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I always thought the biggest reason was that if a rocket carrying nuclear waste exploded in our atmosphere, it would be catastrophic. It's a lot less risky to j
by aqme28 12y ago
I always thought the biggest reason was that if a rocket carrying nuclear waste exploded in our atmosphere, it would be catastrophic. It's a lot less risky to just bury it underground and pray it never leaks.
- cpeterso 12y agoOr bury the nuclear waste in oceanic trenches. It is out of the way and future generations won't stumble upon it when humans forget where they buried all this stuff.
- pavel_lishin 12y agoAnd if they do, they'd likely be able to handle it.
- stonogo 12y agoThis is how you start a war with Atlantis.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sbov 12y agoDo we know enough about our oceans to know that there would be no harm from this?
- mindcruzer 12y agoNo
- bcmit 12y agoReally? Water is just about the best radiation shield in existence. It would only affect the ~10 feet of ocean immediately around it.
- mahranch 12y agoIt's not about the actual radiation, that's easy to deal with. It's about the containers cracking or leaking and having that stuff floating around in the ocean, contaminating our food and the environment. Even the strongest container we can make is still susceptible to the corrosive effects of the ocean. If you're going to bury it in the ocean, your best bet would be to bury it near a subduction zone. But then you have the earth itself possibly being the cause of the container cracks and leaks.
- lmm 12y agoDefine "know". Do we have it carved in tablets of stone from on high? No. Are we reasonably confident? Yes. There are already hotter things in the ocean (e.g. black smokers). What kind of effects are you worried about?
- sbov 12y agoIs it a big deal if they break/leak? Are there any theoretical problems that I, as not-an-oceanic non-nuclear-waste expert, am not aware of? Not just over 5 or 10 years, but over hundreds of years? Are we able to monitor them for these problems? How difficult or expensive is it to fix any problems? I ask because I genuinely don't know. I'd be OK with it if scientific consensus and consultation between the ocean and nuke people said we know enough about them to say there aren't issues. I don't want to just say "lets just dump them in a place I don't personally care about that's really far from me".
- notahacker 12y agoAlso cheaper. The author acknowledges the existence of that argument, but then insists that the "real objection" is difficulties in orbital trajectories. I'll believe that's the real objection if we start considering sending nuclear waste on a comparably simple orbital journey into outer space.