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Re:The messages that survived civilisation's collapse by BitwiseFool on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @11:40AM (#32566537)
I genuinely believe the people working on this problem are looking at it the wrong way. Instead of trying to make the waste repository into something highly visible, or mystical, they should instead choose a remote and inhospitable location where attempting to access the repository is economically nonviable for any future civilization.

Assuming civilization collapses or regress to pre-industrial levels where the concept of radiation is lost, any future group trying to extract this mythical energy source would have to first discover the location of something buried so deep underground, and then have to develop the logistics to try and access it with manpower. If the repository is placed in the middle of a desert, the challenge of providing water to the workers would be substantial. If they placed it in Antarctica, simply getting there and keeping the workers from freezing to death would be so monumentally expensive that it would bankrupt any civilization attempting to do so. Even if industrialized capacity does return, it would still be economically monumental to try and get to the waste repository. There is also a decent chance that a future civilization with said capacity would rediscover the concept and dangers of radiation.

When I talk about expense, I also like to highlight this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure Here is a project to dismantle a pyramid that was canceled because of how expensive it was and because of how little of a return on investment the endeavor appeared to be.

Re:The messages that survived civilisation's collapse by Nannooskeeska on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @01:01PM (#32567801)
Tom Scott has a great video[0] about the Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository in Finland[1], in which he talks about one of the reasons that they decided on the particular area - why would anyone dig there? Skip to 4:29 in the video for the relevant info.

[0]: https://youtu.be/aoy_WJ3mE50

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

Re:The messages that survived civilisation's collapse by coffeeling on Wednesday August 24, 2022 @02:29PM (#32583741)
2019 Tom: "It is due to go online next year"
Re:The messages that survived civilisation's collapse by thatguy0900 on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @12:24PM (#32567251)
We have to keep current day expenses in mind as well. It's true that noone in the future would be dragging waste back from Antarctica, but noone now wants to drag it there either. Same with shipping it across a continent or ocean into a desert. And if we're talking 10k years into a post apocalyptic future, your deserts may no longer be a desert.
Re:The messages that survived civilisation's collapse by BitwiseFool on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @03:56PM (#32570586)
It's a fair point, but if the thought exercise is that we must do as much as we can to prevent a future catastrophe, I feel like the cost of an antarctic vault would be manageable compared to the cost of some military projects, moon missions, or even megaprojects in American cities.
Re:The messages that survived civilisation's collapse by tra3 on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @12:43PM (#32567531)
You may not be giving them enough credit. Last ice age was roughly 10,000 years ago. At these time scales it's difficult to predict what's going to happen... Of course lets not forget the costs either. Someone has to pay for this.

Seems to be highly irresponsible to leave poisonous garbage around no matter what.

Re:The messages that survived civilisation's collapse by aeternum on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @02:37PM (#32569224)
The 'poisonous garbage' was deep in the earth previously, and there are naturally occurring pockets of gas that are arguably even more dangerous.

Given how distributed knowledge now is, it's pretty ridiculous to think that nuclear will be completely forgotten.