Posted on 01/26/2006 10:59:55 PM PST by neverdem
Mr. Joe'
I sadly left Slob due to family issues that required me to leave LA move back to IN.
Loved the Offshore rigs. Sigh.
'Bout d@mn time. Just I begin losing hope for Pres. Bush he pulls another good one out of the hat!
"Which is OK in today's climate."
Yes ...
"A couple of thousand years from now, if the roof leaks, so to speak, and the area gets significant rainfall, those hot containers might corrode away. I wouldn't want to be drinking from a well near that..."
and
"Some of those isotopes are nasty stuff, though."
This is true, but people make 2+2 = 5 when they put together "radiation that lasts for thousands of years" with
"some of this is highly radioactive".
Reality check: The longer the half-life, the lower the level of radiation. Then you have to consider the decay path; is it something nasty (high energy particle that can penetrate human body) or low energy. The radiation level in these casks is not constant; it goes down drastically year by year for a few hundred years to a level of very low radioactivity, radiation level that is many orders of magnitude smaller than the level of when it left a nuclear power plant.
All of the "hot" radoactive decay elements in nuclear waste have half-lives measured in days, years, or tens of years. After about 100 years, the radiation level is much much lower. The main source of radiation then is the transuranics (uranium, plutonium). Stuff like strontium and other elements would have decayed away.
Correspondingly, the very long half-life material has low level of radiation. (For example the human body has a half-life measured in billions of years - does that mean we are 'unsafe' for a billion years?)
So, if you wait 10,000 years for geology to change and Yucca to actually get rainfall, etc. you'll find in the interim that the level of radiation danger is much reduced. They'll still have plutonium etc. and radiation, but the containers will be not that "hot" at all.
IMHO, the Yucca solution is vastly overengineered and well within what is safe, and the prospective claimed risks to it are not reasonably based on the facts.
"Waste disposal remains one of the key problems for nuclear power's engineers to overcome. When I was in grad school, no one in the world had a viable long-term solution. Yucca may be, then again, it may not."
Er, what Bush is announcing *is* in fact a reasonable solution to this issue.
--- this is a very WISE point. The issue with Iran today is that publicly they declare they want nuclear energy. Privately we know they want weapons. We need to give the world access to energy without the technology of weapons, and the way to do that is for nuclear powers like the U.S. be the 'nuclear fuel cycle' handler. France is already doing this for e.g. Japan. This is the path to proliferation-proof nuclear energy worldwide. It also helps us address any global environmental and terrorist risk issues. Far better for the U.S. to be tracking this than for other countries to be 'owning' it on their own.
In addition to that, it is a highly reactive and toxic heavy metal, even without radioactivity as part of the equation.
The problem is not the small amounts, but a concentration far beyond what would normally occur in nature. It may not take 10,000 years, either, the ice sheets were pretty much gone here in just a couple of thousand.
I agree with the concept that processing spent fuel to get more fuel does address the waste problem--it is the equivalent of recycling.
As I said, I am not against nuclear power. Processing 'spent' fuel currently in questionable storage areas is a good idea--more fuel, less waste to inter. In the short term this is a solution, but it is a remedy, and not a cure.
These are problems which need to be addressed, especially if we are going to expand our capability.
"Plutonium is slower to decay, and thus less active per microgram, but if enough is assembled, it is remains dangerous longer."
But we were talking about them being embedded with other material in well-sealed canisters in Yucca. It's not highly concentrated and in a stable environment. I dont see a scenario of the canisters being compromise as credible. These are huge thick-walled sealed things that are immune to huge pressure and temperature impacts, let alone what can happen inside a cold, dry mountain.
Go "Nucular" W!
;o)
It was rhetorical. They'd kill Bambi before they give Dubya credit for something.
Study shows Israeli elderberry extract effective against avian flu
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Do you mean you let us dispense all that wisdom for nothing? :-)
With so many nations fight for nuclear power, maybe we should just go with it and try to corner the market.
"And talking about the great religon that is Islam, I'm still waiting for my Achmed computer, or a "Mohamed Inside" chip. "
Funny!
Does that computer come equipped with a sharp knife to slice off someone's head if they type the wrong thing.
Or technology to make sure women wear a veil to operate it?
Wisdom spent is never for naught. Even a discussion where all parties agree can be envigorating and enlightening. ;)
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