Nuclear energy is one of the safest forms of energy production based on deaths / KW, but the waste produced by it is highly radioactive for nearly 300,000 years if left untreated.
Is efficient and safely produced energy worth the price of highly radioactive waste? Should we halt the allowance of more waste to be produced until better waste management options are available?
For anyone interested, these are the three most viable known options for dealing with the waste:
1. Direct disposal (after storage) to a geological repository. The material has very long-lived radioactivity, and will take about 300,000 years to reach the same level as the original ore.
2. Aqueous reprocessing to remove only uranium and plutonium. The material then only takes about 9000 years to reach the same level of radioactivity as the original ore.
3. Advanced electrometallurgical reprocessing which removes uranium, plutonium and minor actinides together for recycling in a fast reactor. The wastes then only need 300 years to reach the same level of radioactivity as the original ore. This is not yet operational on any commercial scale.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Radioactive-Waste-Management/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
It really doesn't matter how good nuclear power is. It could do a little jig and solve all the world's problems overnight and no-one would build nuclear power plants.
The fact is that people hate nuclear power too much.
As a general rule with people; anything where emotional propaganda is more effective than reasoned logic means the emotional propaganda will win.
Why dont government send the Earth's waste to Sun or Mars instead?
>>51646520
Because a rocket launch van fail
>>51646527
*can
>>51646466
>but the waste produced by it is highly radioactive
I think you mean it's a weak alpha emitter, i.e. easy as all fuck to safely store.
>>51646490
Acknowledging nuclear waste as a risk is a completely logical argument. Not everything you don't care about is "emotional".
>>51646520
Who would pay to send it? it would cost WAYYYYYY to much JUST to send it. You would pay for gas just to fuel it there plus materials and development for TO get it there. Plus aside from that, it's common knowledge that the resources we'd waste sending the waste there are limited to earth. We send them to the sun we don't get them back. For the waste that's fine, but for the materials we need we want to keep. We will run out eventually and we need to be wise what keep and use to at least recycle on planet earth.
Making nuclear fuel a commodity will make oil glut look Iike a sugar addiction against something equitable to heroin. The waste is bad, wait till there's nuclear war and everyone has the ingredients for bombs.
>>51646520
The amount of energy it would take to periodically launch it into space outweighs the benefits of nuclear power. You have no idea how inefficient space travel currently is.
>>51646490
>never had a nuclear plant blow up in SimCity
>>51646540
How can you assure us that everyone will store it safely, even if it's easy? As long as there are humans, you can be sure someone will find a way to fuck something up.
>>51646466
Would it be possible to dispose of waste so that it is sucked back into the Earth's mantle? I'm guessing no for obvious reasons but whatever.
>>51646540
No, I meant it was highly radioactive because it is.
>>51646597
Drill a hole deep enough to send it there but if you drill a hole there it would lead whatever is there to travel here.
Maybe with that atom smashing device they have to create a small black hole (obviously not soon) can send it straight into there to be ridden of it.
>>51646520
Fun fact: It's more expensive to shoot it in the Sun than to shoot it out of the solar system.
>>51646466
> nuclear waste disposal
The real solutions chosen so far:
- "Temporary" storage in some shacks or old mines or the plant itself
- Dumping in the ocean, messing with reports showing radiation leaks, ecosystem pollution, exceeded radiation limits in coastal soil.
- "Reprocessing", which essentially amounts to dumping a lot of less radioactive water into the ocean and temporarily storing work materials used in the reprocessing process (arguably, most of these will have foreseeable times until they're harmless enough) ... but pollution still happens. Sellafield, Hague and so on in Europe aren't clean, and neither is any other plant so far.
> Inb4 nuclear lobby solved all these issues and will surely do it right now.
>just shoot the nuclear waste with a rocket in to space, litterally no one cares if we pollute the universe, because there's nothing fucking there
>>51646520
10000bucks per kilo goidd that radioactive elements are so heavy
1 rocket explodes....... Tschernobyl^10
Easiest way to deal with nuclear waste is to store it in the big underground facilities that were made specifically for safely storing nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years.
You know, the ones that were made and never used, because a safe way to dispose of nuclear waste is the exact opposite of what anti-nuke freaks want. Imagine if nuclear waste stopped being a problem, it'd be a fucking disaster.
>>51646575
>>never had a nuclear plant blow up in SimCity
I had one blow up in anno 2070. Several actually. I built a new one right next to the destroyed one.
>>51646597
We can't nearly drill deep enough.
Besides, what are the odds that we'd then get severely radioactive volcanic eruptions and geysers and the like because, woops, the magma stuff that floats on top right under the crust stays on top?
It'd probably work if we could send the stuff down into the core or something, but that's not remotely feasible at this point.
>>51646838
Lel. Yea, maybe not, but the cost of doing this is currently too much (nuclear power works best on paper if tax payers pay the bill 50000 years into the future or so).
Besides, apart from the cost and absence of suitable rockets, the launch systems we currently have still fail quite frequently...
>>51646880
> You know, the ones that were made and never used
Lel, which? The ones you have are "probably okay" for like 1000-10000 years tops.
Arguably, that is safe against *nature*. If you need to pay armed guards for 10'000 because terrorists and warlords could dig this up in bulk to make dirty bombs or such, then the equation is *slightly* different.
>>51646466
The question to ask is : will it be cheaper than all the other stuff.
I do not think that nuclear energy will be cost effective if it is not supported by states in order to produce nuclear weapons.
If we do not find a safe and cheap way to store it then it should not be used. If we find a way to store the waste e.g we can dig 10 kilometer deep holes where it won't come to surface within the next 100K years why not build nuclear power plants
>>51646893
Just build stone wardens if you build it in your man else it really doesn't matter.
>>51646490
>As a general rule with people; anything where emotional propaganda is more effective than reasoned logic means the emotional propaganda will win.
That's why we still ride on horses instead of driving dangerously fast vehicles! And light candles at night instead of drawing dangerous electricity into our homes!
a persons attitude towards nuclear energy is the best litmus test to see whether the person is an idiot or not
only complete retards are opposed to nuclear energy and these idiots are a major threat to human development
>>51646466
How about we take all the fucking waste and shoot it into space via an (reletively low cost )orbit delivery system like a railgun or slingshot.
Instead of orbit put it on an escape path, or put it into orbit then tug it out
>>51646976
sigh.
>>51647002
We don't have that shit. Or we could also put the reactors or our habitation into space, or many other options.
Probably could send power from nuclear reactors on the moon to earth and not care a fuck what happens.
>>51647017
fuck off neckbeard
>>51647054
Ok, then for the time being throw that shit onto the STS heavy lifter.
Over 100,000 pounds of the stuff to LEO.
>>51647071
Solid thought put into your rebuttal. Ingenious point of view. Excellent sources you cited. You truly are a scholar and a treasure to this discussion.
>>51646562
Who says you can't slingshot it to the sun?
>>51647104
Once it has a service record where it just doesn't crash anymore or fails missions, sure?
Probably an option in 25-50 years if the STS heavy lifter project is funded and staffed 10x better than CERN or so until then.
Maybe theoretically feasible, but I bet the political will is lacking.
Same as with building actually safe nuclear power plants. Or even safe storage facilities. None of this shit happened.
