Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner
by Treblemaker on Friday January 15, 2021 @02:59AM
(#25788180)
> though for some reason we haven't made a lot of progress
The risk that reprocessing can produce weapons-grade plutonium has been one reason. [1] Frustrating not only because it makes it unavailable as an energy source, but, as I understand it, the waste products from fast breeder reactors generally have much shorter half-lives than the current waste.
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner
by KirillPanov on Friday January 15, 2021 @04:38AM
(#25788820)
At what point does the cost of global warming exceed the (huge) cost of adequately securing the reprocessing pipeline?
The decision not to do reprocessing was based on 1970s cost/benefit analysis. We're in a different world now.
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner
by saagarjha on Friday January 15, 2021 @01:07AM
(#25787576)
It’s meant for a worst-case scenario. Of course if we somehow happen to keep ourselves together and progressing technologically we’ll look back at ourselves in the 21st century as buffoons who created highly valuable materials and buried it as waste.
Storage of long lived nuclear waste is often considered a major problem. There are suggestions of firing them to the sun (worst idea ever), burring them in subduction zones (a bit more sensible) or in special sites with plenty of warning for future generations (artists get creative on this one).
The thing is, nuclear waste may actually be among the most valuable things on earth. These elements do not exist in nature, and producing them require nuclear reactors and enriched uranium, which is a finite resource.
Even today we have the technology to burn nuclear waste in fast breeder reactors, though for some reason we haven't made a lot of progress, maybe it is not commercially viable compared to more conventional reactors. This has the potential to supply us with energy for so long that we can effectively consider it renewable energy.
All that to say that in the future, nuclear "waste" may become extremely valuable. I find one particularly ironic quote from a suggested warning message for long term nuclear waste storage sites. "This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here." I find it extremely dismissive of future humanity, as if we somehow reach the peak of technological progress and that future generations will be cavemen.