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I would argue that for the purpose of nuclear waste disposal the relation between half life and problem is a bit more complicated than "getting it backwards." T
by yk 14y ago
I would argue that for the purpose of nuclear waste disposal the relation between half life and problem is a bit more complicated than "getting it backwards." The short half life isotopes are easily disposed of, because we know how to build an organizational structure, that oversees the disposal. For example, to securely store nuclear waste with an half life of a decade on can simply coat it in some plastic and put it in a mine with a warning nailed to the entrance. With very large half life times on the other hand there is no big problem to begin with, as you stated.
But the intermediate timescale poses problems, since there the nuclear waste is radioactive enough to be dangerous and we do not have a good idea how a facility looks like, that can survive one hundred thousand years.
- apendleton 14y agoYes, I was mostly just pointing out that the "Ooh! 16 million years! Scary!" attitude is bothersome, but you're right that I'm over-simplifying. My recollection was that the thorium cycle produces a mix of very-short-lived, deadly, gamma-emitting isotopes (U-232, I think? and possibly others) and very-long-lived, low-risk stuff, with less intermediate-half-life transuranic material left over, which made it rather preferable to the uranium fuel cycle as far as waste disposal was concerned, but I may be misremembering. Either way, the Guardian article doesn't deal with the issue in much depth or in a way that makes it sound like they know what they're talking about, so I don't trust their assessment of the relative merits of LFTRs vs. conventional uranium LWRs.