Nuclear waste disposal -- what do you think about this?

[Tock]

Looks like nuclear power is becoming more attractive, as the price of oil rises. But, it fell into disfavor because nobody could figure out what to do with the waste it generates that remains toxic for 25,000 years.

IMHO, the smart thing to do is to reduce per capita energy usage to what it was back about 100 years ago, and gradually reduce the planet's population to reduce overall demand on the planet's natural resources.
And, until "they" (I dunno who "they" are) figure out how to safely dispose of nuclear waste for 25,000 years, "they" really shouldn't make any more. Certainly, "they" shouldn't plan to make a whole lot more.

But, since this isn't my area of expertise, my opinion is open to modification. Anyone know what's going on with nuclear waste? Is it being disposed of safely and responsibly?

[Logan13]

Looks like nuclear power is becoming more attractive, as the price of oil rises. But, it fell into disfavor because nobody could figure out what to do with the waste it generates that remains toxic for 25,000 years.

IMHO, the smart thing to do is to reduce per capita energy usage to what it was back about 100 years ago, and gradually reduce the planet's population to reduce overall demand on the planet's natural resources.
And, until "they" (I dunno who "they" are) figure out how to safely dispose of nuclear waste for 25,000 years, "they" really shouldn't make any more. Certainly, "they" shouldn't plan to make a whole lot more.

But, since this isn't my area of expertise, my opinion is open to modification. Anyone know what's going on with nuclear waste? Is it being disposed of safely and responsibly?

we did not have microwave ovens, TV's, computers, cars in every garage, etc.. 100 years ago.? That is just not possible.

[Amorphic]

maybe the obesity epidemic will shed off some of the population.

[soulstealer]

maybe the obesity epidemic will shed off some of the population.

Unfortunately not before they reproduce and their fat ****in kids take their place...

[Kärnfysikern]

Looks like nuclear power is becoming more attractive, as the price of oil rises. But, it fell into disfavor because nobody could figure out what to do with the waste it generates that remains toxic for 25,000 years.

IMHO, the smart thing to do is to reduce per capita energy usage to what it was back about 100 years ago, and gradually reduce the planet's population to reduce overall demand on the planet's natural resources.
And, until "they" (I dunno who "they" are) figure out how to safely dispose of nuclear waste for 25,000 years, "they" really shouldn't make any more. Certainly, "they" shouldn't plan to make a whole lot more.

But, since this isn't my area of expertise, my opinion is open to modification. Anyone know what's going on with nuclear waste? Is it being disposed of safely and responsibly?

I guess I am one of "they" and we have acctualy already figured it out!

To be honest the nuclear waste problem is the most overblown problem there is. Storing it is in reality quite easy, especialy considering how small volumes of waste we are talking about. Imo the waste is one of the advantages of nuclear power, a regular coal power plant produced 100 000 to a million times as much waste per unit of energy as a nuclear power plant.

I can outline the swedish nuclear waste storage method just to show how safe it is.

The idea is to put the spent nuclear fuel rods into copper canisters, the canisters are in turn burried in a special clay 500 meters down into solid rock. When everything is in place there are several protective barriers that prevent any spread of the radionuclides.

The first barrier is offcourse the rock itself, the water 500 meters down into the rock moves very slowely, if anything leaks it takes hundrads of years for the water to reach the surface and in that time any contamination has been extremely diluted.

The second barrier is the clay(bentonit clay), it is specificly choosen because it swells when it becomes wet. This will make sure no water will penetrate through the clay and nothing inside the clay will be able to diffuse out of the clay.

The third barrier is the copper cannisters. Copper can handle corrosion very well and such a canister put into water can resist corrosion up to a million years.

The fourth barrier is the cladding of the fuel rods that are specificly designed to be able to withstand corrosion, so even if the copper canister leaks the cladding will be able to withstand the water for a very long time.

Now even if we imagine that all the protective barriers break and water gets into the fuel itself it wont be a disaster. The long lived part of the waste are the actinides heavier than uranium(plutonium, neptunium, americium, curium ect), they are all in oxide form in the spent fuel. What is great about actinide oxides is that they are almost insoluble in water, we are talking micrograms per liter of water at most. So even if every protective barrier breaks the transport of the actinides from the canisters will take a very very long time.

There is yet another property of the actinide oxides that make the situation even better, they have a tendency to get stuck to any surface they touch. So most of the actinides transported out of the canisters will get stuck on the rock walls itself never reaching the surface.

All those barriers in combination with the natural properties of the actinides guarantee that people living close to the storage site will never be exposed to any significant dosage of radiation.

This has all been demonstrated by nature aswell, a couple of hundrad million years ago there was a natural reactor running(google for the oklo reactor in africa) for a couple of million years. Alot of actinides where produced and in the hundred million years since the reactor shut down they have only moved a couple of meters through the rock. Add the cannisters and clay and the waste storage is 100% fool proof. Its physically impossible for such a large ammount of waste to escape the storage so that it would present a danger to anyone.

I have never looked into Yucca mountain so I dont know the principles behind that storage. But you americans already have one waste storage site running, the WIPP(waste isolation pilot plant), it stores actinide waste from the nuclear weapons program and there is no reason it couldnt store civilian waste aswell. I dont even know why you bother with Yucca mountain when WIPP is safer, easier and already operational. The main problem with the waste is political, only Finland is right now building a civilian waste storage(based on the swedish method I outlined). In sweden as in america the situation is locked because of political opposition.

One other thing about the actinides, they can all be burned in special types of reactors. Right now those reactors are only operating as experimental reactors and are not economic just yet. But within 20-30 years reactors like that will be built large scale and then we will be able to eliminate all the long lived components of the waste. We still need a waste storage for the fission products, but they only require storage for a few hundrad years and that is technicaly trivial to ensure, the ammount of waste will further be reduced by a factor of 50-100 with those reactors since they utilize 100% of the energy in uranium instead of the 1-2% utilized in todays reactors. This is what France is aiming for.

Todays waste is realy tomorrows energy source.

[J-Dogg]

Karn summed it up well. From what I understand a nuclear power plant has not been built since the 70's and they have been reduced.

People are scared of them, but they are the most economic and eviormentally friendly method of creating power. The general public hears "nuclear" and assumes the worse.

The vast amount of power is generated by burning fossile fuels still, even with filters those stacks are putting huge amounts of Co2 into the atmosphere.

The power generated by the rods in nuclear plants....are just amazing. The only thing coming out of the stacks is steam. Nuclear energy is the most powerful energy we can create and I for one would love to see more of them. I would like to see cars ran on electricity and the majority of that power generated by nuclear plants. The byproduct (the spent rods) are going to have less of an effect on our enviorment than the oil spills and Co2 we dump into the air. The price of electricity would be down, people would heat homes with electric instead of natural gas or propane. You would plug in your car.

It should have been done in the 80's if you ask me and the goverment should fund programs for this instead of fighting for oil in Iraq.

[ebjack]

The new pebble bed technology sounds promising.

http://www.eskom.co.za/nuclear_energ...ebble_bed.html



Waste

The design of the of PBMR fuel makes it easy to store the spent fuel, because the silicon carbide coating on the fuel spheres will keep the radioactive decay particles isolated for approximately a million years, which is longer that the activity even of plutonium.

Because the PBMR fuel can be stored on site for at least 80 years, special casks for transporting the spent fuel and storing it at a remote location such as the nuclear waste disposal site at Vaalputs, 100km South-East of Springbok in the Northern Cape, will not have to be bought from overseas or manufactured locally. There is no intention to reprocess the spent fuel as this is more difficult than with Koeberg-type fuel. The PBMR fuel also has a greater "burn-up" than Koeberg-type fuel, which makes it less valuable to recycle. More of the useful uranium present in the fuel is used while in the reactor

The spent coated particle fuel can be disposed of in a deep under-ground repository. (Coated particle fuel will maintain its integrity for up to ~ 1 million years in a repository, ensuring that spent fuel radionuclides are contained for extremely long periods of time. The plutonium will have decayed away completely in 250 000 years)

[dupa95]

Piss on the tree huggers. I ain't guna be here NUKES it is

[Kärnfysikern]

The new pebble bed technology sounds promising.

http://www.eskom.co.za/nuclear_energ...ebble_bed.html



Waste

The design of the of PBMR fuel makes it easy to store the spent fuel, because the silicon carbide coating on the fuel spheres will keep the radioactive decay particles isolated for approximately a million years, which is longer that the activity even of plutonium.

Because the PBMR fuel can be stored on site for at least 80 years, special casks for transporting the spent fuel and storing it at a remote location such as the nuclear waste disposal site at Vaalputs, 100km South-East of Springbok in the Northern Cape, will not have to be bought from overseas or manufactured locally. There is no intention to reprocess the spent fuel as this is more difficult than with Koeberg-type fuel. The PBMR fuel also has a greater "burn-up" than Koeberg-type fuel, which makes it less valuable to recycle. More of the useful uranium present in the fuel is used while in the reactor

The spent coated particle fuel can be disposed of in a deep under-ground repository. (Coated particle fuel will maintain its integrity for up to ~ 1 million years in a repository, ensuring that spent fuel radionuclides are contained for extremely long periods of time. The plutonium will have decayed away completely in 250 000 years)

The fuel for pebble bed reactors have both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to waste. It is true that the fuel it is ideal for a long term storage because it is so resistant to corrosion and mechanical stress. But those same properties make the fuel very hard to reprocess as the article mention.

So if we are going to stick to once through fuel cycle(use the fuel once and then burry it) pebble bed is superior to todays fuel. But if we want to close the fuel cycle so we can use all the energy in the uranium instead of a few % then pebble bed fuel is a problem. Closing the fuel cycle is the best long term option since it will reduce the ammount of waste with a factor of 50 if not more.

pebble bed reactors offcourse have other advantages aswell that make them worthwhile to develop. Pebble bed reactors are completely meltdown proof, the capability to withstand very high temperatures make them ideal for hydrogen production and for process heat for different industries and the higher temp offcourset also make them more efficient.

[Kärnfysikern]

Karn summed it up well. From what I understand a nuclear power plant has not been built since the 70's and they have been reduced.

Fortunaly that is only on europe and america. Asia is building nuclear power plants as fast as they can. China has incredible plans for nuclear power and so has India. Finland is building one reactor aswell so stuff is starting to happen in europe. UK is thinking about a dozen new reactors and france loves nuclear.

Recently there has been alot of applications for new reactors in america aswell, I think 12 just during the last year.

The vast amount of power is generated by burning fossile fuels still, even with filters those stacks are putting huge amounts of Co2 into the atmosphere.

Whats ironic is that if a nuclear power plant released as much radionuclides into the air as coal power plants(mostly uranium and thorium but also polonium) they would be shut down imidietly.

[goodcents]

Should watch who killed the electric car and see the effort gm put into erasing the ev1 from history, fuk gm I would love one of those things but they don't want anything messing with big oil. I think nuclear power is the answer. It's funny how people freak out about it all the while seeing hundreds of train cars filled with coal passing by their house to be burned, wtf?

[goodcents]

Karn for president unless he messes with the guns then I will give him a frown

[Flagg]

Karn for president unless he messes with the guns then I will give him a frown

That's food for thought, how would anyone feel about a President with a scientific background?

[Flagg]

Back on topic, the future really is NUCLEAR. It's a shame the general public hear the word nuclear and fear the worst but the sooner the world get's with the idea of going nuclear the better, and not so much from the stance that it's Environmentally friendly, I mean that not withstanding is great in it's own right, but the simple fact is fossil fuels will be gone within 60 years. We need to look for alternatives now. Many politicians are accused of only looking a few weeks into the future rather than long term, so I for one am happy that Brown is actually DOING SOMETHING worthwhile by investing in nuclear powerplants in the UK. France has been doing it for years and they have the cleanest air and cheapest electricity in the whole of Europe. My only concern isn't so much waste, but decommisioning Nuclear Plants. I don't know if it's in accurate or just media hype, but doesnt it cost somewhere like 500 million pounds to decommision a plant? I hope that's wrong.

[Kärnfysikern]

Should watch who killed the electric car and see the effort gm put into erasing the ev1 from history, fuk gm I would love one of those things but they don't want anything messing with big oil. I think nuclear power is the answer. It's funny how people freak out about it all the while seeing hundreds of train cars filled with coal passing by their house to be burned, wtf?

The electric car is coming, when the plug in hybrids enter the market big time atleast the entire ethanol hype will die and all other biofuel b.s.

I guess people arent afraid of coal because everyone has seen it burning and its hard to imagine just how many die each year(500 000 worldwide, something like 50 000-70 000 in the US) because of coal pollution. But almost no one has any experience with radiation and the environmentalist propaganda has been extremely sucessfull in making people think radiation is the devil.

Karn for president unless he messes with the guns then I will give him a frown

That's food for thought, how would anyone feel about a President with a scientific background?

Works in India and Germany atleast I would have to get fake papers that show Im born in he states though and fix my broken english. But them Im game

Back on topic, the future really is NUCLEAR. It's a shame the general public hear the word nuclear and fear the worst but the sooner the world get's with the idea of going nuclear the better, and not so much from the stance that it's Environmentally friendly, I mean that not withstanding is great in it's own right, but the simple fact is fossil fuels will be gone within 60 years. We need to look for alternatives now. Many politicians are accused of only looking a few weeks into the future rather than long term, so I for one am happy that Brown is actually DOING SOMETHING worthwhile by investing in nuclear powerplants in the UK. France has been doing it for years and they have the cleanest air and cheapest electricity in the whole of Europe. My only concern isn't so much waste, but decommisioning Nuclear Plants. I don't know if it's in accurate or just media hype, but doesnt it cost somewhere like 500 million pounds to decommision a plant? I hope that's wrong.

I just did a quick search about decomisioning cost. The projected cost of dismantling the the two reactors in Loviisa Finland is 216 million euroes spread over 27 years. Roughly 100 million euros for a reactor sounds about right. Thats not even a tenth of the construction cost(1-3 billion) so not to overwhelming, especialy not considering that most current reactors can have lifespans of up to 60 years with uppgrades. Putting aside 1.5 million a year for decomisioning is just pocket change for the company owning the reactors.

Brown has realy kickstarted the discussions about nuclear again. Most swedes are pro nuclear now and even in nuclear hating germany things seems to be changing.

[Flagg]

The electric car is coming, when the plug in hybrids enter the market big time atleast the entire ethanol hype will die and all other biofuel b.s.

I guess people arent afraid of coal because everyone has seen it burning and its hard to imagine just how many die each year(500 000 worldwide, something like 50 000-70 000 in the US) because of coal pollution. But almost no one has any experience with radiation and the environmentalist propaganda has been extremely sucessfull in making people think radiation is the devil.





Works in India and Germany atleast I would have to get fake papers that show Im born in he states though and fix my broken english. But them Im game



I just did a quick search about decomisioning cost. The projected cost of dismantling the the two reactors in Loviisa Finland is 216 million euroes spread over 27 years. Roughly 100 million euros for a reactor sounds about right. Thats not even a tenth of the construction cost(1-3 billion) so not to overwhelming, especialy not considering that most current reactors can have lifespans of up to 60 years with uppgrades. Putting aside 1.5 million a year for decomisioning is just pocket change for the company owning the reactors.

Brown has realy kickstarted the discussions about nuclear again. Most swedes are pro nuclear now and even in nuclear hating germany things seems to be changing.

Germany is about to build the worlds largest solarpower station, and even then it will only be able to power 10,000 homes. They said they would also "sell" solar panels to homeowners to power their home, the asking fee.....oh a mere 25,000 pounds.

[Kärnfysikern]

Yeah the german renewable investments are starting to backfire economicaly. I think its worthwhile in the long run though, especialy wind. Solar in europe is only good for heating though except around the Mediterranean.

I just know Merkel wants to build more nuclear deep down. She is a physicists after all. Lets hope her party gets their own majority next election.

[Tock]

I'm open-minded about nuclear power. I don't really know much about it . . . but then, what we've got here in Texas (coal) isn't all that good, either -- it's creating lots of soot that's going all over the state and dropping mercury everywhere, and that's not good.

I read in today's printed Dallas Morning News a story about nuclear power, and they mentioned that Taiwan has 2 nuclear power plants, and they are wanting to build some more. The crazy thing, though, was they've been trying to work a deal with North Korea to store their nuclear waste. WTF? And Russia's security with nuclear waste isn't very good, either.
France, on the other hand, seems to know what it's doing with nuclear . . .

I look at the corruption and stupidity I see every day in Texas State government, and wonder why the ground doesn't open up under the state legislature and Governor and swallow them up whole. And they regulate a lot of this stuff. The federal government can't be much better.

Well, I'm busy looking after lots of other issues, and nuclear stuff is beyond my competence anyway, so I just hope to XXX that whoever's in charge of this stuff knows what they're doing. Somehow, though, I doubt it . . . I get the feeling that we're all screwed . . .

[Kärnfysikern]

I'm open-minded about nuclear power. I don't really know much about it . . . but then, what we've got here in Texas (coal) isn't all that good, either -- it's creating lots of soot that's going all over the state and dropping mercury everywhere, and that's not good.

I read in today's printed Dallas Morning News a story about nuclear power, and they mentioned that Taiwan has 2 nuclear power plants, and they are wanting to build some more. The crazy thing, though, was they've been trying to work a deal with North Korea to store their nuclear waste. WTF? And Russia's security with nuclear waste isn't very good, either.
France, on the other hand, seems to know what it's doing with nuclear . . .

I look at the corruption and stupidity I see every day in Texas State government, and wonder why the ground doesn't open up under the state legislature and Governor and swallow them up whole. And they regulate a lot of this stuff. The federal government can't be much better.

Well, I'm busy looking after lots of other issues, and nuclear stuff is beyond my competence anyway, so I just hope to XXX that whoever's in charge of this stuff knows what they're doing. Somehow, though, I doubt it . . . I get the feeling that we're all screwed . . .

Poord judgment call by Taiwan, they should go with Russia or France instead. Russia is probably not the best, but they are doing things much better now than before. The new russia reactors for instace are just as safe, if not safer, than the best that are beeing built in europe and asia.

When it comes to all things nuclear in the states and corruption I think you can relax a bit. No industry is as hardly regulated as nuclear power. If a worker drops his sandwich and it lands with the wrong side down it it will result in 15 reports on why that could happen, how it can be prevented from happening again and if it should happen again how can they diminish the damage done. Every nuclear power plant also has a guy from the NRC present with the authority to shut the whole thing down if he doesnt like what he is seeing, they are regulary rotated betwen different plants.

Offcourse it is inevitable that shit will happen sometime no matter how much regulations there are. But fortunaly incompetence and corruption can not realy lead to any disaster. The worst that can possibly happen is a repeat of TMI in Harrisburg.