Nuclear waste is something new we are creating, but I'd rather have it deep underground in a geologically stable place, than sitting in casks on the surface.
What the mining industry do is to fence it up (including pools used for waste), put up a sign to warn people, and then let nature fill it up with water. The best we can hope for is that they did their research properly and made sure that it doesn't leak into the groundwater.
In the past there were people who tried diluting stuff like this by dumping it into the ocean, but that isn't the best idea.
"The conclusion that disposal is needed and that deep geologic disposal is the scientifically preferred approach has been reached by every expert panel that has looked at the issue and by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program."
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/blue-ribbon-commission-am...
One thing that drives me craziest of all is when people simultaneously claim that nuclear waste is among the most hazardous things out there while also blocking any progress to get it safely out of the biosphere.
A solution would be to make it non-hazardous. But there is no viable way to do it right now.
No, it's not. See comments elsewhere in the thread about reprocessing.
No, many countries do:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...
This approach of geological sequestration, while being the scientifically preferred solution, still has potential very negative consequences for some future generation many years in the future. By some people calling this safe, it enables the nuclear proponents to leverage that to say there is no issue with the waste so it's fine to create more.
Unfortunately those who believe nuclear energy generation is necessary often refuse to acknowledge the very real risks and costs associated with it. The fact is that there is no panacea when it comes to energy generation. All known methods come with risks, rewards and downside. It is fine to argue that nuclear energy is the cleanest and safest way to generate energy, but not that it is completely safe or without risk.
This claim is simply false. Many countries reprocess nuclear waste:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...
That's possible, but even if it's done, it's only necessary for hundreds of years (because the radioactive isotopes left over have much shorter half-lives), not 100,000 years. Big difference.
The truth is that reprocessing is an economic loser at this point; even France admits it. They do it because whatever is done with spent fuel is not that expensive compared to the cost of just building and operating nuclear reactors.
Not on a time scale of 100 years or so, let alone the 100,000 years that are being imposed as a requirement on geologic storage. On that time scale recovering unburned fuel from reprocessing will be cheaper than mining and refining fuel.
> France still does reprocessing because whatever is done with spent fuel is not that expensive
Yes, particularly when you factor in that reprocessing gives you a source of additional fuel (most of the "spent" fuel removed from reactors is actually not spent, and reprocessing recovers it for future use) that, as noted above, is expected to be cheaper than mining it in the not too distant future.
> the boondoggle
It's not a boondoggle at all, it's a rational way of anticipating future nuclear fuel requirements, as above. It's certainly much more rational than requiring spent fuel to be stored for 100,000 years as if that was the only possible thing that could be done with it.
AT THIS MOMENT it's an economic loser. If you need reprocessed fuel in 100 years, by the miracle of nonzero interest rates you save money by doing it closer to then instead of right now. The cost of storing the fuel until then is low enough that this works out.
> It's not a boondoggle at all, it's a rational way of anticipating future nuclear fuel requirements, as above.
No, it's a waste of money to do it right now.
If you're allowed to store the current waste in a facility that's only good for 100 years or so, then yes. But not if you're required to store any waste you don't reprocess for 100,000 years.
I've answered that already in another subthread we're having.
> If society is going to collapse in 100 years
Where was that kind of thinking involved in this at all?
But it also includes many countries that reprocess currently.
The US has not reprocessed fuel in many decades, and never on any significant scale, because the Carter Administration outlawed it based on mistaken concerns about proliferation, and it's been a political pariah ever since. It has nothing to do with any rational technical assessment.
The UK, France, Japan, and Italy don't reprocess anymore (I'm not sure Italy ever did on any substantial scale).
Carter stopped reprocessing by executive order, but Reagan quickly reversed that order. No reprocessing then occurred, because reprocessing made no economic sense. It turned out Carter's order isn't what killed reprocessing in the US; cold hard economics did. It did provide a convenient excuse for those who wish to ignore that reality.
No, "cold, hard economics" would say, if you are correct that it's not even cost effective to do any reprocessing now, that the spent fuel should be stored for 100 years or so and then reprocessed, when it's economically cost effective.
But US policy has been that spent fuel has to be stored in a facility that's good for 100,000 years. That makes no sense if the waste is going to be reprocessed 100 years from now. It makes sense only as part of a political scheme to kill nuclear power altogether. Which is exactly what it was, even if on paper reprocessing was "allowed" after the Reagan administration.
First, it may have been thought that opposition to nuclear energy is due to waste, and that burying it would remove the opposition. I consider this ill-founded, both because those predisposed to oppose nuclear use waste only as one of many arguments, and because the actual objective argument (economics) as nothing to do with waste.
Second, it may have been thought in the height of the Cold War that spent fuel at the surface would be a tempting target for ground burst H-bombs, where it would then contribute to long term fallout (each 1 GW(e)-year of spent fuel has about the same long lived fission products as a 20 MT bomb.) This is not an argument the government would have been pushing publicly, of course.
I've already answered that: nobody actually thought it was a good idea. It was imposed as a policy because the actual (though of course not publicly admitted) purpose of the policy was to kill nuclear power by imposing unreasonable requirements on it. (It's possible, I suppose, that the Cold War rationale you give played a role, but I don't think it's very likely; that objective could have been met without requiring anything like 100,000 year storage.)
The parent post didn't say that burying the waste wasn't the scientifically preferred approach. Disposal is only needed if you create it in the first place.
That's not what as Ostrich does. An Ostrich leaves itself exposed and just closes its eyes.
Mankinds attitude to all sorts of threats is an ostrich policy, but burying nuclear waste is not one of those. Leaving it in a barrel and saying "nothing to see here" would be.
We should balance ourselves with nature now instead of dumping it on the future.
This way we're solving the CO2 problem the way a gambler solves their debt by borrowing more money to pay off loans.
Most of that waste is captured in ash via particle filters and has to be treated like any highly toxic and radioactive waste, but as far as I know this waste it not destined for secured long term nuclear disposal where it would be kept safe from interacting with the environment. We don’t seem to have a problem with that…
Further, some low percentage (literature tends to point at .5%) of it is in gaseous form or cannot be filtered, so it gets vented into the atmosphere. That’s assuming modern and intact particle filters. And we aren’t even talking about CO2 here.
It’s somewhat absurd we have to have discussions about nuclear power plant waste in this reality.
Another thing that is weird to me is that everyone says nuclear waste is hazardous for a uniquely long time, but it become less hazardous over time. Many non-radioactive materials, like arsenic and mercury, are toxic forever.
In the US we have WIPP operating, but it stores weapons-related radioactive material rather than commercial spent fuel, so I guess it doesn't count.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant