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U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

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Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#101

Post by hnbear »

Someone wrote: post #50
Shivetya wrote: post #13

PDF of report done in 2013 [1] which basically says and leaks will rapidly dilute. The key to remember is the lagoon and surrounding areas are already far more polluted than what this dome may leak. Besides, if ever want a real scare go look at the maps for all the chemical munitions dumped in our oceans that we know about [2] - does not include normal munitions and such. So while it is a problem it is not the real p…

News from a few weeks ago https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/02/first-world-war-... : ”Deadly mustard gas has leaked from a First World War underwater “weapons cemetery” in the North Sea, close to the Belgian coast” Those were trace amounts, so there is not much immediate danger, but things can get worse. And for normal munitions, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messi... probably lists a…

And also -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

The Doomsday Wreck.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#102

Post by gjm11 »

DuskStar wrote: post #92
gjm11 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it could have exploded making a huge portion of the continent uninhabitable Some details and references for this would be nice. I find it hard to believe, though of course sometimes things I find hard to believe turn out to be true :-).

The area under the reactor core was filled with water, and if the corium (molten core material) had contacted that water it would have caused a steam explosion and launched additional material outside of the reactor building. There's an interesting StackOverflow post relating to this here: [0] That just deals with the size of the steam explosion though, not the potential effects. (And for reference, I've seen the lar…

The thing I'm skeptical about is the claim that this would have rendered a large part of the continent uninhabitable. The Stack Exchange discussion is interesting but (as you say) doesn't really bear on that.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#103

Post by DuskStar »

gjm11 wrote: post #102
DuskStar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The area under the reactor core was filled with water, and if the corium (molten core material) had contacted that water it would have caused a steam explosion and launched additional material outside of the reactor building. There's an interesting StackOverflow post relating to this here: [0] That just deals with the size of the steam explosion though, not the potential effects. (And for reference, I've seen the lar…

The thing I'm skeptical about is the claim that this would have rendered a large part of the continent uninhabitable. The Stack Exchange discussion is interesting but (as you say) doesn't really bear on that.

Yeah - worst case was 20x more radioactive material (well, I suppose no-seriously-wtf case would be 80x, but that requires the other three active reactors to have gone up as well) since at least 5% of the reactor core was released.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#104

Post by Bendingo »

tenpies wrote: post #29
_bxg1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote. As futile as it feels, that's all any of us can do.

It is futile because you think that the only country with this issue is the US. I can guarantee that China and Russia have similar if not worst storage problem - the difference is that the US allows this information to exist in the public. Even if those governments allowed the information to be public, what are you going to do, not for the Party/Putin? That sounds like a great way to win a free trip to Siberia or the…

> guarantee that China and Russia > for the Party/Putin

This thread has nothing to do with China/Russia/Putin etc. And yet, still somehow every discussion of US always requires criticism of Russia.

> trip to Siberia or the re-education

Please remember that USSR no longer exists.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#105

Post by Hydraulix989 »

erentz wrote: post #12

The US needs to go in and clean up this mess and should feel very obligated to move quickly on this, but is hasn’t. See also this article from 2015 [1] and folks may enjoy this video for the visuals of it [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pac... [2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=autMHvj3exA

They should also clean it up in my hometown's backyard:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/23/what-lies-beneath-numec...

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#106

Post by dang »

spraak wrote: post #68
Krasnol wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help stopping that currently wide spread nuclear hype and escort this technology to it's final retirement.

HN caveman hivemind: hooga hooga, nuclear good! GMO feed world!!

Could you please not post like this here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#107

Post by dang »

momerath wrote: post #22
_bxg1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote. As futile as it feels, that's all any of us can do.

That's exactly the belief those in power most want you to hold on to. Elections are a cruel joke. Build guillotines.

Please don't do this here.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#109

Post by 8bitsrule »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #65
ehnto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see why solar isn't now the leading candidate. Nuclear is cool and all, but the simplicity of a butt-tonne of solar in a field can't be overlooked. It's not likely to fail catastrophically, maintenance is modular and low-impact. The skills needed are trades not degrees and if we can get the power output/battery/backup balance right, as a society we have clean, reliable energy indefinitely. I say that knowing…

Solar and nuclear are complementary technologies. Nuclear produces power at night when solar doesn't, solar produces power during the day when the demand is higher. It significantly reduces the amount of storage batteries you need, which is the primary impediment to using solar exclusively. Solar is also problematic during winter. We need to replace fossil fuels as a heat source, but when heating with electricity at…

Storage is easy for renewables, regardless of local geology, using already existing tech.

In many places, the winds blows powerfully at night. With a capable grid like the one China has build in the last 10 years, that energy can be efficiently moved a thousand miles.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#110

Post by wnkrshm »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #95
gaze wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that we have a decent idea of how to engineer things well. That's easy. Throw money and factors of 2 at it until the cows come home. That's not my concern. How do we know they'll actually do the proper engineering? How do we not have another Boeing 737 situation but for a nuclear reactor? I know as engineers we want to turn everything into an engineering problem but sometimes there are just humans who do…

Now you're asking a completely different question. It's not a matter of not knowing what to do, it's a matter of not doing it. But nothing about nuclear is unique in that regard. If you have incompetence then we get Deepwater Horizon, Bophal, companies dumping cadmium, lead, mercury, cyanide, nitrogen, phosphorous or acid in to rivers and groundwater, mining runoff, destroying rainforest, dam failures, basically the…

That is a very interesting point - would I rather live next to a DuPont chemical plant or a nuclear power plant? I think I would choose the nuclear power plant.

Edit: With the nuclear plant I at least have feasible means to monitor any danger by myself.

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