba2 6mo ago

cbg0 6mo ago

This sounds like a "perfect is the enemy of good" situation. There are certain types of reactors that can reuse uranium to further reduce its half life to around 6000 years so the one million years legal requirement is an unreasonable target.

bell-cot 6mo ago
IIR, those "certain types of reactors" and their supporting infrastructure are (1) very handy for producing weapons-grade nuclear material, and (2) extremely difficult to operate (historically) without sundry environmental disasters. Which problems make them considerably hotter - politically - than no-reuse type reactors.
- peterfirefly 6mo ago
  That's an argument in favour of using such reactors in the EU, isn't it? We need EU-level nuclear missiles and we need them fast. We also need EU-level nuclear-powered submarines and maybe carrier groups.
nikanj 6mo ago
Any material that is still radioactive after a hundred years wasn’t that deadly to begin with. There is a strong link between ”hotness” and short half-lifes, fast-decaying extra spicy isotopes are..fast-decaying
- jonkoops 6mo ago
  Actually, those materials can be MUCH more radioactive in the beginning compared to 'conventional' nuclear waste, the half-life is just so short that you can let them sit for a couple of decades and then deal with it.

dbvn 6mo ago

The most bureaucratic thing ever done... search for a place to store something for 56 years. still not done

jlnthws 6mo ago

I wonder where they store coal waste.

kleiba2 6mo ago
In their lungs.
selfmodruntime 6mo ago
On ash and slag heaps that are incredibly toxic to their surroundings. Current research suggests that living in the vicinity of such a heap has an immense effect on cancer rates.

toasty228 6mo ago

This is such a non problem, here is the waste from the entire french nuclear production ever (the red cube): https://www.discoverthegreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/image-9.png https://www.discoverthegreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023... Meanwhile I've been filtering the german coal byproducts with my lungs, and paying my electricity 2-3x more per kwh than the french

croes 6mo ago
How much of that waste is needed for a dirty bomb? Do hear the fears that russia could hit a Ukrainian wind turbine with a rocket? Me neither. BTW did you also hear that the French government hat to rise the nuclear subsidies because the nuclear energy is so expensive? The prices for consumers were still raised
- toasty228 6mo ago
  > Do hear the fears that russia could hit a Ukrainian wind turbine with a rocket? That's a very dumb point actually, without nuclear Ukraine would be in a much tougher situation energy wise. They're getting their shit fucked regardless, and they seemingly have 15 active reactors producing energy right now, if russians wanted to blow them up they would be long gone. > BTW did you also hear that the French government hat to rise the nuclear subsidies because the nuclear energy is so expensive? So what? Energy is a national security matter, electricity is a service, subsidies are fine. Btw these prices are inflated because of European wide electricity schemes (or scams, depending on how you want to see it) Even if germany got free, unlimited and non polluting electricity right now they'd need 50+ years to make up for how much pollution they released compared to france since ww2
- mpweiher 6mo ago
  "Fears" is the correct word. See also: Radiophobia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia Reality, on the other hand, is that nuclear power is what keeps the lights on in Ukraine in this war, and Ukraine is looking to expand. The ARENH program is not a subsidy, it is, in fact, a reverse subsidy. It requires EDF to sell electricity cheaply to its competitors.

throwaway_20357 6mo ago

Why would it need to be safe for "hundreds of thousands of years" in the first place? Do we not think we would find some other use of nuclear waste within the next decades/centuries, and if not, just send it to space?

croes 6mo ago
Terrorists already have a use case
crote 6mo ago
> if not, just send it to space So what do you think is going to happen when (not "if") one of those rockets has a malfunction and blows up?

1718627440 6mo ago

> they have not yet found one. Meaning no region can be selected by a politician with out committing political suicide.

polski-g 6mo ago
Yes, putting it in a swing state is a non-starter. But putting the waste in a solid red or blue state? Makes perfect sense.
- 1718627440 6mo ago
  I was referring to Germany and I am not aware, that a concept such as "swing states" exists there. Is declaring a suitable place for nuclear waste an issue in the USA as well?
mpweiher 6mo ago
I think it's the other way around: Rejecting nuclear waste site is an easy and almost cost-free way of garnering browny points with the part of your electorate that has been indoctrinated into massive radiophobia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia It is almost cost-free because in reality, nuclear waste is so low in quantity and so easy/unproblematic to store "temporarily" that it just isn't a real problem. Politicians know this. So they can play this game. And once pressure builds enough you dig a hole in the ground like you always could have and like the Fins just did and start storing.

EdiX 6mo ago

Yes, nuclear power regulations are unreasonably strict because that was the method we used to soft-ban it.

mpweiher 6mo ago

Interesting fact: Finland just built one, for €1 billion. How can that be, if it's so incredibly difficult that Germany has not managed to do this? The simple fact is that it has virtually nothing to do with any "difficulty" of finding a repository site, the problems are purely political, same as the US: "The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.[6]" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r... Some German state governments even made this explicit, stating that they would not allow a repository to be designated until the German nuclear exit was finalized in their official coalition agreements. Another nice little trick was changing the language to require the "best possible" site, rather than a suitable one. Sounds innocuous, but anyone with a bit of experience in algorithms know that in theory, this actually makes the task impossible, because how can you definitively prove that there isn't an even better site that you haven't looked at yet? In practice it has made the process of finding a site incredibly lengthy, difficult and expensive. It doesn't help that the BASE, the Germany federal agency for nuclear waste has been completely taken over by the Green Party, so there is no interest in actually finding a site, and they spend almost their entire budget every year on spreading anti-nuclear propaganda.

toasty228 6mo ago
> if it's so incredibly difficult that Germany has not managed to do this? The german government and institutions were (are?) full of pro gas (pro russian/russian tied) people who spend decades in the government before bouncing of to russia to work for petro companies. It's hard enough when you try, so imagine how hard it is if you don't even try > Gerhard Schröder, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005, has worked extensively for Russian state-owned energy companies since leaving office.
- declan_roberts 6mo ago
  Isn't it rumored that many of the activists who lobbied (successfully) for Germany to shut down all of their nuclear power plants were being unwittingly funded by Russian interests?
6mo ago

martinald 6mo ago

Most of the "danger" from nuclear waste passes in a few years as the most radioactive isotopes decay quickly (which is obvious when you think about it). Interestingly the US/UK/USSR dumped loads of nuclear waste in the ocean in the 1950s-70s and I recently read that there was basically no trace detectable of any of it.

lucb1e 6mo ago
If you have more info on that, I'd be interested. They're currently trying to keep it geologically stable and far away from any water that might disperse it, but then dispersion by just putting tiny tiny quantities per m³ of sea water sounds... almost too easy to be true tbh. Would be interesting to read about. (Surely they've looked into this and found that stable geology was the better solution, rather than that it's just more palatable to the public!) And do you know, even if there's no trace today (sufficient dilution), if it also didn't have an impact on the ecosystem in the area at the time?

aeyes 6mo ago

> All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites. Some was stored underground in the past with bad results because the former mines were unstable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morsleben_radioactive_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morsleben_radioactive_waste_re...

0x000xca0xfe 6mo ago

Dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years is pure fearmongering. There are loads of chemicals, metals and other nasty stuff that are dangerous forever and also need to be stored somewhere safely, indefinitely. I personally live close to a commercial Asbestos dump (an old mine) and absolutely nobody cares about it. It's so unimportant it doesn't even have a Wikipedia article. Yet the second radioactive waste is concerned (even if it's just old rubble) everybody seems to lose their minds and refuses to even think rational.

Moldoteck 6mo ago

they havent found one bc they dont want to. Otherwise they would approve storing in say, herfa neurode

selfmodruntime 6mo ago

> Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one. Pah! We have a lot of those places but excessive federalism has every German state blocking any concrete plan.

TheAlchemist 6mo ago

Naive question - why couldn't we just launch this nuclear waste into ... space ?

joegibbs 6mo ago

What if they dump it in a trench in the ocean, what will actually happen? The ocean is very large...