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According to /sci/, wat do with nuclear waste? Are any long term non sci-fi solutions feasible?
>>8105599
Yes. The really short version is we dig a very deep hole, a "bore hole", and dump the waste down there. Problem solved.
For a longer version, see this link:
http://thorconpower.com/docs/ct_yankee.pdf
We already know the solution: Bury it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
Oklo was effectively a natural Uranium reactor (using rainwater as moderator) that "operated" for hundreds of thousands years nearly 2 billion years ago. Yet despite this, most of the stable fission products and actinides from these "reactors" moved only CENTIMETERS in their veins.
This is not a scientific issue anymore. It is only a political one.
>>8105599
Recycle that shit and execute the fucking businessmen who don't want to because it's slightly cheaper not to.
>>8105599
Nuclear waste can be recycled and through treatment and then reusing it.
Remove neutron poisons. Put it back into the reactor.
>>8105645
Reprocessing is illegal in the USA. Because you can get the plutonium out and make a bomb
Throw it in the trash
make dirty bombs weapons
it's a win win
>>8105599
it doesn't matter
you can quite literally put nuclear waste in a large metal container and park it anywhere you want with no safety hazards, there is also very little of it made.
garbage and waste from other energy sources are much worse
>>8105599
Best thing to do is minimize long-lived nuclear waste. With breeder reactors OR thorium, you'd have waste that would decay away in just a few hundred years, which is much safer to store (since we can build storage facilities that we're confident can last for hundreds of years, but not thousands)
>>8105599
Get some of that radiotrophic fungi, plant it where the waste collects. Take more of it, plant it where you're dumping it.
>>8106767
Never mind, that probably poses more health risks.
>>8105599
seeing as the combined volume of nuclear waste of all of mankind is smaller then the waste of a single street in a small town just storing it in a leak-proof container in some cave away from earthquake areas is more then enough .
over fossil fuels you'd be reducing waste by a kajilion orders of magnitude . if we switched to 100% renewables + nuclear we wont be having any waste problems by the time we colonize proxima centauri , and while you cant predict tech for shit i think we'd have some solution for it by then .
theres so little waste its not a problem .
>>8106681
plutonium bombs are known to be extremely easy to successfully detonate as well so that really could be a problem.
>>8105599
Alpha radiation consists of helium nuclei and is readily stopped by a sheet of paper. Beta radiation, consisting of electrons or positrons, is halted by an aluminum plate. Gamma radiation is dampened by lead.
Easily containable.
>>8106740
>thorium
>>8106854
Actually, it's the exact opposite, it's MUCH easier to make a bomb out of Uranium both because it's easier to produce (via mining and enrichment vice having it transmute in reactors) and the mechanisms by which a plutonium based bomb can detonate are also much harder to reproduce.
>>8106681
In reality, plutonium has a very short life in between the time it's produced in a reactor and by the time it fissions. That's why breeder reactors tend to have elements that induce production at a higher rate than corresponding fission and that are designed to be removed during operation. This is how the RBMK style reactors were designed.
Stop caring. Nuclear waste hasn't done shit in the last 50 years and won't in the next 100. Let our future progeny fix the problem, especially since by then most of the bad shit will have decayed.
>>8105599
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcritical_reactor
Subcritical reactors can use almost any unstable isotope above Pa as fuel generating more energy and neutralizing waste.
>>8107273
Your clothes/skin can stop beta radiation (and therefore alpha radiation), it's gamma that'll mess you up.
>>8107456
With nuclear waste, its gammas and neutrons that are the risk
>>8105599
Throw it into a volcano
What does nuclear waste consist of?
>inb4 a dumbass answer
Serious question: Why not just bury it (since that seems to be the safest route) and then just fucking strap it to a rocket and blast it into the sun when we have too much to bury or it becomes hazardous?
>>8107300
>Actually, it's the exact opposite, it's MUCH easier to make a bomb out of Uranium both because it's easier to produce (via mining and enrichment vice having it transmute in reactors) and the mechanisms by which a plutonium based bomb can detonate are also much harder to reproduce.
Clearly was sarcasm
>>8107527
>Serious question: Why not just bury it
See >>8105603 and >>8105605
>then just fucking strap it to a rocket and blast it into the sun
This has the actual issue of what happens if the rocket burns up/blows up in the upper atmosphere. You effectively create the kind of fallout expected from a low yield nuclear weapon.
>>8107563
what if you surround it with a metal that can withstand that amount of heat?
>>8107567
There has (so far) been no material found that can withstand both extreme temperatures/friction AND be resistant to concussive shocks associated with rocket fuel explosions.
Usually if you have one property, it gets torn apart by the other.
