Nuclear waste containers will not work, say scientists (OZ)

[jpak]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/nuclear-waste-containers-will-not-work-say-scientists/2007/01/16/1168709754669.html

CERAMIC containers developed to "immobilise" highly radioactive waste may not prove durable enough to prevent the toxic material leaching into the environment, research published in Nature has found.

Certain kinds of nuclear waste stay highly toxic for tens of thousands of years, and scientists have sought ways of stabilising or capturing the radioactive elements long enough to allow the waste to degrade naturally.

Researchers at Cambridge University directly measured the radiation damage from nuclear waste to the ceramic containers and found they degraded faster than had been expected. The research team, led by Dr Ian Farnan, found radioactive waste could turn zirconium silicate, which the nuclear industry had hoped could safely store radioactive waste, into a less reliable material after 1400 years instead of the desired 250,000 years.

Some governments, including Australia's, have touted nuclear energy as a partial solution to climate change, but environmentalists and some scientists have argued the radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants creates a new set of environmental problems.

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[havocmom]

1. Anybody who insists those things are safe should offer their backyard for disposal of them!

Sick and tired of the western US being used as a toxic dump for shit Big Power Home Office back east tells is is perfectly safe

Solar

Wind

Water

but, No More nuke power. It's all been a lie that it is safe.

[sabbat hunter]

3. reprocess 'spent' rods

it is a huge misnomer to say the rods are 'spent' after a period of time. in reality thru reprocessing they can be reused as fuel again, some parts can be used for medical purposes.

with reprocessing the amount of waste drops tremendously.

nuclear needs to be used along with Wind, water, solar.

remember it is not always sunny. there are days when it there is no wind. and hydroelectric can cause problems of its own. silt doesnt go thru the dams, which causes problems at the mouths of rivers. fish cannot get back to spawning grounds. people can lose homes where the artifical lake is formed. if the damn breaks, leaks or there can be problems for people living down river.

[havocmom]

4. There are ways to store a 'sunny day'

Live near a big ol dam and not crazy about them either. Built long ago and not all kept up well so BIG POWER can cut corners and make more $$.

One source does not fit all, but nuke power? Doesn't fit the planet.

[sabbat hunter]

5. nuclear power

is used quite safely in france, a country with a strong green party presence. if used correctly, along with reprocessing, nuclear power can be a way to get us off fossil fuels.

[jpak]

7. France exploited its former colonies in Niger and Gabon to obtain its uranium

Those people did not benefit from those mines (many of which are now played out) and have had to deal with them after they were abandoned.

These are some of the poorest folks on Earth - how are they going to decommission these mines???

Is France helping???

Nope - they just switched to Canadian and Aussie yellowcake and said "bon chance" to Niger and Gabon...

[havocmom]

14. So, you're offering up YOUR yard to store the leftovers?

Cuz I am bloody tired of it being sent to MY backyard.

[jpak]

6. No, you still end up with enormous quantities of radioactive waste materials

The defunct commercial reprocessing plant at West Valley NY processed 640 tonnes of spent fuel and produced 600,000 gallons of high level liquid waste.

It will cost taxpayers $4-8 billion to dispose of this material.

One only has to look at Hanford Reservation and Savannah River Plant (which reprocessed irradiated uranium for plutonium) to see the magnitude of the problem that would be created if all US spent fuel was reprocessed.

Spent fuel reprocessing is also enormously expensive.

Japan's new reprocessing plant will cost >$20 billion (if it ever comes on line). It's years behind schedule and will produce Pu at $2000 per kg.

Spent fuel reprocessing is easier said than done...

[sabbat hunter]

8. check out wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing


the hanford reservation and the savannah river plants are old school reprocessing plants. the new ones recapture far more fuel.


look at the UREX, TRUEX, DIAMEX, SANEX methods.

the non aqueous method is especially a good way to go.

nuclear is not the complete answer, but it should be part of it.

[jpak]

9. Most of those processes are based on PUREX and who is going to pay for actinide burning???

The National Research Council estimated that actinide burning would cost >$100 billion to implement.

Also - to obtain those actinides, you will generate aqueous and organic liquid wastes (from PUREX or Spawn o' PUREX).

You still generate enormous quantities of high level liquid and solid wastes...

[sabbat hunter]

12. thats why

the non aqueous method is the best solution.


but thru any of the methods the resulting waste is lower in radioactivity and far lower in amounts of left over waste than thru what we do now.

[jpak]

13. Sorry - you need to use PUREX et al. to obtain the actinides BEFORE they can be transmuted.

You have to extract the plutonium and minor actinides BEFORE they can be incorporated into fuel to be processed in an actinide burner.

You cannot get around it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Duh!

God's test to mankind: Nuclear Energy. And He said, if thy uses the brain I giveth thee, thy will wait like a patient man before opening the secrets in this treasure before you. However, if you show no more wisdom than a greedy man, thy will doom your race to eternal hellfires.

[GliderGuider]

10. How exactly does nuclear power "doom your race to eternal hellfires"?

I would accept that as legitimate hyperbole if you were talking about oil and coal, but nuclear? Aside from that little unpleasantness in Japan and a clever-monkey problem in Russia, it's been extremely safe for both mankind and the planet, certainly in comparison to fossil fuels.

I agree that humanity is its own worst enemy. However that seems to be a self-correcting bug.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. We really haven't found a container to hold the shit long enough

to keep it safe until it goes inert. (or whatever the term is.) That means that all the nuclear waste we're creating, is a ticking time bomb for some unknown generation in the future.

[havocmom]

15. Yep. Can't contain it. Always happy to send it somewhere else

and keep sayin it's all safe

Fuck that! It isn't safe. The toxic shit left behind is not safe at all and I am tired of BIG POWER thinking the west is a nice little place to just drop it off and forget about it.

[NickB79]

16. Whatever happened to vitrification?

Containing it in solid glass cylinders that don't degrade seems preferable to metal or ceramic containers.

[jpak]

17. Vitrified waste leaches like crazy when exposed to ground water

The silica matrix progressively dissolves when in contact with ground water and releases any soluble material incorporated into it.

Radiation damage to the matrix accelerates leaching rates...

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v295/n5845/abs/295130a0.html

[Dogmudgeon]

18. Why not recycle it?

It seems like a reasonable solution.

Containment has worked pretty well, but we're only 50 years into it, not 1400. At least we know where the stuff is. Why not build reactors to recycle "hot" material?

We seem to have a double standard here -- with non-nuclear power, only the good news is presented, but with nuclear power, we take the word of the most pessimistic people in science and business. Yet we need to start making decisions based on most-likely outcomes. This isn't about SUVs and appliances, but about keeping the economic system functioning, and more importantly, being able to grow food.

--p!

[Nihil]

19. OK, I know I've had a few drinks but ...

... from my (slightly befuddled) memory, one of the problems of high level nuclear waste is
the waste heat ... why can't the cooling water used to regulate the waste be used in a heat
exchanger to heat up (non-waste) water? This secondary water could be used in the same way
(though smaller scale) as the warm water in (genuine) geothermal sites ... to keep the human
occupation buildings (or vegetable growth buildings) at a more comfortable temperature without
requiring fossil fuel ... if the heat exchanger worked at slightly lower efficiency and used
lead input pipes (rather than copper) then the radiation risk in the output water would be
almost non-existant. (Yes, I do realise that extreme anti-nuke people wouldn't count this as
"safe" but I'm trying to "save" as many as possible here).

Just a thought ... I know: "worth every penny you paid for it"!
:hi: