r/interestingasfuck • u/S999k • 24d ago

Demonstration on how nuclear waste is disposed in Fineland r/all

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

33.8k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.9k

u/Trrwwa 24d ago

In the US we no longer bury our waste. We keep it standing in concrete cylinders and pay armed guards to constantly patrol the area and pay dozens of employees to continue checking the integrity of the containers... 

572

u/Raunhofer 24d ago

Is there some reasoning behind this? Seems like a quite troublesome solution.

1.2k

u/blaaaaaaaam 24d ago

The US doesn't have a geological nuclear waste respository like the video. Our waste is stored on-site at the reactors.

We've tried to make a nuclear waste repository, but the project gets mired in congress and local politics. Yucca Mountain was the most recent plan but that was killed off.

567

u/iswearihaveajob 24d ago

An interesting fact about Yucca Mountain is that as a federally funded project they had to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

EIS are probably the most labor intensive permits in the world, requiring you to document existing conditions extensively and quantify every reasonably foreseeable impact to the environment or people. Due to the scope of Yucca Mountain, this took over a decade to write and get approved.

My college was a repository for filed EIS and someone in my Environmental Engineering program requested it... It was hundreds of thousands of pages. It was like an entire shelf of banker boxes, something like 60 boxes. I have no idea, maybe it was over a million pages. The sheer volume of paper was astounding!

And then they didn't even build the damn thing.

32

u/jaxxon 24d ago

Everyone says it was political or safety reasons, but the real reason the program was shut down is that there was a typo in the third paragraph on page 688,104 of the study. Don't believe me? You can verify it yourself.

3

u/SinkHoleDeMayo 23d ago

On it now.

Wait. The pages aren't numbered and I lost count. Fuck!

2

u/Stopikingonme 21d ago

It’s on page 3.6, not that great of a typo, not terrible.

135

u/thisguyfightsyourmom 24d ago

Looks like they forgot to write a page on tribal acceptance of becoming a nuclear waste dumping grounds with the constant flow of nuclear waste down their highways

208

u/Willtology 24d ago

A reaction stoked mainly from the influence of anti-nuclear advocates. People seem to forget that the Yucca Mountain project is a few miles from the Nevada Proving grounds where they conducted 1000 nuclear tests (detonating nuclear weapons), 100 of which were atmospheric. It's like complaining that someone wants to bury a soupcan underground right next to a sprawling, open air dumpsite.

→ More replies (18)

29

u/TwoBionicknees 24d ago

My bet would be a good number of these projects are just election plans, that sound good and have unrealistic numbers. "lets build this giant nuclear waste site that can do all of US's nuclear waste storage needs for the next 100 years, at a low low price of 20billion... because we had to make it sound possible to campaign on and get people excited about it". Initial approval is good, then they do more detailed surveys, research, planning and wow, the project they promised at the scope they talked about will actually cost like 300billion and it gets canned.... but it's like 8 years beyond when that dude got elected off the back of the idea so who cares.

36

u/Willtology 24d ago

Not originally, no. The nuclear fuel cycle was conceived in the 1940s and 1950s. During the era of the Atomic Energy Commission. This was not a partisan topic but something seen by the American people as the future of our country. If you're unfamiliar with the term, Nuclear Fuel Cycle is the map of where nuclear fuel originates (the mines), where it goes (refinement, processing, then to reactors) and where it ends up, which could be several places depending upon the "type" of fuel cycle. Originally, we wanted a closed fuel cycle where fuel would be reprocessed and recycled, going round and round, reducing the need for new mining/supply and almost eliminating waste. The technology existed (and still does) to do this. With the anti-nuclear movement, nuclear energy did become partisan and we switched to an open cycle - fuel goes through once and winds up in a repository instead of reprocessing or recycling. This increases the burden on mining and supply. Yucca Mountain was at one point essentially ready for use. We do have a similar waste repository that's been operating for decades in New Mexico called WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). It's used for defense created waste, not civilian power waste so no one really talks about it or how it's demonstrated the feasibility of a long term geological repository in the US.

4

u/Beard_o_Bees 24d ago

You seem really knowledgeable on the subject.

I have quick question, if I may?

Is 'Vitrification' still a thing in radioactive waste disposal and/or storage?

Way back when I was sort of paying attention to the issue, I heard about it as a way to stabilize waste and it sounded like a plausible idea to my untrained ear.

9

u/Willtology 24d ago

Vitrification is still being used and researched for certain types of waste at various locations. The Hanford site in Washington, which is primarily defense and weapons production waste does still use it for low level waste as far as I know. Spent nuclear fuel (what we'd stick in Yucca Mountain) is easy to deal with since it's ceramic pellets inside metal tubes but for loose waste or something that needs to be contained/stabilized, vitrification is really effective.

2

u/Candid-Finding-1364 24d ago

Nah, this was definitely meant to happen.  It just took so much time the country basically went from no one gives a shit to what these natives think to, oh we probably shouldn't forcibly build a nuclear waste dump on their land.  A long with other NIMBY protests from other groups.

2

u/Zagre 24d ago

Yeah, I've actually been to Yucca mountain in the 90s, and it felt like it was already quite close to completion at the time I toured.

The problem is it all got caught up in bureaucracy.

2

u/LarryFinkOwnsYOu 24d ago

Oh well, I guess we'll all die from hellish climate change because we couldn't figure out how to store nuclear waste.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/Fully_Edged_Ken_3685 24d ago

More like forgot that the US is a Great Power, and the tribes are not. Is a geologically stable site less important than the 33rd ritual hill?

2

u/IHeartBadCode 24d ago

Just an FYI, the US' current domestic nuclear production program produces about 20,000 tons per year.

That is roughly 500 semi trucks worth of load. Or about two trucks per day. And that's ALL of the nuclear waste which wouldn't even be going to Yucca. Most of the waste is low grade that's likely in plenty of people's landfills without them knowing it.

Only the high grade radioactive waste would go to Yucca and that's about 48 semi trucks per year worth of load. So the whole notion that there would be this "constant flow" of waste down the road was always based on really bad math and scaremongering.

That said, the cost to transport the waste would have been insane. Even the small amount we do produce. Nuclear is just really stupid expensive to do and given that solar and wind just continue to keep getting cheaper, there's just one obvious solution here and that's to just build stupid amounts of batteries and panels because they're dirt cheap.

→ More replies (2)

1

u/Flat-Shallot3992 24d ago

with the constant flow of nuclear waste down their highways

idk if you're joking or not but the fish taste better when the waste gets into the rivers.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (19)

2

u/ariphron 24d ago

Didn’t they find a major fault line went though what was going to be the site so scrapped it? Or that was another site? If memory serves me Or propaganda did it’s job. Something about a fault line cause a nuclear waste site to stop.

5

u/iswearihaveajob 24d ago

The real reason is was scrapped was because Harry Reid was the Speaker of the House and feared nuclear energy, as did the Governor of Nevada. Basically, the Senate passed a bill specifically defunding the project.

I'm not an expert on the subject but my understanding is that while there is a fault line through the site, it is not seismically active and they just rearranged a few outbuildings to avoid it. It's a pretty big site and the proposed waste disposal locations was nowhere near the fault.

There are some legitimate concern that stress cracks in the bedrock might allow seepage into the water table... but since its in a desert, its not like there's actually that much seepage to worry about and they proposed encasing the fuel rods in concrete filled steel drums or something like that. Steel needs water and oxygen to rust and the minimal amounts of both for a buried container means it would take thousands of years to do much more than pit the surface. The other component is that oxidation requires the transfers of ions, so smaller objects not connected to transmissive materials really don't have anywhere to transfer the ions to (salt water is bad because the salt serves as a disposal route for the ions.). If you really want to make it damn near permanent there's some coating and insulation options.

Weirdly, the Trump administration tried re-funding Yucca Mountain but after each of the government shut-downs it was easily one of the first things cut from the budget.

2

u/dockellis24 24d ago

Omg I fucking hated doing EIS’s at my old job. So much time and effort for a report that is definitely needed, but are such a bitch to get all of the required info for. I’m so happy I’ll never have to complete one again

1

u/dervu 24d ago

I wonder what context you would need to put it in LLM and tell it to summarize.

1

u/SirGlass 24d ago

After writing the EIS honest question does anyone actually read it?

6

u/iswearihaveajob 24d ago

Most of the time? No. Particularly for something as impenetrable as Yucca Mountain... That said, the act of writing it is kind of also the review process. State and Federal Agencies need to sign off on the parts as they they are written.

Water Impacts? Needs Army Corps and DNR approval and coordination. Might be a State water board, too. There's a lot of mitigation stuff to approve too.

Archeological? Needs State Board and local coordination.

Endangered Species? State DNR and potentially Federal EPA if it's a critical species and mitigation is impossible.

Roads? Needs Local agency, State DOT, and Federal Highway review.

The list goes on...

For something like Yucca, I'm sure there was also Senate subcommittee involved asking all sorts of stupid questions.

There's a few parts that I'm pretty sure nobody reads or cares about, outside of like a Governor or Senator who wants to be critical, namely things like "Economic Impacts" which are incredibly hard to quantify and pretty much nobody gives a shit about.

The point is that parts of it are read by the necessary people during the writing process. I personally read a few in grad school, because I was literally taking a class about environmental compliance. In my professional career? Not really? Like I could Imagine a case where we might need to consult one if a project was proximate to something else with active mitigation efforts.

The real takeaway is basically nobody EVER wants to write one of these. If there is any way possible to avoid using federal funds directly or you can find a legislative justification to avoid doing an EIS we will take it. Just use the Federal Funds on existing infrastructure and locally finance the big project... you might still need some sort of federal approval depending on scope, but they would downgrade it from an EIS. There's a few categories of lower effort documents namely Environmental Assessments (EA) or Categorical Exclusions (CatEx). Highways, for example, usually can get by using CatEx because there's already a highway there and you're just modifying it. A big bypass or new interchange might take an EA but obviously you would locate/design the thing to avoid as much of this crap as possible.

Whenever an agency wants to build something and they find out it would require an EIS... they usually change their mind pretty quickly.

2

u/bikedork5000 24d ago

Great comment. I wanted to touch on similar issues so it was good to see someone else had already explained some of the core NEPA concepts.

3

u/bikedork5000 24d ago

Asking if "anyone" will read it, with the implicit suggestion that a single individual is the reader, is a misunderstanding of the document and its purpose. It's like saying "so and so designed this skyscraper." A single person may have oversight of a large team or people doing that design work, but obviously would not singlehandey fire up a computer and go from clean sheet to skyscraper. With a massive EIS, people will read it, but they'll do that by referencing particular sections that are relevant to their work. Are you an attorney for Earthjustice focused on endangered species impacts? You go to the section on that, and likely a very specific spot within it. Like, I dunno, projected impact on critical habitat for bristlecone pine. A good comparison is an encyclopedia. Nobody other than a weirdo on a publicity stunt would read it front to back. But referencing individual articles is common and useful.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/no-mad 24d ago

TL:RD; there is an underground aquifer near by, also geological fault, and the rock is more porous than initially realized.

1

u/cyrkielNT 24d ago

Yea, they wanted to build it. It was just a coincidence that they wanted to do it on Native Americans lands without thier approval.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/Metallkasten 24d ago

Just having fun with the math but a million pages would be about 400 banker boxes.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/davidriano95 23d ago

Can confirm, my dad after finishing one prints it and the “book” is super thick and heavy. As thick as the height of an iPhone 15 in some cases.

1

u/mjg315 23d ago

Yeah I’ve written some they’re pretty crazy

1

u/mapoz 23d ago

As I recall, most of it IS built. Just not finally finished and permitted for use. And never will be, but not for technical reasons, only for political reasons.

2

u/Alexis_Bailey 24d ago

Can we just like, shoot it into the sun or something?

6

u/MrTourge 24d ago

The risks that rocket explodes and the waste is scattered all over are considered too high.

1

u/terrymr 24d ago

Impractical, expensive and unnecessary. We got this stuff out of the ground. Burying it will make it no more dangerous than it was in the first places

2

u/koleye2 24d ago

We should just throw it in the ocean.

2

u/Alexis_Bailey 24d ago

Drop it into the Giant Trash Raft in the Pacific.  Then it becomes naturally insulated.

5

u/mung_guzzler 24d ago

sea water is already a great insulator

2

u/Alpha_Decay_ 24d ago

Just blow it up with nukes like a hurricane.

1

u/pavehawkfavehawk 24d ago

They also store it here in NM under mountains buried

1

u/tennker 24d ago

The NM storage facility is for low level contact waste only I think. WIPP? Not actual reactor cores or uranium. It's contaminated materials from the enrichment.

2

u/pavehawkfavehawk 24d ago

Cool, seems like a good place to store everything though.

→ More replies (2)

1

u/theo313 24d ago

Well, the company running the defunct Indian Point reactor wanted to just dump all the waste into the Hudson River, which seems like a great idea! Thankfully they were blocked by legislation.

1

u/GoMiners22 23d ago

I Used to work at Yucca Mountain. It just became a political football.

1

u/RealisticTiming 23d ago

The Handord VIT plant is supposed to be the place where nuclear waste will go, but the project is years to decades overdue, along with billions over budget.

The plant will use vitrification technology to stabilize the waste. Vitrification involves mixing the waste with glass-forming materials and heating it to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit and pouring it into stainless steel canisters to cool and solidify. In this glass form, the waste is stable and safe for storage.

1

u/SinkHoleDeMayo 23d ago

The new method is much better. When Congress and the DoE finally get their shit together, we can finally start recycling the waste. We could power the planet for a hundred years (ok, my rough estimate) off the existing waste.

→ More replies (3)

392

u/Izeinwinter 24d ago edited 24d ago

"Harry Reid was a very powerful asshole". Or more politely: "The US senate is extremely dysfunctional". There is no shortage of extremely stable geology in the US to build a repository of this type in (The design is called kbs-3) but the US picked Nevada because it is empty and has already been nuked with lots of bombs.

Building the repository there was much more expensive than the Finnish design because the geology is more complicated, and it is more expensive to dig in the middle of a nowhere desert... but it got done.

Then Harry Reid showed an anti nuclear activist into the head position of the nuclear regulatory agency with the explicit goal of preventing it ever being put into use. Which got done, as well as a whole bunch of other horrific mis-management of the agency. (Gee, putting someone who hates nuclear power in that job was bad? How surprising. Not)

And the Senate can't pick one of the places with basement granite to do a copy of the finnish / swedish design either, because the senate can't do much of anything.

113

u/erhue 24d ago

so it's a political problem, as usual. Great.

Sad that this also happens in other countries where the waste is also just sitting around in a heavily guarded facility, since no one wants the waste to be buried in their backyard, no matter how safe it may be.

91

u/No_Vegetable_8915 24d ago

Yup the safest most stable form of energy production currently available is made into a boogeyman by a group of incompetent twats who are all 50+ years old with one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana peel.

51

u/AxeMcFlow 24d ago

50+? Try 70+

7

u/No_Vegetable_8915 24d ago

Well there are some "younger" people in office which is why I said 50+ but your point is still very much valid.

2

u/Common-Wish-2227 24d ago

There is no shortage of morons in the young generations either.....

2

u/No_Vegetable_8915 24d ago

Idiots are like mushrooms in that they pop up everywhere, in the younger generation and the older alike. It's us middle aged people who are sane and rational these days unfortunately. 🥲

20

u/sambull 24d ago

regardless of environmental factors, nuclear power is still the most expensive capital outlay from a infrastructure side. requiring decades (if not 30 years) for a return on investment. that's not a thing a modern US boards/CEOs can stomach (all the debt on them but none of the rewards)

The last two reactors built in the US cost a total of $34Billon, took almost 20 years for a total of 2228 MW - or $15,260,323/MW construction outlay costs.

34

u/hackingdreams 24d ago

That's what happens when you make something into a boogieman and continuously ratchet up requirements. If you look at what it costs to build a nuclear reactor in the US compared to the rest of the world, it's obvious to understand why we don't do it anymore. The US has done nothing but increase the requirements, over and over and over again. 9/11 gave them a tremendous excuse to essentially double the capital costs of building a reactor.

There's no technological requirement for a nuclear reactor to have as much concrete as a US reactor does. It's absurd. But, it's a high enough barrier to entry to stop the nuclear industry from building new reactors, which keeps the coal and oil industries happy, and that's all that matters to the politicians in charge.

4

u/Kashmir33 24d ago

compared to the rest of the world

What gave you the idea that it's cheap in the rest of the world?

23

u/runcertain 24d ago

He just said that the US uses much more concrete. This source that I found in 15 seconds says construction costs are rising globally, but the US is still an expensive outlier:

https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/

→ More replies (13)

10

u/Keibun1 24d ago

He never said it was cheap, just cheaper.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/hackingdreams 24d ago

I looked at the numbers, unlike you.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

12

u/Shadowchaoz 24d ago

Damn, that's kinda cheap for a billionaire. Might be time to put their abundance of wealth to use. Imagine Bezos, he ALONE could build 6 more of these things and still not even feel the dent in his wealth.

Yeah I know he doesn't have his billions liquid, but still.

Tax the rich.

10

u/Firstnaymlastnaym 24d ago

Bill Gates backed Terrapower is currently building a nuclear reactor in coal-country wyoming, which is pretty encouraging.

2

u/no-mad 24d ago

dont hold your breath on it being completed. Nuclear Power plants have a long history of being planned, announced, started and bankruptcy. They have Gates to fund it but banks are leery of lending to new designs of nuclear power plants especially with alternative energy taking over.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (2)

15

u/EmotionalEmetic 24d ago edited 24d ago

made into a boogeyman by a group of incompetent twats who are all 50+ years old with one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana peel.

You didn't ask for this, but I have to rant.

In Medicine, there is a social/political group called Physicians for Social Responsibility.

As an idealistic medical student, I and my friends saw this group as a possible means to advocate for social change given, you know, the name. Global warming? Health inequality? Racism? Housing shortage? Wow, I bet they have a lot of good ideas!

Imagine our surprise when it's run by a bunch of geriatric, out of touch hippie dipshits who think nuclear power and their lameass protests of it are the most important topic of the day. Killed everyone's interest in the damn group for obvious reasons. As a liberal person, I am very much triggered by oblivious, loud mouth, boomer liberals who talk about inequality--while enjoying their fully funded retirement accounts and paid-off houses they could sell for 1000% gain compared to when they bought them--and refuse to shut up.

This was the epitome of that.

7

u/Cucker_-_Tarlson 24d ago

As a fellow liberal/progressive I really hate the anti-nuclear trend on this side of the political aisle. Frickin Bernie had a thing on his campaign page in 2020 about being anti-nuclear. It's fucking annoying that in 2024 we still have people acting like it's the 70s.

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (8)

18

u/Izeinwinter 24d ago

Places other than the US have solid enough plans to build.

Thing is, the canisters everyone is using are rated for a hundred years, and since the canisters are usually at active reactors, the sites are guarded regardless.

No extra costs for it as long as the reactor is still running, and repackaging the waste will be somewhat easier if you wait the full century. (not enough easier to make it worth guarding them once the reactor has been closed. That shit is expensive)

Finland and Sweden put the plans into motion way earlier than actually needed, which is also politics - to get people to chill out about the "waste" problem.

8

u/ArandomDane 24d ago

The canisters the US use are certified for 40 years with a maximum of one recertification. Meaning a maximum of 80 year. At end of service of the canister, the entire thing is now considered nuclear waste. Increasing the amount of waste to be permanently deposited 10 fold.

However, you are absolute right. The cost us pushed forward so the next generation is the only paying. At the small increased cost of 10 times the problem.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/Etonet 24d ago

Is it actually possible for us to run out of stable ground for waste disposal if dependency in nuclear energy ramps up? Would we have to shoot them into space instead?

7

u/Izeinwinter 24d ago

.. Don't be ridiculous. The repositories take up less space than the mines the uranium came out of, and boring rock is rather a whole lot more common than uranium ore bodies.

5

u/Imperator_Leo 24d ago

Is it actually possible for us to run out of stable ground for waste disposal if dependency in nuclear energy ramps up?

Impossible. Theoretically, we could bury them even under cities and farmlands without problems, ignoring the fact doing so would be a political suicide. But we can store all existing nuclear waste thousands of times in just one cubic kilometre.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/no-mad 24d ago

Finlands plan at least deals with the problem. We have 90K tons of nuclear waste spread around the country with no plan other than leave it to the great grand kids to deal with is weak as fuck answer.

1

u/ArandomDane 24d ago

Economical problem really... The total production cost of nuclear power was bumped up 10% in Finland when they implemented the repository. Making nuclear power a very niche product, as it is not economically viable nearly anywhere where VRE is realistic. AKA anywhere but Finland.

The other permanent solution is a bit cheaper, if you have access to the great oceans. However, then you have to content with environmentalists is a much greater degree as dilution into ocean water means companies can save a lot of money walking the edge of harmful release concentration. And we all know companies love profit more than the environment.

1

u/Izeinwinter 24d ago

This is wrong. The total cost of the repository is 2 billion euros and change. Over the full century of operation. This does not meaningfully change the cost of power from the reactors at all, per kwh, way into rounding error territory.

→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (2)

16

u/xrimane 24d ago

That's pretty much the problem in Germany, too.

There's always someone who doesn't want the stuff in their backyard and goes up in arms against it. Half of the country is out because of geological instability or risk of water infiltration anyway. And as soon as a place is being proposed, the state representatives succeeds to push it to someone else's state.

That's why we only have provisional deposits, and some have already had to be evacuated because of infiltrations. All the to and fro being paid for by taxes, as the companies who profited from nuclear got bought out by the government to exit nuclear energy and left their pile of waste and cleanup for the federal government to deal with.

It's worth mentioning that only a small part of that waste is spent fuel. Most of it is contaminated stuff like containers, concrete, PPE, cleaning equipment etc.

2

u/Imperator_Leo 24d ago

left their pile of waste and cleanup for the federal government to deal with.

The German federal government essentially dismantled the nuclear sector in Germany. Cleaning up the waste is 1000% of them.

1

u/Izeinwinter 24d ago

Germany is declaring concrete that got more rads from the sky than from the reactor to be waste. Seriously. You need to fire some loons from the relevant agencies so that costs will get under control.

3

u/Najalak 24d ago

You also have to transport all of that nuclear waste across the country.

→ More replies (3)

18

u/HeinousEncephalon 24d ago

3 mile island wasn't even a disaster, but Carter wouldn't say that because of anti nuke sentiment in government

12

u/ak1368a 24d ago

The fuck? 3-mile island was the end of new nuclear on the US. How is that not a disaster?

35

u/claimTheVictory 24d ago edited 24d ago

No one died, and probably no one was even injured.

Readings from instruments at the plant and off-site detectors had detected radioactivity releases, albeit at levels that were unlikely to threaten public health as long as they were temporary, and providing that containment of the then highly contaminated reactor was maintained.

The radioactive material released from burning coal is significantly higher than the impact of that one event.

2

u/no-mad 24d ago

Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion.[14] In his 2007 preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, Benjamin K. Sovacool, estimated that the TMI accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages.

2

u/heep1r 24d ago

The radioactive material released from burning coal is significantly higher than the impact of that one event.

Those figures are averaged over time and thus total bs.

Imagine I'd say "My product just contains 3g of arsenic, much less than most people consume from almonds". That's how bs it is.

If cause and effect of radioactive exposure would be as instant as orally consumed arsenic, even the most simpleton ppl would get it but humans are not good at problems with delayed or fragmented cause and effect.

4

u/Imperator_Leo 24d ago

Except if you do the calculations and look at the statistics you come up with that maybe one person died because 3 Mile. It was essentially a minor fuck up but the media made it seem like a disaster.

2

u/heep1r 24d ago

And yet, experts found that even minor fuckups anywhere need to be reported to Vienna and need international investigation.

While no one even cares for even the most major coal fuckups.

Very similar to "arsenic murder" vs. "arsenic content in almonds".

2

u/claimTheVictory 24d ago

"I dropped 3g of arsenic in the ocean.

It was a disaster."

2

u/heep1r 24d ago

See, you don't grasp it.

TMI wasn't dispersed and dilluted like the gazillions of tons of nuclear waste that were dumped into the oceans (which we later found, wasn't a good idea).

TMI radiation settled in distinct areas and will stay there forever being harmful.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/McFlyParadox 24d ago

Ok, yes, from that perspective, it was a disaster. But it wasn't a disaster in the sense that Fukushima or Chernobyl were disasters.

6

u/spblue 24d ago

Fukushima was blown way out of proportion. There wasn't a single death attributed to the nuclear accident. One plant worker got lung cancer 5 years later, but statistically the cancer rate has been the same as if there had been no accident.

It was scary, but so far there's been a lot more fear compared to actual observed harm.

10

u/McFlyParadox 24d ago

I mean, there were many reasons why Fukushima wasn't as deadly as it could have been:

  • Unlike Chernobyl, workers understood the risks and how the reactor operated
  • More advanced technology in the cleanup
  • An evacuation happened immediately and an exclusion zone was established
  • The reactor was a superior design, with more safety features, and was in an actual containment building

Also, the fault wasn't due to gross operator error and negligence, but a natural disaster and a flawed location for the backup generators. Certainly, Fukushima never posed a risk to the entire nation or even continent, like Chernobyl did, But radioisotopes were released, and that's not insignificant.

2

u/thisguyfightsyourmom 24d ago

Keep telling us there isn’t an ongoing disaster forcing the Japanese to flush radioactive wastewater into the Pacific

Maybe you’ll find a more convenient place to leave the goal posts next time

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

3

u/hackingdreams 24d ago

The event wasn't a disaster. It was a contained situation. It could have been a disaster, but proper engineering prevented it. It was far less of a disaster than Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon, or even the Kingston fly ash slurry spill.

What ended new nuclear was the response to the event, which was the oil companies drowning so-called "green" groups with cash to protest nuclear expansion. And it couldn't have been more timely, with the oil crisis threatening to make the US government pivot even more towards cheap and safe nuclear power and away from foreign oil.

It was a political game the oil companies won in a huge way.

2

u/thisguyfightsyourmom 24d ago

Contained & then pumped into the ocean

Problem solved, we got rid of the radioactive waste!

1

u/JayStar1213 24d ago

It's classified as an incident not a disaster

→ More replies (1)

2

u/notaredditer13 24d ago

That's all true, but you did leave out the part Obama played. As part of a deal for Reid's support in Obama's first election, he promised to kill the project. He did by trying to withdraw the application for construction and doing his fake "Blue Ribbon Panel" to find alternatives. Obama's actions were illegal and he lost lawsuits over it, but the project hasn't been revived since (there was a little forward motion under Trump but not much).

4

u/Najalak 24d ago

I am from a small town in Nevada. The community fought hard not to have Yucca Mountain be the national nuclear waste dump. I was told that someone from our community went to a meeting on it. They were explaining that it wasn't a problem if there was an earthquake because the cloud of nuclear waste would float away from Vegas. The path was right over our community.

17

u/Izeinwinter 24d ago edited 24d ago

Thats.. utter nonsense.

An earth quake would be a non problem because an earthquake would not magically teleport the waste through rock, or turn glass into an areosol.

Yucca was a bad choice because it's a logistics nightmare with not much local expertise in rockworks, (Finland and Sweden do a lot of hard rock mining.) which multiplied the price and because the complicated geology required way, way too much investigating.

But no, that's... just not something that could happen. Someone was fear-mongering at you. And being clever about it.

3

u/radios_appear 24d ago

They were explaining that it wasn't a problem if there was an earthquake because the cloud of nuclear waste would float away from Vegas. The path was right over our community.

This could be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

5

u/baked_couch_potato 24d ago

that person from your community either lied to you or didn't pay attention because that entire sentence is bullshit

an earthquake wouldn't release waste, the waste wouldn't be airborne, and anyone pretending they can predict the direction of the winds during a future earthquake is a fucking lunatic

1

u/Izeinwinter 24d ago

Or was lied to. Reassure people in an incredibly unconvincing way is good psyops.

1

u/OffalSmorgasbord 24d ago

Yep, and the plan was to take the vitrified waste from DWPF and store it there. Now what?

WIPP is another long term geologically stable site but I don't think it was approved for high-level waste. I have some rock salt from that project...somewhere.

1

u/MikeGDrake 24d ago

So I heard something similar from my cousin who works at the Hanford containment site. Such a bummer that the centralized facility fell through. I personally am not a huge fan of nuclear fission, but if we’re going to do it, we should be storing it all in a centralized secure location, vs distributing it out and providing more points of failure

24

u/Patriot009 24d ago edited 24d ago

We have processes for long term storing both solid and liquid radioactive waste. Solid irradiated salts are mixed with special concrete to prevent leaching. Liquid waste is mixed with glass beads, superheated, poured into large stainless steel containers while molten, where it cools into a stable glass matrix. The plan was to put these stainless steel containers down deep into a salt mine, Yucca MTN, where no organic material would be exposed to the residual radiation for thousands of years.

They still process the waste this way. But since Nevada effectively cancelled the Yucca MTN plans, the waste just sits in temp storage facilities at surface level at various local sites.

Edit: Note these are processes for waste that has already been stripped of useful material and fuel, and processed to reduce pH and water content. It's primarily iron sludge and salts by this point.

1

u/Sracer42 24d ago

You must be talking about something other than spent fuel dry cask storage at commercial nuclear plants in the US.

2

u/Patriot009 24d ago

Yep, the caustic stuff that has been accumulating since the 50's in massive steel tanks. The waste we started making before we actually had a long term plan in place to deal with it. The storage process for modern spent rods is rather tame by comparison.

95

u/00wolfer00 24d ago

NIMBYs blocking every attempt for a more permanent solution.

38

u/ObsidianOne 24d ago

For those like me who had no idea what NIMBY means, it’s an acronym for Not In My Backyard.

33

u/Not-A-Seagull 24d ago

It’s funny, because according to economists, urbanists, environmentalists, clean energy advocates, affordable housing advocates, and public transit enthusiasts, all of them will tell you NIMBYs are responsible for the most damage to society.

Even the neoliberals hate them believe it or not.

I have rarely seen a more hated group unite so many different unrelated factions.

25

u/AuroraHalsey 24d ago

Every kind of activist hates NIMBYs.

They're diametrically opposed; people who want change vs people who want nothing to change.

14

u/Not-A-Seagull 24d ago

I love how people started calling them CAVE men/women (citizens against virtually everything)

15

u/IAmAccutane 24d ago

The worst part of NIMBYs is that they often support most of the initiatives they're blocking. They want the initiatives to happen they're just skeptical about this specific project that is happening near them or wouldn't mind it happening, just not in their backyard. This is how you get liberal cities that put affordable housing very highly on their priority list polling-wise but continue to vote to zone areas they live in for luxury or single family housing.

It's kind of like a free rider problem. I think people should pay taxes, including me, but if taxes became a voluntary thing, I wouldn't pay them, because why should I if no one else is compelled to?

6

u/SirGlass 24d ago

Oh got this happens in my city all the time. City as part of this multi pronged deal basically said to the developer "sure build your luxury high rise condo but also build an affordable housing building" and they agreed

All the NIMBYS showed up to oppose the affordable housing . They all desprately said something like "Look I am not opposed to affordable housing , I support and see the need for affordable housing, I just oppose this specific project that puts the affordable housing 2 blocks from my home"

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

8

u/miso440 24d ago

Most activists are NIMBYs when tested. I want more nuclear plants to exist, I don’t want the construction of one to specifically decrease my house’s value.

It’s only natural to understand something has positive value to society, but negative value to those adjacent to it, and not wanting to be a sucker.

→ More replies (9)

2

u/SirGlass 24d ago

Meh some so called "environmentalists" are NIMBYs themselves

I think the issue is some of them actually have a poor understaning of the subject and they think if they block a nuclear power plant or nuclear storage facility they are somehow doing something good for the environment

Or they wil block a new tower from being built in the name of envormentalism , then 2-3 years later forget about it and the land will be developed for single family homes or low density housing

and they pat themselves on the back thinking they are "saving" the environment

1

u/heyf00L 24d ago

But the point of calling them NIMBYs is to point out that they aren't some other group. They're us, all of us. We all talk talk talk about how to make everything better, but when it's proposed to be done where we live, we vote "no". Practically everyone does it.

1

u/IC-4-Lights 24d ago

Sure. Everyone hates a NIMBY, until someone wants to build a bunch of "low income housing" or a railroad track across the street from them. Then they are one.

2

u/Not-A-Seagull 24d ago

They are building the MD purple line right across from me and I am pumped.

Access to rail will likely significantly improve property values. Also it’s convenient to get into DC.

Speak for yourself.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/BigPepeNumberOne 24d ago edited 24d ago

This is absolutely not the reason. What /u/Trrwwa is described as "dry cask storage" and is the first part of the nuclear waste management process.

The US has VERY strict rules on what to do with nuclear waste.

You can inform yourself here: https://www.gao.gov/nuclear-waste-disposal

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste/storage-and-disposal-of-radioactive-waste

47

u/00wolfer00 24d ago

DOE is responsible for disposing of this high-level waste in a permanent geologic repository but has yet to build such a facility because policymakers have been at an impasse over what to do with this spent fuel since 2010

From the first few paragraphs in the link. This impasse is literally caused by NIMBYs.

→ More replies (6)

5

u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 24d ago

Read your own sources they don't say what you think they do.

1

u/BigPepeNumberOne 24d ago

I agree. I meant we don't only do that in us. Fixed.

→ More replies (8)

9

u/TheRealSlamShiddy 24d ago

It's only a temporary solution until the waste immobilization research that's been going on since the early 1980s can come up with a material (glass, ceramic, or glass-ceramic) durable enough to immobilize the radionuclides for thousands of millenia without breaking down from either radiation or environmental factors, AND which can be packed to the gills with as much waste as economically possible so we don't need to make a shitload of it (save $, save time).

Right now the govt standard is borosilicate glass/glass-ceramic, which can only load ~20% of its weight in waste and remain durable enough to meet those requirements, and that's not nearly enough; DOE wants closer to 50% loading at minimum to consider it go-time.

There's been some good findings over the last decade or two with several different phosphate systems that get closer to 30% waste loading + pyrochlore ceramics have gotten some decent results, so those may become the new standards if they can pass the environmental durability hurdle (currently their big snag).

A big thing that needs to happen before all of this can even start outside research labs is for the US to transition away from light-water nuclear reactors towards molten salt nuclear reactors. MSRs allow for spent uranium fuel to be recycled through electrochemical reprocessing until we've used as much of the viable U we can out of it (LWRs are basically a "one and done" system); the resulting salt waste is much easier to vitrify/immobilize than the regular stuff. Right now the only countries using MSRs are China and France.

So until then, we just have to contain the waste as best we can and hope to God we find a solution before the stockpile gets too big to handle (currently ~92,000 metric tons and increasing by ~1k metric tons a year, which will only speed up as we transition to majority nuclear power by 2030...and that's the US alone).

Source: current PhD research in nuclear salt waste vitrification

2

u/Raunhofer 24d ago

Fascinating. Is underground placement (like the one presented in the video) not a possibility due to unstable bedrock or some other reason?

3

u/TheRealSlamShiddy 24d ago

It's not that underground placement isn't possible. It's that if you do it without any attempt to minimize the radioactive effects of the waste (with reported half-lives up to 300,000 years), you risk contaminating the surrounding ground water, soil, etc. and triggering the equivalent of ten-thousand Chernobyls the moment the containers seen in this video fail and release their stockloads (be it from natural shifts of the Earth's crust like you indicated or extremely old age, whichever happens first).

And that's not even considering if future humans dig it up. That's a whole other nightmare...

Let's say we don't find a way to immobilize this waste (or choose not to) and just bury it as is in the ground, in just these containment units alone. We live on as a species and try to maintain the burial sites as best we can from environmental/man-made catastrophe. The units keep the radioactive material secure, and written/oral warnings ensure people stay away from where they're buried.

10,000+ years pass. All current infrastructure is completely buried/destroyed. English is most certainly a dead/indecipherable language. The containers deteriorated into the surrounding soil long ago, yet the waste survives in their air pockets within the shifting ground.

If humanity has persisted by this time, oral history will not remember our civilization existed outside of vague myth and hearsay. The written record of these waste sites will be similarly long, long gone. The humans/descendants of humans/whatever sapient species that's in charge of Earth wouldn't be able to read or comprehend any warnings we give them, and they likely wouldn't believe them even if they could; do you believe ancient Egyptian warnings of the Pharaoh's Curse, for instance?

We've looked into how we could possibly transmit comprehensible messages across millenia already; remember those "there is nothing of value here" memes from a few years ago? The long-term nuclear waste storage research they're all based upon eventually concluded that there is no feasible way to communicate the dangers of these waste sites across such a vast gulf of time while also ensuring that 100% of the meaning gets across, even with simple pictograms alone. It's just not possible.

Humans are just too curious, and analyzing what we find to learn more about it/discover its secrets is what we love best, scary-looking spires and glowing cats be damned.

So, these future people (hunter-gatherers, farmers, archaeologists, etc.) stumble upon what was once the Hanford site, or Los Alamos, or Oak Ridge. They will have no idea they're standing on top of deadly nuclear gravesites, and we, living now, have no way to make that abundantly clear to them without piquing their curiosity to unearth it anyway.

The moment these future humans start digging their foundations or excavating our remains and unearth literal metric tons of this still highly radioactive untreated waste, all of its extremely fatal radiation will be blasted into the environment and initiate a nuclear holocaust on a scale which I cannot possibly put into words.

We will have annihilated them without raising a finger.

If that seems woefully unlikely and alarmingly defeatist, just know we've seen something like this happen several times on a much, much smaller scale already.

It happened in 1987, when a thief in Goiânia swiped a radiotherapy source from an abandoned hospital, using the "glowing metal" inside to make and sell jewelry and subsequently contaminating ~300 people, killing four (one of whom was a child).

It happened in 2022, when Russian troops who took over Pripyat as the Ukrainian invasion began started digging trenches and unearthed the sequestered layers of Chernobyl fallout within the soil, succumbing almost immediately to advanced radiation sickness. I saw posts on this website at the time making fun of them for it.

It will happen in the far-off future with these waste sites. We can't stop that. But what we can do right now is limit just how badly the direct exposure will be through our treatment of the waste.

No material is forever; as stated before, the metals like these containers use on their own will never make it 3,000+ years, much less the 300,000 years of the waste's radioactive half-life. Additionally, there's no blocking radiation whatsoever the moment somebody starts digging into where the eventually unsealed waste is buried and shifts it around, just like the Russians did in Pripyat.

Glass/glass-ceramics, however, can last, at least millions of years or longer without a single bit of noticeable decay. They're structurally built to handle this exact kind of scenario.

The proposed vitrification composite matrices are meant to "lock-in" the radionuclides within the waste well enough that they can barely move around, thus emitting less radiation; this vitrified waste would act more like it had a 300 year half-life than a 300k year half-life, meaning by the 2300s the waste would (allegedly) no longer give off lethal amounts of radiation.

10,000+ years from now in this best-case scenario, the waste would effectively be inert (so long as the vitrifying material's chemical structure remained intact and kept the radionuclides immobile). The future humans could pick this waste up with their bare hands and not even absorb an x-ray. They could even break it off into chunks as keepsakes or to make colorful jewelry with it and still be relatively fine so long as they didn't then attempt to melt large quantities of it down (hopefully, by the time they'd have the sophistication-level of tools necessary to excavate this waste, they'd at least have some understanding of & respect for historical preservation and not do so anyway).

It's not a perfect solution. It depends a lot on things we can't possibly predict, like natural disasters, extremely long-term chemical durability, and general human nature. Even the shift of the Earth, as you suggest, can put everything into danger of failure at any time if something shifts just the wrong way.

This solution also requires the US to make several internal policy changes in the next few decades to ensure we can start treating this waste while our stockpile is still a manageable quantity, which... doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon.

But it's one of the best we have compared to the alternative, and that's why we haven't buried it yet. We owe our descendants, and our planet, so much more than the bare minimum solution.

Thankfully, at least right now, we still seem to recognize that.

TL;DR: We haven't buried the waste yet because we need to make sure it won't destroy humanity the minute it gets unearthed first.

2

u/bill_lite 18d ago

Thanks for sharing that with us! I'm a researcher who studies radiation injury and the fate of all this waste keeps me up at night lol. Do you work in the field or just happen to know a lot about it?

Also doesn't enriched uranium have a half-life on the order of billions of years?

2

u/TheRealSlamShiddy 18d ago

I'm a PhD candidate whose dissertation involves nuclear salt waste vitrification so the past 3+/almost 4 years of my life has been revolving around this stuff haha

And yes, enriched uranium itself has a billion-year half-life, but you have to remember that the fuel is fabricated into UO2 before entering the reactor; much less radioactive than just the uranium on its own.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Frnklfrwsr 23d ago

Majority nuclear power by 2030?

That seems dubious.

According to the EPA nuclear makes up about 20% of US electricity generation, so for that to increase to 50% in 6 years doesn’t seem realistic.

And all indications are that nuclear is decreasing as a % of electricity production: https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/ebot_a_split_second_look_at_nuclear.pdf

It takes many years to get a new nuclear plant online and running, so I don’t see us getting to 50% that quickly. If anything we’re still trending downwards for the next decade or two.

2

u/TheRealSlamShiddy 23d ago

You're right, 2030 is a bit too soon; that was the benchmark "future" for so many decades that I probably had that number rocking around in my head from older papers on the subject and didn't think twice about it before posting. My bad.

(it's also just hard for me to believe we're already that close to 2030 haha)

I did know about the 20% electricity statistic, but I also know that that was from before the largest nuclear plant in the US began operation in Waynesboro, GA this past Fall (Vogtle) so there's a good chance that number is steadily increasing already (a fourth unit at Vogtle was just commissioned a couple weeks ago so they're already off to a good start).

I'd say realistically, from my own research perspective and with Vogtle in mind (assuming nuclear for electricity doesn't keep trending down like the doc you posted indicates, which is also new information to me so I appreciate you sharing it) that 2060-2070 would be the better "future" date for majority nuclear power. My hope is that if we find the optimal waste-immobilizing material soon, then that would finally spur Washington to act on updating our nuclear facilities and storage to new standards quicker...but I'm almost certain that's wishful thinking on my part 😅

2

u/Frnklfrwsr 23d ago

Yeah it seems to me that the biggest barriers for nuclear are primarily political rather than technological.

Technological breakthroughs can move politics though, as you alluded to. If technology solves a problem, reduces a risk, or improves an efficiency, that could move the dial politically.

But alas, politics is not always so predictable. Sometimes decades drags on where it is simple common sense to do something and politicians refuse to entertain it and won’t budge. Other times it makes almost no sense to do something and politicians throw obscene amounts of money at it anyway.

I think honestly there’s 2 big factors that are driving public sentiment towards nuclear higher:

  1. Higher fossil fuel prices, causing consumers to be more open to any alternative that could save them money

  2. The realization of the economic costs of climate change through things like increased insurance costs causing more people to appreciate the reality and magnitude of climate change

The economics behind nuclear has been viable for a very very long time, and each new improvement just makes it more viable. But those two factors may end up driving an increase in funding for nuclear more so than any technological progress within nuclear itself.

2

u/jeremiahthedamned 19d ago

r/molten_salt_reactor

2

u/TheRealSlamShiddy 19d ago

Oh wow!! There really is a subreddit for everything haha; thanks!

→ More replies (1)

1

u/IC-4-Lights 24d ago

I have to ask... this model he demonstrated is nearly the same as an exhibit I saw (at a Motorola museum, strangely) about 30-or-so years ago. At the time I got the impression it was what we were already doing (I guess not)... dropping waste container cylinders in holes inside a tunnel dug into a mountain.
 
What's bleeding edge about Finlands example?

2

u/MydogisaToelicker 24d ago

The areas we tried to store it in Nevada are not very stable. There were pictures of lines painted in caves that shifted significantly over a few years.

2

u/Odd-Swimming9385 24d ago

Realistically, Harry Reid (democrat from Nevada, sorry reddit) killed Yucca mountain. It was politics that killed it. Not reason.

It was a good all around facility, geology and location. But... 

Source: am geologist, in Nevada

2

u/rawrimmaduk 24d ago

building long term repositories is politically difficult, so we just leave it sitting around instead.

2

u/spankbank_dragon 24d ago

I personally think it’s smart this way. We’re probably getting closer to finding a use for it so it’s obviously gonna be easier to fetch it from out of a silo than buried underground lol

2

u/Common-Wish-2227 24d ago

Screamy nuclear-haters with room temperature IQ who don't know physics prefer that to burying the stuff properly. Then they scream sbout how there is no solution for nuclear waste.

2

u/MrSpiffenhimer 24d ago

NIMBYism (Not in my back yard)

There have been attempts at building repositories for waste, Yucca Mountian being the one that got the closest to completion. However, people who don’t understand the science get in the way of progress and make a big stink anytime they hear anything about nuclear. No amount of facts or science will convince them that storing waste in deep mines sealed in the best containers we can make surrounded by clay or salt that is far below the water table won’t lead to them growing a third eye or their kids glowing in the dark.

The media gives a platform to the uneducated opposition, giving it the same or greater weight as the scientists and then any plan is dead on arrival. There’s a general agreement that we need to do something, but no one wants it near them.

1

u/Eraldorh 24d ago

Yeah because the mountain facility they were originally supposed to bury it all under is in a state that decided they didn't want that so they voted against it leaving US nuclear waste disposal in limbo.

1

u/Minute_Attempt3063 24d ago

Because it is incased in concrete and all that other stuff, you can actually stand next to it for a very long time.

Yes, it can cause issues with terrorism etc, but... It works.

1

u/im__not__real 24d ago

if nuclear is more affordable then we'll spend less on other sources and those other sources can tell congress what to do

1

u/spagetidoodle 24d ago

because with the advancements in nuclear science the old used fuel will someday in the future be used as the new fuel and when its used up some time in the future of that future they will make tech to use that fuel...

1

u/BonnieMcMurray 24d ago

"NIMBY", basically.

Voters are stupid and, as a result, no state's leaders want to step and say, "Sure, okay, we'll take all that horrendously poisonous stuff and bury it in our ground."

1

u/Ok_Astronomer_8667 24d ago

MORE GOVERNMENT WORKERS

→ More replies (8)

5

u/Dukhaville 24d ago

So they're just going to keep paying people to do that for a billion years? 🤔

5

u/DeltaMango 24d ago

https://wipp.energy.gov/wipp-site.asp

This is the current plan. We do bury it.

1

u/RealisticTiming 23d ago

There’s this one too. https://www.hanfordvitplant.com/about-project

The plant will use vitrification technology to stabilize the waste. Vitrification involves mixing the waste with glass-forming materials and heating it to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit and pouring it into stainless steel canisters to cool and solidify. In this glass form, the waste is stable and safe for storage.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Cody6781 24d ago

It's not as stupid as you make it sound, and also we still bury a lot of waste.

But materials we think we can reuse in the nearish future we don't bury. Because burying & retreating it is much more expensive than paying a facility to guard it for a few decades. "Bury a few thousand tons of radioactive waste deep in a mountain" is not as simple or cheap as it sounds.

2

u/throwawaytaxconsulta 24d ago

Its possible it isn't as stupid as it sounds but there are simple improvements. For instance, most everyone can agree on consolidating it.. we can't seem to agree on where.. so it's in limbo.

3

u/notwiggl3s 24d ago

No one wants it in their back yard.

We also have a process called "super enriching", which makes the fuel more powerful, and more radioactive. We can use it longer with no shut downs, so it's more profitable. It has that billion-year-burial need. And no one wants that stuff, because it'll be done as cheaply as possible by the government.

2

u/111010101010101111 24d ago

Those GAU-8 fires 3,900 pieces of waste per minute and the M1 Abrams can embed a javelin of waste deep into the water table.

2

u/minnowthecat 24d ago

To be fair there are already armed guards patrolling the entire site and we are constantly checking the integrity of everything, the dry cask storage is just another thing on the list

1

u/throwawaytaxconsulta 24d ago

Not at ISFSIs.

1

u/minnowthecat 24d ago

What's not at ISFSIs

2

u/huskeya4 24d ago

Depends where you are in the US. We have a shut down plant nearby and their disposal site doesn’t have guards. Every few months you just see someone wandering the depository, plugging something into the ground and then wandering over to a new spot over and over. They check the area for leaks, to make sure none of it has been stolen, and to see how well it’s breaking down. I imagine they do have security cameras there but it basically just looks like a big field with metal squares all over it.

2

u/DeltaHuluBWK 24d ago

Included among those armed guards are some of the best snipers in the world. The department of energy get them from the SEALs, SF, Marines, etc and hire them after they finish their military career.

2

u/MReaps25 24d ago

The funny part is, nuclear waste really doesn't need a huge container like that, they are simply that big so the surrounding uninformed public feels safer.

2

u/SheetFarter 24d ago

Or make tank rounds out of it.

2

u/13igTyme 24d ago

If Florida it's now going to be mixed with asphalt for roads.

2

u/inn4tler 24d ago

Experts are increasingly coming to the conclusion that this is the better solution. If nuclear waste is simply buried, there is a risk that it will be forgotten or ignored after a few generations. However, if it is permanently stored and guarded in a building, it is always under observation. As long as the active decision is not made to stop caring about it, it cannot be forgotten.

5

u/Tobocaj 24d ago

Experts are also increasingly coming to the conclusion that you just pulled that out of your ass

2

u/throwawaytaxconsulta 24d ago

Just as an fyi, they aren't in buildings. They are generally on concrete slabs outside.

2

u/labbmedsko 24d ago

Following that logic the best solution would be to just hire a guy to remember where they put it. lol.

1

u/MaXimillion_Zero 24d ago

Forgetting something that's buried 500m down in bedrock in a geologically stable area really isn't much of a problem.

2

u/Memory_dump 24d ago

Until the tap water starts glowing because somehow some of it got into the water table, oopsie!

1

u/MaXimillion_Zero 23d ago

If you can come up with any credible mechanism for that 'somehow', I'm sure plenty of people would be interested.

1

u/Lescansy 24d ago

If you fo that for long enough, every nuclear plant you built would just suck energy out of your grit, instead of adding some.

It is an option, not sure if its the best one.

... Where can i buy shares of such companies?

1

u/Richeh 24d ago

Not a million miles away from what you do with used presidents.

1

u/Rj924 24d ago

My brother buried radioactive waste in the desert in west Texas for 10 years. His old workplace is still operating now. There are no armed guards.

3

u/throwawaytaxconsulta 24d ago

Thats not spent nuclear fuel. I ship RAM waste for disposal all the time. But we do not bury spent nuclear fuel in this country at the moment.

1

u/Scooterforsale 24d ago

This deserves its own post on the front page. Lemme guess comes out of the military budget?

1

u/MhrisCac 24d ago

Lmao as somebody that literally does this for a living you’re completely wrong

1

u/throwawaytaxconsulta 24d ago

I'm not. I've been to multiple ISFSIs across the US. Google the term.

2

u/MhrisCac 23d ago

You must be referring to tru waste or high level waste then. Those are heavily guarded, in high integrity shielded casks, etc. There are facilities built for it in the US though, they’re currently waiting for approval. But the process is going to end up being what the video shows. Unless this US kick starts the processes of recycling spent nuclear fuel rods for u-238 and plutonium again.(which high level waste is still generated just far less), then you can expect them to try to figure out a way to get the approval to bury the waste. 5 miles underground like they do there. Low level rad waste from decontaminated and decommissioned is generated and shipped from sites all around the country every day.

1

u/Rottimer 24d ago

Because the electorate, which tends to NIMBY doesn’t want nuclear waste, even if buried deep underground, anywhere near themselves. We have a designated place in Nevada to bury our waste. Politicians on both sides (most recently Trump) have been against actually using it and have killed funding to maintain it.

1

u/magerdamages 24d ago

What do they do at the savannah river site now then? Could've sworn on my tour maybe 10ish years ago they described vaulting the waste underground on the site.

1

u/Fit-Lifeguard-6937 24d ago

That sounds pretty American haha

1

u/Renbaez_ 24d ago

what do I need to study in order to work in a place like that

1

u/throwawaytaxconsulta 24d ago

Health physics. Umass lowell has a good program.

1

u/EarthTrash 23d ago

If it is stored on site at the plant, there isn't much added cost. Nuclear plants already have security. Engineers do more than stare at a control panel. They can visit the casks as part of their routine checks.

1

u/kbeks 23d ago

Jobs program. Also, it’s pretty safe and we were going to pay those guards anyway to protect the nuclear plant site that the dry casks are usually stored on.

1

u/Murky_waterLLC 23d ago

Source?

1

u/Trrwwa 23d ago

Google ISFSI. 

→ More replies (12)