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A comment on Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe. Parent comment

Re:Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean... by ben_w on Thursday April 28, 2022 @06:43AM (#31190939)
> Then why not use it as a valuable source of the very expensive and non renewable Helium?

Same reason we don’t use nuclear reactors to turn lead into gold, even though we can: it’s far more expensive than it’s worth.

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Re:Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean... by perihelions on Thursday April 28, 2022 @07:46AM (#31191368)
That's actually what we do, in this case: nuclear reactor-derived tritium is the *sole* source of helium-3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Human_production

It's *ten* times more expensive than gold!

(If I remember correctly, medical ³He MRI's are done on a closed rebreather -- they literally want to recycle your lung air, it's that valuable).

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Re:Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean... by ben_w on Thursday April 28, 2022 @09:16AM (#31192078)
Indeed. I was assuming that the comment I was replying to was referring to helium in general because they were not more specific, and the normal form is ⁴He — we’re not filling party balloons with it.
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