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Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

bbc.com

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Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#51

Post by ilyt »

xnx wrote: post #16
elif wrote: post #8

Personally I'm rooting for the future where a fleet of falcon 9's launch escape velocity stage 2's that head straight for the sun. Underground is nice until you get radioactive groundwater. The time cost of 100k years of maintaining safety seems more than the financial cost of maintaining a F9 fleet and disposing of second stages.

"...it's surprisingly hard to actually go to the Sun: It takes 55 times more energy to go to the Sun than it does to go to Mars. Why is it so difficult? The answer lies in the same fact that keeps Earth from plunging into the Sun: Our planet is traveling very fast — about 67,000 miles per hour — almost entirely sideways relative to the Sun. The only way to get to the Sun is to cancel that sideways motion." https://ww…

use solar sail to break into the sun ?

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#52

Post by pdonis »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #21
PinguTS wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burying things in the ground is not a solution. It's more an Ostrich policy.

Lots of scientists disagree strongly with your statement. "The conclusion that disposal is needed and that deep geologic disposal is the scientifically preferred approach has been reached by every expert panel that has looked at the issue and by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program." https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/blue-ribbon-commission-am... One thing that drives me craziest of…

> by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program.

This claim is simply false. Many countries reprocess nuclear waste:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#53

Post by pdonis »

phkahler wrote: post #33
acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of scientists disagree strongly with your statement. "The conclusion that disposal is needed and that deep geologic disposal is the scientifically preferred approach has been reached by every expert panel that has looked at the issue and by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program." https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/blue-ribbon-commission-am... One thing that drives me craziest of…

How about we reprocess it and use it as nuclear fuel. IIRC France is the only country that does this. We just don't like the kind of reactor needed.

> IIRC France is the only country that does this

No, many countries do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#54

Post by pdonis »

PinguTS wrote: post #32
acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of scientists disagree strongly with your statement. "The conclusion that disposal is needed and that deep geologic disposal is the scientifically preferred approach has been reached by every expert panel that has looked at the issue and by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program." https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/blue-ribbon-commission-am... One thing that drives me craziest of…

The thing is, that to human knowledge it is currently the only viable way to handle the situation. But still it is not a solution. A solution would be to make it non-hazardous. But there is no viable way to do it right now.

> to human knowledge it is currently the only viable way to handle the situation.

No, it's not. See comments elsewhere in the thread about reprocessing.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#55

Post by acidburnNSA »

pdonis wrote: post #52
acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of scientists disagree strongly with your statement. "The conclusion that disposal is needed and that deep geologic disposal is the scientifically preferred approach has been reached by every expert panel that has looked at the issue and by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program." https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/blue-ribbon-commission-am... One thing that drives me craziest of…

> by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program. This claim is simply false. Many countries reprocess nuclear waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...

Countries that reprocess nuclear waste still need a deep geologic repository for the fission products and minor actinides due to process losses. Reprocessing reduces the number of repositories you need for a given fleet size, but you still need a repository.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#56

Post by pdonis »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #55
pdonis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program. This claim is simply false. Many countries reprocess nuclear waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...

Countries that reprocess nuclear waste still need a deep geologic repository for the fission products and minor actinides due to process losses. Reprocessing reduces the number of repositories you need for a given fleet size, but you still need a repository.

> Countries that reprocess nuclear waste still need a deep geologic repository

That's possible, but even if it's done, it's only necessary for hundreds of years (because the radioactive isotopes left over have much shorter half-lives), not 100,000 years. Big difference.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#57

Post by Moldoteck »

I don't get something so maybe somebody can explain. Afaik, France has nuclear reprocessing plant, basically they take used fuel, separate nonrecyclable parts and get new fuel to be used again in their reactors. Why other countries don't send their used fuel to France for reprocessing? Is it too expensive? Too dangerous to transport? limited capacity of the plant? Or that the produced fuel can't be used in reactors from other countries? Also, why don't other countries build similar plants?

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#58

Post by pintxo »

simmerup wrote: post #45
pintxo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this ever be acceptable, given that rockets have a failure rate that’s not zero?

The impossibility of getting an insurance policy to cover this downside probably makes it dead in the water unless a state starts doing it

Didn’t stop us from using fission for energy production. But weapons production might have played a relevant role here.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#59

Post by pfdietz »

pdonis wrote: post #52
acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of scientists disagree strongly with your statement. "The conclusion that disposal is needed and that deep geologic disposal is the scientifically preferred approach has been reached by every expert panel that has looked at the issue and by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program." https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/blue-ribbon-commission-am... One thing that drives me craziest of…

> by every other country that is pursuing a nuclear waste management program. This claim is simply false. Many countries reprocess nuclear waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...

That list includes the US, which hasn't had commercial reprocessing in many decades.

The truth is that reprocessing is an economic loser at this point; even France admits it. Separated plutonium literally has negative value; you lose money trying to fabricate fuel elements from it instead of using freshly enriched natural uranium. France still does reprocessing because whatever is done with spent fuel is not that expensive compared to the cost of just building and operating nuclear reactors, so the boondoggle is not that big.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#60

Post by acidburnNSA »

pdonis wrote: post #56
acidburnNSA wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries that reprocess nuclear waste still need a deep geologic repository for the fission products and minor actinides due to process losses. Reprocessing reduces the number of repositories you need for a given fleet size, but you still need a repository.

> Countries that reprocess nuclear waste still need a deep geologic repository That's possible, but even if it's done, it's only necessary for hundreds of years (because the radioactive isotopes left over have much shorter half-lives), not 100,000 years. Big difference.

Radiotoxicity does indeed drop to ore levels in 300-500 years but even then there are a few problem actors. Partitioning and transmutation can help with these, probably.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-lived_fission_product

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