51–60 of 124 posts
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Maybe it's a sign of a future time travelling civilization with nuclear power but poor navigation, warped straight into the mantle Earth's crust :D
I thought where you were going with his was "that realized the best way to dispose of their nuclear waste was to dump it in the deep past." I’d read that novel.
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What are the conditions under which nuclear waste buried a mile deep in bedrock will post a risk to society?
1) the assumption that because something can be done safely it will be done safely 2) transportation to the site: https://static.ewg.org/files/nuclearwaste/plumes/national.pd... 3) exploding waste barrels due to corner cutting in kitty litter selection exposing surface workers and contaminating the work area - only 1/2 mile down but this type of accident is depth independent https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-m…
There is a difference between “something can be done correctly” and “something is likely to be done correctly.” Nuclear advocates I’ve read tend to argue the former - it’s possible to have safe reactors, it’s possible to keep the waste sequestered safely, there’s not a technical reason why nuclear is inherently unsafe. Skeptics tend to be making a different argument - not that it’s not possible to do things safely and correctly, but that in our current late-capitalist milieu, it’s almost impossible that we _will_. It’s not an argument about capability, it’s an argument about will and what happens in bureaucracies, both public and private.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are the conditions under which nuclear waste buried a mile deep in bedrock will post a risk to society?
1) the assumption that because something can be done safely it will be done safely 2) transportation to the site: https://static.ewg.org/files/nuclearwaste/plumes/national.pd... 3) exploding waste barrels due to corner cutting in kitty litter selection exposing surface workers and contaminating the work area - only 1/2 mile down but this type of accident is depth independent https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-m…
3) if a waste barrel explodes, somehow, underground how does the waste make it's way through a mile of bedrock?
4) Again, how does a fire bring the wast up through a mile of bedrock?
5) This is just a vague statement.
6) So the concern is that future society will forget that this is a waste site, mine a mile deep and retrieve waste, and never figure out that the waste is bad for them? This is rather specific hypothetical that IMO demonstrates just how hard it is for a nuclear waste site to result in contamination.
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What are the conditions under which nuclear waste buried a mile deep in bedrock will post a risk to society?
1) the assumption that because something can be done safely it will be done safely 2) transportation to the site: https://static.ewg.org/files/nuclearwaste/plumes/national.pd... 3) exploding waste barrels due to corner cutting in kitty litter selection exposing surface workers and contaminating the work area - only 1/2 mile down but this type of accident is depth independent https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-m…
It's not even a a matter of mundane human error when executing procedures over and over again.
It's that the entire managerial pyramid gradually and slowly erodes
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1) the assumption that because something can be done safely it will be done safely 2) transportation to the site: https://static.ewg.org/files/nuclearwaste/plumes/national.pd... 3) exploding waste barrels due to corner cutting in kitty litter selection exposing surface workers and contaminating the work area - only 1/2 mile down but this type of accident is depth independent https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-m…
2) I asked about waste buried in the ground, not in transit. 3) if a waste barrel explodes, somehow, underground how does the waste make it's way through a mile of bedrock? 4) Again, how does a fire bring the wast up through a mile of bedrock? 5) This is just a vague statement. 6) So the concern is that future society will forget that this is a waste site, mine a mile deep and retrieve waste, and never figure out tha…
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2) I asked about waste buried in the ground, not in transit. 3) if a waste barrel explodes, somehow, underground how does the waste make it's way through a mile of bedrock? 4) Again, how does a fire bring the wast up through a mile of bedrock? 5) This is just a vague statement. 6) So the concern is that future society will forget that this is a waste site, mine a mile deep and retrieve waste, and never figure out tha…
I look forward to your revolutionary nuclear waste teleportation device.
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I don't disagree that nuclear waste can be disposed of safely under good conditions[1]. But I think a fallacy to claim that natural phenomena should inherently be considered "environmentally safe" in human terms. There are coal seam fires that have been going on for centuries and the pollution of these is just as bad as the pollution generated by human created coal mine fires (and that's truly awful, a significant so…
What are the conditions under which nuclear waste buried a mile deep in bedrock will post a risk to society?
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What are the conditions under which nuclear waste buried a mile deep in bedrock will post a risk to society?
It's not a mile deep, but I think the depth isn't the problem here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine
The Asse II site used an existing mine to avoid having to excavate a new tunnel, which subsequently flooded.
The Oklo region has now-exhausted Uranium deposits. From Wikipedia: "Some of the mined uranium was found to have a lower concentration of uranium-235 than expected, as if it had already been in a nuclear reactor. When geologists investigated they also found products typical of a reactor. They concluded that the deposit had been in a reactor: a natural nuclear fission reactor, around 1.8 to 1.7 billion years BP – in t…
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1) the assumption that because something can be done safely it will be done safely 2) transportation to the site: https://static.ewg.org/files/nuclearwaste/plumes/national.pd... 3) exploding waste barrels due to corner cutting in kitty litter selection exposing surface workers and contaminating the work area - only 1/2 mile down but this type of accident is depth independent https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-m…
Just to call it explicitly, because I think this is one of the big points of misunderstanding between pro- and anti-nuclear people (take that as a very rough categorization and not an accusation) - There is a difference between “something can be done correctly” and “something is likely to be done correctly.” Nuclear advocates I’ve read tend to argue the former - it’s possible to have safe reactors, it’s possible to k…
Whether it's technology, economics, or politics, clearly the state of the art is deficient because we currently have persistent deficiencies.