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A comment on China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from thorium. Parent comment

Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by nandomrumber on Sunday November 23, 2025 @04:55AM (#46022147)
1. There is no mountain of nuclear waste.

Literally almost all the waste that’s ever been generated is stored on site at the nuclear power plants where it was created. That’s how little of it there is.

Talking about “thousands of tonnes” of nuclear waste is comically misleading when you realise how tiny the volume is.

2. There is no high level waste that is both very dangerous right now, and will remain so for tens of thousands of years. It’s either highly radioactive for not very long, or not very radioactive for very long, but never both.

How do these myths persist in otherwise educated people.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by runeks on Sunday November 23, 2025 @05:10AM (#46022238)
> Talking about “thousands of tonnes” of nuclear waste is comically misleading when you realise how tiny the volume is.

What is the actual volume?

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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by Loic on Sunday November 23, 2025 @05:20AM (#46022269)
Long life, high activity nuclear waste represents less than 3500m3 (one Olympic swimming pool), and this, since the start of civil nuclear electrical production in the 50's. World wide.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by keepamovin on Sunday November 23, 2025 @05:29AM (#46022303)
Global waste is 400,000+ tons (https://www.stimson.org/2020/spent-nuclear-fuel-storage-and-...). Even 1 pool full is ~28,000 tons (UO2 package 8tons/m3). Urainium is dense.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by glimshe on Sunday November 23, 2025 @07:51AM (#46023178)
20 swimming pools of total waste isn't that impressive. I don't want to live near that, but I'm sure I'd we can find a place to put that in that will have minimal impact on people's lives.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by keepamovin on Sunday November 23, 2025 @07:59AM (#46023220)
Exactly. The waste isn't really a problem. But it doesn't have to be waste. That's the point. All that U235 in 'spent' silos? You can get 60x - 100x its OG power feeding it to nextgen reactors. So cool
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by cykros on Friday November 28, 2025 @07:33AM (#46078091)
Properly contained nuclear waste is almost as concerning to me as my wifi router is.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by Loic on Sunday November 23, 2025 @06:03AM (#46022505)
I wrote about the high energy, long life waste. The part really causing issues.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by keepamovin on Sunday November 23, 2025 @06:14AM (#46022584)
I guess you mean the "super hot for centuries" minor actinides (Np-237, Am-241/243, Cm-242/244/245 etc..)? These are less than 1% global waste, but next gen reactors can still eat them. The majority of waste (95%+) is U-235, then Pu, which nextgen also eats.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by nandomrumber on Sunday November 23, 2025 @05:20AM (#46022270)
Many magnitudes of order less than any of: all the steel, glass, aluminium, wood, or plastic, ever produced, and we aren’t yet drowning in cubic miles of any of those.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by aitchnyu on Monday November 24, 2025 @12:25AM (#46030652)
But a disposed sachet from Australia isnt going to enter my cranium here in India... oh wait
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by tonyarkles on Sunday November 23, 2025 @08:45AM (#46023547)
> Talking about “thousands of tonnes” of nuclear waste is comically misleading when you realise how tiny the volume is.

Yeah, it’s really easy to forget how dense these materials are. A jug of milk (4L/1gal) weighs 4kg/8.8lb. Milk has about the same density as water, 1g/cm^3. Uranium has a density around 19g/cm^3, making that same gallon jug weigh 76kg/167lb. A metric ton of uranium (1000kg) is about 13 gallons.

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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by franktankbank on Sunday November 23, 2025 @11:30AM (#46024755)
You sound butthurt by what the person youre responding to is saying. There's no liability in their statement, its severe optimism.
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Re:China reaches energy milestone by "breeding" uranium from... by interestica on Sunday November 23, 2025 @04:00PM (#46027281)
> Talking about “thousands of tonnes” of nuclear waste is comically misleading when you realise how tiny the volume is.

You’re mixing mass and volume here. From what I can tell, their numbers were essentially right. Are you saying we don’t have thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste produced?

[ Parent | on HN ]