4 ms·

> The brine came from the ocean. Sure, and enriched uranium comes from the ground, but that doesn't mean it's safe to dump it back in after the enrichment proc

> The brine came from the ocean. Sure, and enriched uranium comes from the ground, but that doesn't mean it's safe to dump it back in after the enrichment process! > So just dilute it back to close to ambient salinity using municipal waste water… Wouldn't it generally be easier to process that municipal waste water, as is already fairly common?

SoftTalker 5mo ago
The analogy would be if you "un-enrich" it. Then it's safe. Or at least no worse than when you took it out of the ground.
- ceejayoz 5mo ago
  > The analogy would be if you "un-enrich" it. But you're doing that with the same water you're trying to make in the first place!
  - SoftTalker 5mo ago
    You could just dilute it using fresh seawater, if you used enough and (maybe) spread it over a wider area. The amount of water people need for drinking is a relative drop in the ocean.
    - ceejayoz 5mo ago
      Brine doesn't necessarily behave the way you imagine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool
      - jaggederest 5mo ago
        Blue Planet video of a brinicle, content warning for kind of horrifying death of sea creatures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAupJzH31tc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAupJzH31tc
        ianthehenry 5mo ago
        And a Blue Planet II video of a brine pool, stronger content warning for much more horrifying death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY
      - threwrfaway 5mo ago
        You can dilute the brine in a facility before disposing.
        ceejayoz 5mo ago
        Go on. With what?
        asdff 5mo ago
        Seems like you could just dilute it with seawater at like 100:1 ratio and it would be negligible done offshore. We already dump our shit 5 miles out.
        threwrfaway 5mo ago
        100:1 is overkill and energetically very wasteful. It's a fairly straightforward chemical engineering problem.
        pasquinelli 5mo ago
        gasoline
        threwrfaway 5mo ago
        ...sea water. You take 10 units of sea water for every unit processed and you'll get a slight increase in salinity. A phase diagram tells you exactly how far you need to go. You know this makes more thermodynamic sense than carbon capture, right?
        deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
        wlesieutre 5mo ago
        With fresh water, we’ll get it from desalinization! Hey wait a second…
        threwrfaway 5mo ago
Joker_vD 5mo ago
> Sure, and enriched uranium comes from the ground Uranium can also come from the ocean water (there is, apparently, quite a lot of it in there, relatively speaking). Japan experimented with the technology in the nineties, but it really was much cheaper to just mine it from the ground, so they abandoned it.
- numpad0 5mo ago
  Japan is also barred from doing own enrichment, being a non-nuclear state. Though, there nevertheless is a dormant set of requisite facilities.
  - redsocksfan45 5mo ago
    You're wrong. Japan does do their own enrichment, 150k SWUs at Rokkasho with plans to bring that up to 500k SWUs a year soon. If they chose to make.bombs instead of fuel, they could make dozens a year.
    - numpad0 5mo ago
      That's the dormant plant. Rokkasho-mura plant is officially incomplete for decades, doing tests and upgrades without actual production. If you think otherwise and you're not wrong, and I think you ARE not mistaken since this isn't the first time someone other than myself mentioned it here, that means they're making bombs because we in Japanese public aren't told about it. There has only been just some routine commentaries from local mayors at most.
      - yorwba 5mo ago
        I think you might be confusing the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant (not yet operational, intended for plutonium extraction from spent fuel) and the Rokkasho Uranium Enrichment plant, which has been running at 75 tSWU/year (I think that should be kSWU or tSW) since 2023-08-24 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichment.html?20230828 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichme... 112.5 tSWU/year since 2025-06-26 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichment.html?20250630 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichme... and 150 tSWU/year since 2025-11-20 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichment.html?20251125 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichme... It's a bit weird though that they have a graph of tons of uranium hexafluoride shipped that shows the last shipment in 2018 and nothing since then.
turkeyboi 5mo ago
Enriched uranium is perfectly safe to dump but it would be stupid to do so. Fission products are nasty but uranium itself is not, comparatively.

SoftTalker 5mo ago

The analogy would be if you "un-enrich" it. Then it's safe. Or at least no worse than when you took it out of the ground.

ceejayoz 5mo ago
> The analogy would be if you "un-enrich" it. But you're doing that with the same water you're trying to make in the first place!
- SoftTalker 5mo ago
  You could just dilute it using fresh seawater, if you used enough and (maybe) spread it over a wider area. The amount of water people need for drinking is a relative drop in the ocean.
  - ceejayoz 5mo ago
    Brine doesn't necessarily behave the way you imagine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool
    - jaggederest 5mo ago
      Blue Planet video of a brinicle, content warning for kind of horrifying death of sea creatures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAupJzH31tc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAupJzH31tc
      - ianthehenry 5mo ago
        And a Blue Planet II video of a brine pool, stronger content warning for much more horrifying death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY
    - threwrfaway 5mo ago
      You can dilute the brine in a facility before disposing.
      - ceejayoz 5mo ago
        Go on. With what?
        asdff 5mo ago
        Seems like you could just dilute it with seawater at like 100:1 ratio and it would be negligible done offshore. We already dump our shit 5 miles out.
        threwrfaway 5mo ago
        100:1 is overkill and energetically very wasteful. It's a fairly straightforward chemical engineering problem.
        pasquinelli 5mo ago
        gasoline
        threwrfaway 5mo ago
        ...sea water. You take 10 units of sea water for every unit processed and you'll get a slight increase in salinity. A phase diagram tells you exactly how far you need to go. You know this makes more thermodynamic sense than carbon capture, right?
        deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
      - wlesieutre 5mo ago
        With fresh water, we’ll get it from desalinization! Hey wait a second…
        threwrfaway 5mo ago

Joker_vD 5mo ago

> Sure, and enriched uranium comes from the ground Uranium can also come from the ocean water (there is, apparently, quite a lot of it in there, relatively speaking). Japan experimented with the technology in the nineties, but it really was much cheaper to just mine it from the ground, so they abandoned it.

numpad0 5mo ago
Japan is also barred from doing own enrichment, being a non-nuclear state. Though, there nevertheless is a dormant set of requisite facilities.
- redsocksfan45 5mo ago
  You're wrong. Japan does do their own enrichment, 150k SWUs at Rokkasho with plans to bring that up to 500k SWUs a year soon. If they chose to make.bombs instead of fuel, they could make dozens a year.
  - numpad0 5mo ago
    That's the dormant plant. Rokkasho-mura plant is officially incomplete for decades, doing tests and upgrades without actual production. If you think otherwise and you're not wrong, and I think you ARE not mistaken since this isn't the first time someone other than myself mentioned it here, that means they're making bombs because we in Japanese public aren't told about it. There has only been just some routine commentaries from local mayors at most.
    - yorwba 5mo ago
      I think you might be confusing the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant (not yet operational, intended for plutonium extraction from spent fuel) and the Rokkasho Uranium Enrichment plant, which has been running at 75 tSWU/year (I think that should be kSWU or tSW) since 2023-08-24 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichment.html?20230828 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichme... 112.5 tSWU/year since 2025-06-26 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichment.html?20250630 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichme... and 150 tSWU/year since 2025-11-20 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichment.html?20251125 https://www.jnfl.co.jp/ja/business/about/uran/daily/enrichme... It's a bit weird though that they have a graph of tons of uranium hexafluoride shipped that shows the last shipment in 2018 and nothing since then.

turkeyboi 5mo ago

Enriched uranium is perfectly safe to dump but it would be stupid to do so. Fission products are nasty but uranium itself is not, comparatively.