Re:Saskatchewan, Ontario to roll out mini-nuclear reactors
by ncmncm on Thursday July 14, 2022 @10:11PM
(#32103854)
Wind turbines are not buried. They are mined for copper and, often, rare-earths.
Unless you are taking about the blades? Sure, they are discarded. It has not been and will not be a problem.
Re:Saskatchewan, Ontario to roll out mini-nuclear reactors
by DrBazza on Friday July 15, 2022 @11:36AM
(#32109220)
Sure, and we bury spent nuclear fuel and supposedly is a problem according to some groups. If we bury it deep enough, remote enough, and remove access to it, how is it a danger? If the human race loses the ability to read warning signs to stay away, I suspect we've probably lost the ability to tunnel a thousand metres underground as well. It's really not the problem people make it out to be. We have signs around cliffs, electric pylons, and other things with a much higher risk of actual death, and people obey those...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...
It's like I said in another post, nuclear is held to some mythical higher standard of scrutiny than other forms of energy generation despite it being better in every way except for up-front cost. All the spent nuclear fuel, ever, takes up less volume than the picture in the bbg article.
What I definitely do not "like" is the dismissal of nuclear by saying "nuclear waste" without considering all the forms of waste associated with other supposedly "greener" solutions.
Solar panels and the stands they are placed are shipped (half way round the world) wrapped in acres of plastic, cardboard and polystyrene for shipping that is then just discarded at worst, and possibly partly recycled at best. Broken wind turbines, which happens frequently, are often just buried, and so on. Digging the raw materials out of the ground and refining them causes waste. Doping chemicals to get the rare earths cause waste. Just because in the West we recycle much of this, doesn't mean that, in the race to the bottom, factories in Asia aren't just dumping this stuff out of sight.
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/baotou-artifici...