Nuclear waste

It's not a hot topic now but it was once in the news. Never hear of it any more. I wonder what great solutions have been found to deal with disposing of it safely? My thoughts back then (1970's ?) was to pack as much of it as possible on a one way rocket and blast it into the sun. It could even be a cooperative project between all the 'nuclear' countries. Would this make nuclear (or nucular, as Bush would miss-say) energy too expensive to be practical? It would certainly be a permanent fix! What say you?
Oh... I just thought-- they did find an answer to the problem didn't they. They now make bullets with the stuff, right?

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Bad, bad idea and just as bad science!

First, do have any idea how much nuclear waste is currently being held awaiting deposition? Thousands of tons. Do you have any idea what it costs to launch a ton into space? And even worse, what about a missile accident? One that either explodes on launch or falls back to the ground?

And you are certainly confused alright about your "bullets." Obviously you are thinking of depleted uranium which has nothing to do with nuclear waste.

Perhaps a little bit of research would do you a tremendous amount of good.

 

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how about a solution:
a bio-engineered organism that eats radioactive debris?

 

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I saw a documentary on TV a few months ago about how Sweden is dealing with their nuclear waste. They're tunneling deep into the ground (as there is a lot of deep rock in Sweden) and keeping it stored under pools of water (you could apparently swim there, as long as you didn't swallow any). It was all pretty high tech and seemed well done, which is typical of Sweden. There is an inevitable change coming (from coal and oil), but many countries don't seem to want to start spending the money necessary for this change, which is the thing, because dealing with nuclear waste needs to be done well.

 

If this thread had a prize for "ignorant of facts" ideas, it would be tough to know if you or Mogul should get it.

If you want to see some informed discussion, see Edufer's or my discussion of a few days ago in the "World's ice cover is melting" thread of the Earth Sciences forum.

 

The easiest solution is to not generate the waste in the first place. We've always known how to accomplish this.

 

"Depleted uranium is what is left over when most of the highly radioactive types (isotopes) of uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons."

So this isn't nuclear waste? Well, ok. My ideas were just to kick around. You know, to see if anyone had ideas about how it could be done, for instance. So, ah- lighten up guys!

Peace

 

Not really a 'bullet', a DU projectile is about 30mm wide, javelin shaped, from 100mm to 900mm long. Sometimes with discarding fin stabilisation, and sometimes a copper tip, which vapourises on impact, and the resultant plasma helps defeat armour.

And that is Depleted Uranium, not nuclear waste. You can't say 'nuclear', 'Uranium' or 'Radiation' without people making jokes about two headed animals.

 

how about an excerpt. i been to the thread, it's 11 pages.

 

OK. See the two extracts below. See more between 12 and 19 dec in the Earth Sciencs forum's thread "World's ice caps are melting"

PS: With MetaKron's entry into the "Ignorant Ideas" contest, we now have a three way tie for first place! (His assertion that we know ways to avoid waste is contradicted by all known societies. In fact, about the only things we know about many is what archeologist have found in their trash dumps! Each succeeding society seems to more than double the waste produced by the prior one that lived on that land. For US vs. Am. Indians, the waste per capita has increased more than an order of magnitude!)

ON 19Dec at 40 minutes past the hour, Edufer posted:

"...one of the most abundant radioactive waste in the world, especially in USA and Europe: Back in 1988, Walter Marshall, Lord Marshall of Goring and chairman of Britain’s Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) said once in the House of Commons:

“Earlier this year, British Nuclear Fuels released into the Irish Sea some 400 kg of uranium, with the full knowledge of the regulators. This attracted considerable media attention and, I believe, some 14 parliamentary questions.”
“I have to inform you that yesterday the CEGB released about 300 kg of radioactive uranium, together with all of its radioactive decay products, into the environment. Furthermore, we released some 300 kg of uranium the day before that. We shall be releasing the same amount of uranium today, and we plan to do the same tomorrow. In fact, we do it every day of every year so long as we burn coal in our power stations. And we do not call that “radioactive waste”. We call it coal ash.”

The same thing happens in the USA and the rest of the world. As Dr. Dixie Lee Ray {head of US's AEC} said once: “Of all industries, the nuclear industry alone has taken responsibility for its wastes from the beginning. Yet, ironically, it is the one industry most often criticized for its waste management practices.”

ON 12 Dec I had posted at 56 past the hour:

As for the storage problem, I think it dangerous as currently done in US, basically on site - a tempting target for terrorists, but it could be safely shipped to 4 or 5 central well guarded facilities and stored for roughly a decade to let the shorter half-life isotopes decay. Then, it should be glassified (mixed with glass) to form a disk about an inch thick and foot in diameter*, so steady state temp is no more than 100 degrees C, which are then coated with a thin layer of pure glass - thick enough to stop the Alpha particles. Ships with disk-hurling slings etc or air guns, on their sterns steaming above a deep ocean trench should then send them on a billion year trip much deeper into the earth. (The disk shape, instead of balls insures that they will not roll to any one low point and disperse much more that the ship can throw them. Glass is very strong in compression and will take any pressure the deepest trench can provide.) I.e. IMHO, the waste is not a big problem and we can solve it with less than the current risk.
______________________________________________
*The total long life-time isotopes produce by an "all electric" set of about 25 US familes, during the entire life of each member (100 years and 100 people), will fit in one disk!

 

what does that have to do with being "ignorant of facts" by suggesting a bio-engineered organism for digesting nuclear waste?

 

Even while inside the finite life organism, the gamma rays still come out.

All chemical processes, including the subset that we call biology, do absolutely nothing to the nuclear decay rates. The use of living organism could internally stop some alpha particles, while they lived, but so would several layers of newspaper and one would not need to worry that the newspaper was attracted to your food and then you digested the "organism" letting your tissue be what stopped the alphas. Hard to imagine a more dumb idea. Only as Edufer suggest in the other thread, can you destroy / reduce the radioactivity - it is immune to all chemistry.

The basic ignorance is in the false idea that radioactivity is destroyed by digestion!

 

I read somewhere that high level nuclear waste generates so much heat that it can melt lead and they have to store it in insulated containers. So why don't they throw it into water and make steam to generate electricity?

I'm probably wrong. Tell me where.

 

Getting radioisotopes to produce heat is the hard part, you wouldn't throw away a blend of material that does this!

To get a reactor to produce heat, you need to slow down the reaction, using a technique called moderation. (basically, slowing emitted nuetrons, so they have more time to interact with other nucleii, and increase the yield from the chain reaction). The slowing of the nuetrons releases their kinetic energy as heat, which is absorbed by water, usually. There are also 'control rods' which are inserted into the core, to regulate the reaction.

So, a blend of material that produced heat, that did not require constant monitoring, moderation, and control, would be a godsend to the nuclear power industry! You wouldn't go throwing it away.

 

instead of going crazy with typing you could have stated the above sentence.

 

Sorry - Retired professors tend to be long winded, but I want to make point that ALL CHEMISTRY, not just digestion can do nothing to decrease the rate of radioactive decay.

Related to last two posts: Chemisty can concentrate a particular radio active source so it will be come quite hot ("red hot" is probably possible, but not done). This can (and has) been done to provide long-lasting, but very expensive, power sources for deep-space missions. (SNAP thermo-electric generators. etc.)

 

eh, don't worry about it, it was a lame ass idea anyway ( the organism )

 

Aside from the costs of launching nuclear wastes into orbit away from Earth, look at the risks. If the rocket were to blow up before it reached far outside our upper atmosphere (exosphere), then it would all just come back to rain down upon us.

I think the best solution is to seal it as best as possible and to store it in the least earthquake zones in the world (plate tectonics).

 

I do not know, but would assume that the deep ocean trenches (Places where edges of converging plates both are moving down towards the core -I think) would be much better than "least earthquake zones," as I think they must be relatively active earthquake zones. Not only because they would receive a one way ticket for at least a billion year trip out of the biosphere, but also because I doubt we are sure of the locations of "least earthquake zones."

For example, some time in the geologically recent past, the Mississippi Rivers was shifted about 10 miles sideways by one of the strongest earthquakes known. Another very strong one hit near Charleston SC. For all we know, a currently though to be "least earthquake zones" may have an earthquake next month that is even bigger. I think it true that (to paraphrase from boxing jargon) The less often they come, the bigger they are.

Do you have anything bad to say about my suggestion that glassified disks with high-level, but long half life, isotopes concentrated to make disks have temperature of about that of boiling water simply be thrown from the stern of a ship, one at a time, every second in a changing arc pattern avoiding disk collisions, while ship "steams" over a deep ocean trench?

 

BAD idea! Saltwater is corrosive, and there is incredible pressure down there. Making a vessel to withstand these conditions would be incredibly difficult, and the results of a breach catastrohpic!

Best to put them in some nice dry cave, and forget about them.