[kennend3]

This!

People like the person you responded to seem to think nuclear power plants are producing tons of high level waste per day.

Fact is most of the used fuel for the operating reactors are safely stored ON SITE because there is actually very little "radioactive waste".

If not for NIMBY disposing the waste would be fairly straightforward. were i live (canada) we have the "canadian shield" which contains rocks as old as 4 billion years.

If we stored super-scary-plutonium there it would remain sealed long enough that all the plutonium would safely decay away.

But the NIMBY state - "it isn't stable, it isn't safe, how do you now it will remain stable". Where exactly is all that rock going? why would it suddenly do this when it has remained in place for a few billion years so far?

[loopback_device]

People like me don't think they produce massive amounts of waste. I am well aware how "little" waste material they produce. The issue is not the volume, but that you only need very little of it to completely deny a large area to living organisms like us for a very long time. Also, the on site storage facilities for spent fuel are only temporary holding pools until it goes off to a treatment facility, to then either be reprocessed for re-use or to be disposed of. Safety concerns with this stuff are not necessarily about the short term storage. Not that there aren't any risks associated with that – let's say, for example, a nuclear power plant being shot at with heavy artillery by a certain military? That'll certainly do.

There's this mind-boggling hubris that these materials can be kept safe and controlled under all circumstances, for all of their decay time. Sure, burying it under that mountain or in a salt mine is going to help, until you find that the containers have corroded, and you've now got it in your ground- and drinking-water. [1]

[1]: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0579-x

EDIT: Missing link

[kennend3]

Have you ever seen a storage Cask used to transport/store nuclear waste after it leaves the pools?

How much energy was delivered to the cask when a rocket powered train hit it at 84 mph? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu1YFshFuI4

How much radioactive material was released?

Are you aware that in earths distant past there were natural nuclear reactors running? if you go back in time the amount of U235 increases. Go back far enough and you no longer need to "enrich" it to support a nuclear reactor.

Care to guess how far the radioactive byproducts from this reactor travelled?

Not sure about Ukraines designs, but here (Canada) our reactors can withstand the impact of a fully loaded jet slamming into them. Nothing is invincible, and i suppose if you it it enough you can open it up, but by then it would have been shutdown and had the fuel removed (a unique design of CANDU allows them to be refuled while operating, so you can remove the fuel this way too).

you can come up with all sorts of event and wonder if a reactor can survive them, perhaps a meteor strikes it? Perhaps military? Perhaps like Pickering it runs for its entire lifetime and very little happens?

There are also facts to consider, coal releases more radiation vs nuclear power plants. if you are concerned about radioactivity you should focus on that?

[loopback_device]

> Have you ever seen a storage Cask used to transport/store nuclear waste after it leaves the pools?

Yes, I've even seen them close up, during transport. But that's not how they're stored in the holding pools. Not sure how the minuscule amount of time the rods spend in there during transport is relevant here?

> Are you aware that in earths distant past there were natural nuclear reactors running?

Yes, also not sure how that's relevant here? It's not like we built them... Background radiation is a thing, and life has adapted to it. A nuclear accident that ends up high enough on the International Nuclear Event Scale however is something you're not going to adapt to.

> Not sure about Ukraines designs, [...]

I think we've all seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima that you don't need to breach the containment to have things go boom. The unshielded auxiliary buildings and systems are the cause of worry. You're always just one unexpected failure chain away from disaster – unless the reactors are fully shut down and without need for external cooling, there's a chance it's not going to go well.

> There are also facts to consider, coal releases more radiation vs nuclear power plants.

Sure, that doesn't somehow automatically make other things safe® though? Also, while I certainly do not like coal power plants either, that's not quite the topic.

[kennend3]

> Yes, I've even seen them close up, during transport. But that's not how they're stored in the holding pools.

It is just a set of changing goalposts isnt it? what is wrong with storage pools? they are safe and secure inside the power plant. Most plants are protected by armed guards. The plant near me has signs on the fence warning that "deadly force is authorized to protect the plant". Is your new issue that the "pools" are dangerous because ...?

> Yes, also not sure how that's relevant here? It's not like we built them... Background radiation is a thing, and life has adapted to it. A nuclear accident that ends up high enough on the International Nuclear Event Scale however is something you're not going to adapt to.

This makes little sense. First, who is taking about "background radiation"? Next, it is extremely relevant. your position is the long-term storage of the radioactive waste is a problem.

So, when earth created its own U235 + Moderator nuclear fission reactor, where is the waste from this? All over the earth? within 10CM of where it was created?

Earths "natural reactor" ran on the same principle as modern reactors.. Enrich U235 + water (US design) or unenriched U235 + "heavy water" (Canadian design).

Enrichment is needed because there is too little U235 left these days. As i said, if you go back in time the amount of U235 increases and it reached the point enrichment is no longer needed.

Both result in the fission of U235 and create radioactive byproducts which need to be stored.

It seems "mother nature" was capable of storing "radioactive waste" all on its own, yet we cant do this because ...?

"fukushima" and "Chernobyl".. Everyone loves these as the textbook case study in reactor design? what about the millions of hours of run time from all the other reactors? Darlington Nuclear won an award for 1,000 days without interruption. Solar going to run 24x7 for 1,000 days? Wind?

if we shutdown all reactors, what will you us to power whatever device you are currently using? Wind? Solar? you cant seriously propose these sources can supply enough power can you?

[loopback_device]

> Most plants are protected by armed guards. The plant near me has signs on the fence warning that "deadly force is authorized to protect the plant". Is your new issue that the "pools" are dangerous because ...?

The pools aren't dangerous by themselves – I was alluding to some nuclear power plants in Ukraine seeing quite heavy fighting [1]. That's the kind of situation where your armed guards are not present to protect it from nosey civilians.

[1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/12/europe/ukraine-zaporizhzh...

[EricE]

Many hospitals have enough radioactive isotopes to create some really nasty dirty bombs - yet you never see the same level of discussion around physical security for them; perhaps because most people don't realize just how frequently radioactive isotopes are used for things other than nuclear power? The constant demonization of nuclear power has lead to this pathological loathing that is really shooting us all in the foot.

[loopback_device]

> It is just a set of changing goalposts isnt it?

Was just answering your question – it wasn't me who brought up the transport castors. Quite to the contrary, I initially wrote "[...] concerns with this stuff are not necessarily about the short term storage [...]".

> This makes little sense. First, who is taking about "background radiation"?

There's only few locations known where natural reactors formed, they were only a few centimeters in size, and were active a billion years ago. They've long gone through the main part of their decay cycle. The remainder would be considered elevated background radiation. The reason we know they were or are there is because the products of decay are still where they formed, in the rock. Not scattered around the globe. Probably not safe to cuddle with regardless. Mother nature does not give a fuck, which is why it doesn't matter.

Further, these natural reactors are not known to go critical and obliterate a city. And even if they did, that might have been millions to billions of years ago, I'm sure we weren't there to be worried about it.

Chernobyl and Fukushima are good examples not necessarily because of their reactor design, but for the understanding of risks, their mitigation, and ultimately their catastrophic failure. Also because they're the few examples that exist, thankfully we do not have more of them.

The countless hours of safe operation of nuclear power plants also does not magically offset the danger in their failures, which does not have to be – but can be – extremely catastrophic. The fact that there's an award for running a hideously dangerous machine for 3 years without it becoming more dangerous than ideal does not make it sound any better.

And yes, photovoltaic (solar) runs perfectly fine for even a decade nonstop (see almost every house in Europe with solar on their roof) – in the case of the International Space Station – for 23 years, and counting. Bonus: a panel failure does not mean you get to die.

> Wind? Solar? you cant seriously propose these sources can supply enough power can you?

Uhm, yes, believe it or not, that stuff does work. Obviously not at the moment on a country level, because we've been busy burning coal everywhere instead of investing in energy sources that make sense decades ago, but that's where we need to go.

[hammyhavoc]

American-style anxiety in action: the "miniscule" amount of time JFK was in a car was enough time for something to happen, likewise for AA Flight 11 on 9/11.

Not an American, but the missus and her family are, and what consistently shocks me is the anxiety over terrorism. The goal of terrorism is fear, and my god, it seems to work.

[EricE]

again, the reason that stuff is so dangerous is because it's packed with delicious and useful energy (that can be utilized by plenty of reactor designs that were fleshed out in the 50's!) That we are still talking about burying useful fuel as if we are being rational is the real issue here!

[loopback_device]

In case the theoretical point of containment corrosion doesn't quite deliver, consider the practical one [1] from Brunsbüttel in Germany. The solution? If one rusts through, just put it into a bigger one!

I'm sure that's going to work just fine until the end of time.

[1]: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/rost-nagt-an-atommuell-f...

[Spooky23]

Indian Point power station in New York has >1500 tons of waste in holding pools, which need to be maintained for hundreds of years, or until another storage method is devised, or until a permanent facility is built.