Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by culopatin » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:25 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #122

pavlov wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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…

Thing is that maybe in 300 years someone wants to develop that land and the documents that say to not do that there are in an old version of .docx in an obsolete storage form buried under layers of bureaucracy. That’s how someone ends up living on the casket growing a massive thyroid.

Same reason that makes us not write code that only the author can understand (when working in a team), we need to plan ahead in the same way. We can’t rely on the future solving our current problems or even understanding them fully.

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

#142

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:27 AM UTC

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…

Actually it is the right way to plan centuries ahead. Taking a reasonable look at the risk and making an assessment.

The actual risk of nuclear waste is incredibly small. You point would make sense if it was a nuclear weapon that could just randomly go off or something like that.

However with civilian nuclear waste you really have to come up with pretty unlikely stuff for it to ever harm anybody. And you a tinfoil hat to come up with some scenario where it hurts a large number of people.

And those risks are incredibly easy to detect should they ever happen.

So again, unless you have total government collapse this simply isn't an issue. And if you have anarchy in Finland the least problem anybody will care about is a few leaking casks of nuclear waste that might happen.

This is like worrying about bad air quality for your great grant children while your house is on fire. There are about 1000 ways I could think of to improve the lives of people in 200 years that have a far better way to spend billions of $ then burying nuclear waste.

The more likely case is that people in 200 years will look back and say 'people back then already had all the fundamental research why were they so shit at using fission and fusion. What the fuck were they thinking'

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

#143

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:32 AM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #129

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…

For 5-6 billion they could have helped to develop and built new GenIV reactors and reduce the waste and also manage all the waste for the next 100 years.

> Given the high costs of managing nuclear waste above ground

Can you show me some concrete evidence that the cost is as high as you claim. In the US nuclear reactors have been storing the waste on parking lots for many decades and it doesn't seem to bankrupt them. In many places above ground nuclear waste is just standing around in casket with literally 0 people attending them.

In Switzerland a single warehouse contains all nuclear waste for the last 50 years and there are not many people working there.

Unless you can show me otherwise I'm gone go with 'its not gone cost billion+ $ to let nuclear waste sit around above ground for a century'.

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

#144

Post by oatmeal1 » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:35 AM UTC

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 do the 'dummies' have to do exactly? Just not touch containers marked as "nuclear waste?"

And can you imagine the good outcomes that can be produced with 1 billion Euros today? Why spend money on something that will maybe prevent a problem centuries from now when we have such great available investments we can make today?

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

#145

Post by chmod775 » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:53 AM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #142

pavlov wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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…

Actually it is the right way to plan centuries ahead. Taking a reasonable look at the risk and making an assessment. The actual risk of nuclear waste is incredibly small. You point would make sense if it was a nuclear weapon that could just randomly go off or something like that. However with civilian nuclear waste you really have to come up with pretty unlikely stuff for it to ever harm anybody. And you a tinfoil ha…

> However with civilian nuclear waste you really have to come up with pretty unlikely stuff for it to ever harm anybody.

Germany will be glad to hear that. They can continue using Asse II instead of needlessly spending billions clearing it out.

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

#146

Post by KennyBlanken » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:55 AM UTC

w-ll wrote: post #137

Manuel_D wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yea, isn't coal ash way worst regardless of how "green" they capture the emissions. They always seem to leek into other water sources and do way more. How did we get this way?

It's so tiresome that nuclear proponents pretend the only alternative to nuclear is coal.

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

#147

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:55 AM UTC

jrflowers wrote: post #128

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 !”

Again, this is just delusional. Nuclear waste can not be society ending. Did you read to much Greenpeace propaganda or maybe was it some cheap action movie?

And I'm not against spending money. I'm pro-spending money. I want them to spend money on next generation nuclear technology that actually uses the 'waste' to produce energy and other things, like medical isotopes and nuclear batteries. This waste that would be produced from advanced reactors could be reduced to only need 300 years of storage, and for that you don't need geopolitical storage.

So how about instead of spending billions digging a hole, spend billions actually improving the situation.

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

#148

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 3:58 AM UTC

nevi-me wrote: post #120

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…

In the extreme, the have been politicians and other leaders who came in and decided to undo decisions of their predecessors for petty reasons. A memorable example being the US' 45th President. If this high cost is in the long run cheaper than relying on 10+ generations to do the right thing, it's probably a worthwhile cost.

You make the wrong assumption that managing the geological storage and all the operations around it will be irrelevant and give those 10+ generations no work.

This isn't really the case. They will still have to do many of the same things, like monitoring, security and so on.

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

#149

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 4:00 AM UTC

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #109

panick21_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a bad take. There is almost unimaginable amount Thorium and Uranium on the planet. We will never run out. In reality, volcanic activity keeps transporting thorium up, so it borderline renewable. We have energy for 100s or 1000s of years with nuclear, even used inefficiently. Sure it fucking sucks we are only mostly U-235 and we are doing it inefficiently, but stopping progress because of that is just dum…

‘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.

Not using a computer because you might need more then 512kb of memory would have been stupid. That's a simple fact and illustrates my point.

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

#150

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 4:01 AM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #146

w-ll wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, isn't coal ash way worst regardless of how "green" they capture the emissions. They always seem to leek into other water sources and do way more. How did we get this way?

It's so tiresome that nuclear proponents pretend the only alternative to nuclear is coal.

His point is that other technologies are not held to the same standard. And that is still true.

Even above ground nuclear storage is far better waste management then virtually anything else, including wind and solar.

The likely hood of people dying from old wind and solar projects is quite a bit higher then people dying from nuclear waste.