this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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Do we have a solution for nuclear waste yet?
We put it back in the ground where we found it in the first place.
I don't see how people are A-OK with uranium and other naturally occurring nuclear isotopes beneath their feet, but used fuel rods from a nuclear power plant? No fucking way!
Your house is full of radon Joe, the nuclear waste in a sealed casket, buried in the side of a mountain nowhere near you isn't what is going to give you cancer.
I was gonna make a joke about using it for plutonium production, but I'm pretty sure that still requires neutrons from fresh U235 to hit U238 to make U239 which decays into Pu239
Reprocess it, salvage useful isotopes for known uses, keep a few others for research purposes, don't put it too far away because most of it could be useful in the future.
Afaik that is not an economically viable option.
France literally does that. They reprocess 96% all of their used fuel back into usable fuel and useful materials.
The number is false. You make a confusion between what could be recycled and what is actually recycled. And MOX is not a good option (expensive, 1 cycle, toxicity).
Which part? France is basically doing this already.
clutches pearls won't someone think of the stock market?
Ah yes, economically viable like destroying the planet.
If destroying the planet weren't economically viable, no one would do it.
This has been your daily depressing fact.
My point exactly.
Permanent underground storage where it will naturally decay. Are a couple of different methods available from what I understand. And the amount of material that actually needs to be stored is a fraction of what is instead released into the air, water & soil from fossil based fuel. Not to mention toxins like mercury etc.
Just put it back in the ground where it came from. Why is this a concern? It was radioactive rocks when we took it out, and it's radioactive rocks when we put it back in.
We have many. Most aren't in effect yet though, but it also isn't a serious issue. They're stored safely in cement caskets, with molten glass and stuff to keep it together and safe, with effectively zero chance to cause an issue. There are permanent ways to store it safely, but we haven't invested in them yet for many reason. Mostly, dirty energy companies pushing the anti-nuclear message have purposefully hamstrung nuclear from becoming a great solution, and people who think they're being smart believe them.
That and they have ways to reuse “spent” nuclear fuel in newer reactors that can use fuel that older reactors have finished using.
Is nuclear waste more radioactive than the uranium we started with?
Absolutely incorrect. Neutron activation will produce more waste in volume than fission, but without the long lived fission products that are really nasty. We don't really have a plan yet on HOW we're going to circulate lithium and recapture tritium and what the waste from that will look like, but we do know it will create a significant amount of waste.
Thank you. While in the context of fission both the risk and the amount of waste seem to be much lower and waste can probably be managed by fission related protocols, my comment was too grossly wrong, so I just deleted it.
Eat it! So many calories. You will never have to eat again.
You could feed every single person on earth for life and solve hunger
we give each yimby a few gallons to put in their closet
Have you seen spent fuel storage solutions? I'll happily hold onto a cask. It wouldn't be any more radioactive than the smoke coming from the coal plant down the street.
Do we have a problem with nuclear waste yet?
Yes
Define problem, because it's less waste than old solar panels per megawatt. Both of which we just throw away in special places designed specifically for that waste.
Define "less". By volume? Mass? Ecological impact? If you want to say "per megawatt" then you obviously have numbers, let's see them.
Uh, that wasn't me, please pay attention. Either way, you made a claim - a quantitative claim no less - it's on you to back it up. Don't pretend that someone else's behaviour excuses yours.
Nuclear waste is uncontroversially a serious problem. If you want to convince anybody of anything else you need to be willing to communicate, and this isn't it.
In EU you recycling is included in the price. It is mandatory and must be done in EU.