azaWhat should countries do with their nuclear waste?
Put it in a capsule that could survive re-entry into earth just in case, then launch it into the sun.
Do you want evil Superman? Cause that’s how you get evil Superman.
Serious answer: That would take more effort and energy than just dealing with it on earth by many orders of magnitude. It’s even harder to launch into the sun than it is to launch it outside the solar system (which is also infeasible of course)
DeebsterIt also has a decent chance of a rocket failure spreading radiation throughout the upper atmosphere in exactly the way we’ve figured out you shouldn’t do.
That would take more effort and energy than just dealing with it on earth by many orders of magnitude. It’s even harder to launch into the sun than it is to launch it outside the solar system (which is also infeasible of course)
Yep, it would be a wealth sink that drastically advances science and pays off later.
Just like going to the moon was an excuse to develop ICBM technology, that also paid off with a shit ton of unexpected scientific advancement.
Going to the moon adapted ICBM technology, but it wasn’t intended to further ICBM development. It was simply the last chance for America to save face having been roundly spanked at every step of the space race with the USSR.
The space race at large was all a cover for weapons development…
It was two super powers on either side of the globe competing to show they could hit the other in the dick from that far away.
Absolutely no one in either government who controlled funding ever gave a fuck about the science for science sake, or even PR.
Shooting nuclear waste into the sun is a much saner reason that comes with all the bonuses. But obviously it’s for an ideal society after we solve wealth inequality so we can pay for it and actually use the developments for science and not killing each other.
The risk from launching nuclear waste in the sun is so much worse than the risk of burying it
We have so little high level nuclear waste it’s actually crazy to think about
Like all of the dry casks we made in the history of commercial nuclear power could fit on a single football field
Dig big hole bury waste, no step 3
I mean, the way we got rid of our military reactor “waste” for decades was selling it to the French, who refined it for their reactors…
Real waste that’s an issue is radioactively contaminated steal and the like, we can’t use any of that juice, but we can keep refining fuel forever if we wanted to.
It’s just a big heavy object, and we need big heavy payloads and an excuse to launch them. So let’s take all that real waste and launch it at the sun for the fuck of it.
Military reactor waste predominately goes to the Hanford site, you can actually see it on satellite imagery
Activated steel is actually super easy to deal with, it gives off gammas which are bad but because they don’t get that hot you can just bury it which is infinitely easier than risking spreading radioactive contamination in the stratosphere and having it rain down on people
Looks like you have a habit of being wrong in nuclear threads and no interest in learning.
Hopefully people don’t listen to you, but it’s obvious you don’t want any help understanding
Yes, you must be correct that’s why all the nuclear physicists and nuclear engineers think your idea is ridiculous yet a bunch of people with only a high school diploma think it sounds so smart…
Another great idea you should look into is the water powered car that all the experts that say it doesn’t work are just owned by big oil
😈MedicPig🐷BabySaver😈Eat it. Lots of calories.
H.Y.C.Y.BH
Once again, bottoms will save us all.
Yes but not us, bacteria ! asm.org/…/how-do-microbes-remove-radioactive-wast…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation
Maybe we should do more research on turning these hazardous products into safer, more stable substances. I’m no nuclear engineer, but it looks like the primary method is bombarding the isotopes with neutrons. How much energy does that take compared to the energy generated by the reactor?
It’s a good goal, but last I heard we were very far off from that being economical compared to just throwing it in a hole forever (which is honestly pretty expensive).
If the problem is economic in nature then the solution is to change the system of economics until it fits material reality, not wait until material reality can fit into our arbitrary system of economics. I’m so sick of “economically viable” being the limiting factor to societal progress.
Don’t see any reasons why it can’t and plenty of reasons why it should.
Too expensive and thus a too heavy burden on society while much cheaper alternatives exist.
“expensive”
How? In what terms?
Because during my studies in conservation, the only barrier of “expensive” is monetary cost which is entirely societal systems of arbitrary monetary value which has nothing to do with the actual material or labor costs.
Is it a burden on society or a burden on the interests of private industry?
Man, shit gets really expensive sometimes. We can wish with all of our hearts that medicine, chemistry, physics, etc. get more viable, but that isn’t how it works.
What are you even talking about? What you said has nothing to do with my comment.
Anyways, to your point, I’ll bite. Things are only “expensive” because of our arbitrarily designed system of economics. Money is fake. We can change the rules to fit material reality.
We don’t need the science to become viable, we need to change our rules of society to make the science accessible.
Not all things are expensive on a whim. Some things just use massive amounts of material, energy and work hours to be produced. I cannot just stop paying miners their already too low wages. I also cannot take energy for free. It is not like we have all minerals and energy in abundance and have automated the crap out of every production chain.
Miss me with this “capitalist realism” take. Money doesn’t make things happen. We can restructure our economic system to not be in a stranglehold of arbitrary monetary value.
There are other incentives for why people labor than just getting paid.
Well, as I said: not ALL pricing is entirely made up. In particular, in a production chain it makes sense that the price increases with further processing. Why would I sell a gear for less than I paid for the metal I made it from? Why would a bicycle manufacturer sell the bike for less than they paid for the sum of its parts? You can reduce the profit to nothingness, but you still need to assure a living wage for all the people involved (as long as you have morals). That means that there at least is some rules that need to be followed in pricing. And complicated things tend to be expensive. A computer chip must always be more expensive than a gram of sand and that’s not arbitrary.
There are other incentives for why people labor than just getting paid. I’m pretty sure that many unpleasant jobs like mining do require monetary recompensation if the task is not pleasant by itself. I can’t imagine how else one would incentivize this kind of labor.
Why would I sell a gear for less than I paid for the metal I made it from
This right here is the entire flaw of monetary based economics. It always comes down to the profit incentive which drives people towards individualist, selfish behavior instead of thinking about the actual material efficiency or benefits.
but you still need to assure a living wage
This assumes that a “wage” is necessary and not a handicap put in place to force the masses to have to pay for access to necessities from an owning class who only serves to hoard resources for the purposes of selling it back for profit. People only need a wage because the owning class relegates necessities behind their system of private ownership and require payment before they allow people access to what should already be communal property.
do require monetary recompensation if the task is not pleasant by itself
People were doing unpleasant necessities for hundreds of thousands of years before money was even a concept. People understand that things need to be done if things are to exist. People like feeling useful in their community. So long as they are respected and provided for, they are more likely to be willing to labor for the sake of the community because they find fulfillment in hard work. It’s literally a mantra people swear by.
You still limit yourself by thinking these systems are immutable facts of life and not societal norms that can be changed.
bombarding the isotopes with neutrons
There’s a word for that: a nuclear reactor!
You may be interested in: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
A reactor whose main purpose is to destroy actinides rather than increasing fissile fuel-stocks is sometimes known as a burner reactor. Both breeding and burning depend on good neutron economy, and many designs can do either. Breeding designs surround the core by a breeding blanket of fertile material. Waste burners surround the core with non-fertile wastes to be destroyed. Some designs add neutron reflectors or absorbers.
Fusion power, if ever realized, also has a high neutron flux at a high neutron temperature, though it faces the same issue of “in the short term, it’s more expensive than just storing waste in a hole”
Did I hear the concept of “slow violence?” Going once! Going twice!
infinitevalenceRecycle and reuse!
wabafeePutting it in a deep sea trench so it gets back in the geological cycle as soon as possible, is not an option?
Gsus4“Geological cycle” I always thought was measured in millions of years, when the waste has a half-life of 1000 to 10 million years…
So much could happen in 1000 years…and it would barely make a difference for anything below 1My.
Oh, right. Still, it would be out of human reach there and a block of stone with finely distributed Uran doesn’t do much.
1 kg of radioactive isotopes blasted into the atmosphere as a byproduct of coal combustion: i sleep
1 ton of PTFEs blasted into the water table as a byproduct of making slick cooking pans: i sleep
untold tons of carcinogens dumped out the exhaust of automobiles within our cities: i sleep
1 kg of nuclear waste safely sealed in a bright yellow barrel: i scream and kick and seethe
If you think nuclear waste is the biggest challenge we face as a species regarding waste management, your stance is profoundly misinformed and inconsistent. The only reason we’re talking about it is that it has “nuclear” in the name and it is highly visible because we capture it all, which is ironically the one thing that makes it safer than all the other pollutants out there.