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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

#121

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

Swizec wrote: post #112
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘No one will ever need more than 512kb of memory’ And calling something ‘a bad take’ because you have a differing opinion makes you an arrogant crass brute.

No one would ever come up with usecases for more than 512kb of memory without first having access to 512kb of memory. You need to use stuff. Only then can you have better ideas.

That was a paraphrased quote, made by bill gates. I think we’ve somehow found usecases for >512kb of memory, which was my point.

Edit: I’ve conflated parent and grandparents points, I was in the middle of avoiding a social situation while posting.

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

#122

Post by Manuel_D »

pavlov wrote: post #117
panick21_ wrote: post #101

I just don't like this, a huge amount of money spent for nothing. This fuel can be managed just fine above ground. Yes maybe ever couple 100 years you might have to move it, who cares. If your society isn't capable managing nuclear waste then nobody will care anymore anyway. Also, this is not 'waste' there are interesting and unique materials there that might be relevant in the next 100+ years. Not to mention that th…

> “Yes maybe ever couple 100 years you might have to move it, who cares. If your society isn't capable managing nuclear waste then nobody will care anymore anyway.” This isn’t the right way to plan centuries ahead. You can’t just say “well if the dummies can’t do this one more thing we imposed on them, they deserve what they get.” With generational risks we should aim to reduce them now as much as possible and take t…

What, really, is the impact of a compromised nuclear casket in a remote, unpopulated area above ground? What is the impact buried just 100 feet deep in an unpopulated area? Someone would have to excavate the uranium and either spend loads of time around it or move it to a populated area.

Water contamination from naturally occurring uranium is a bigger risk than nuclear waste (uranium, like lead, can cause heavy metal poisoning independent of radioactivity). Chemical waste from non-nuclear industries are far more hazardous than nuclear waste, yet the latter is for some reason an enormously larger concern. If you're worried about generational risk, there are plenty of things an order of magnitude more concerning than nuclear waste.

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

#123

Post by 36364949thrw »

credit_guy wrote: post #88
mongol wrote: post #75

Since the fuel will be encased in copper, and copper is quite valuable, I see a future, some centuries or millenia from now, where people will try to steal it, without realizing the dangers associated. With bad side effects as consequence.

And how exactly will they know where to steal it from? Are they going to start digging random holes through bedrock just because they might hit treasure?

I plan on passing the location down to my descendents. Each generation is to warn the next to not disclose the location, and to be patient as this is a long term plan. In a thousands years or so my clan will start digging at the exact location. They will venerate me and build temples to my memory.

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

#124

Post by bluGill »

SoftTalker wrote: post #28
acidburnNSA wrote: post #3

I'm excited that Onkalo will be coming onine soon, so we don't have to hear the myth that there's no solution for spent nuclear fuel anymore. The solution that enjoys a solid scientific consensus is the deep geologic repository. Another thing that is weird to me is that everyone says nuclear waste is hazardous for a uniquely long time, but it become less hazardous over time. Many non-radioactive materials, like arsen…

Arsenic and mercury came out of the ground, originally. It's not like we can make those elements from scratch. Diluting them and putting them back where we got them is probably fine. Nuclear waste is something new we are creating, but I'd rather have it deep underground in a geologically stable place, than sitting in casks on the surface.

Uranium came out of the ground as well, and there were natural reactors.

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

#125

Post by WalterBright »

The half-life of carbon 14 is 5,730 years. All living things are composed partially of carbon 14. But nobody worries about the radiation from it.

Anything with a long half-life is emitting very, very little radiation.

Anything with a short half-life isn't going to last long.

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

#126

Post by WalterBright »

gtvwill wrote: post #87
roughly wrote: post #81

Stewart Brand has an interesting take on this in Whole Earth Discipline (which is quite a read) - this is energy we don't know how to use yet. In 100 years, we'll be digging this stuff right up again, because there's energy in there. I'm not typically as utopian - techno or otherwise - as Brand, but I agree with him here - the nuclear industry is less than a century old, and we've already got a pretty good idea how t…

Less common side of the argument a friend presented to me. We shouldn't use nuclear in mainstream use cases now because we don't harness enough of its power. We're basically depleting a future fuel supply before we even know how to use it properly. It has more value to us in the future when utilization is at higher %. Personally not sure which side of the fence I sit on. It definitely has benefits now, but we also ha…

In the long term we'll have orbiting solar power stations collecting all the energy we could possibly use. Think of all the solar energy that misses the Earth and just flies off uselessly into space.

There's another enormous source of energy right under our feet - the geothermal heat of the Earth. It isn't that far down, either.

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

#127

Post by WalterBright »

mongol wrote: post #75

Since the fuel will be encased in copper, and copper is quite valuable, I see a future, some centuries or millenia from now, where people will try to steal it, without realizing the dangers associated. With bad side effects as consequence.

Millenia? The radiation would have half-lifed away.

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

#128

Post by jrflowers »

panick21_ wrote: post #101

I just don't like this, a huge amount of money spent for nothing. This fuel can be managed just fine above ground. Yes maybe ever couple 100 years you might have to move it, who cares. If your society isn't capable managing nuclear waste then nobody will care anymore anyway. Also, this is not 'waste' there are interesting and unique materials there that might be relevant in the next 100+ years. Not to mention that th…

> I just don't like this, a huge amount of money spent for nothing. This fuel can be managed just fine above ground. Yes maybe ever couple 100 years you might have to move it, who cares. If your society isn't capable managing nuclear waste then nobody will care anymore anyway.

I love this sentiment.

“Yeah nuclear mismanagement could be society-ending if done poorly, but avoiding it costs money!”

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

#129

Post by jltsiren »

panick21_ wrote: post #101

I just don't like this, a huge amount of money spent for nothing. This fuel can be managed just fine above ground. Yes maybe ever couple 100 years you might have to move it, who cares. If your society isn't capable managing nuclear waste then nobody will care anymore anyway. Also, this is not 'waste' there are interesting and unique materials there that might be relevant in the next 100+ years. Not to mention that th…

Most of the costs are for managing the waste above ground. The overall cost of the project is estimated to be €5-6 billion, out of which construction is €1-2 billion. I believe the actual underground facility cost ~€1 billion, while the rest is for various above-ground processing facilities.

There has been a lot of speculative bullshitting on what to do with nuclear waste since the Onkalo project started in the late 80s. So far, nobody has come up with any concrete alternatives. Given the high costs of managing nuclear waste above ground, it's cheaper to bury it underground than to wait for new breakthroughs.

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

#130

Post by aerio »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #121
Swizec wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one would ever come up with usecases for more than 512kb of memory without first having access to 512kb of memory. You need to use stuff. Only then can you have better ideas.

That was a paraphrased quote, made by bill gates. I think we’ve somehow found usecases for >512kb of memory, which was my point. Edit: I’ve conflated parent and grandparents points, I was in the middle of avoiding a social situation while posting.

In Australia, one government proposed and accepted to build the whole nations internet architecture on fibre. There was a government change, and the next government said "copper is good enough for anyone! No-one needs more than 1mb of internet".

To this day we're still trying to upgrade the infrastructure, and replace copper with fibre, and the cost so far is far above twice the initial estimate of cost.

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