[nacker]

"I can't find any confirmation that the country-wide shutdown of nuclear plants in Japan has been anything other than bad for the country. While Japan continues to need electricity (for life-saving medical technologies, among other uses), and until other sources of electricity become less expensive, it makes sense for Japan to be open to restarting the other nuclear plants in the country."

OK, I don't know if anyone else finds this to be a strange statement, but I do.

First, no one is saying that shutting down 50 of 52 nuclear power power plants, providing 30% of Japan's electricity supply is an economic benefit. Would that even make sense?

But "bad for the country" is a very different proposition.

"Japan has shut down over 95% of the power plants which produce radioactive waste which lasts for thousands of years."

Bad for the country?

While Japan continues to need electricity (for SHORT TERM CONVENIENCE) , and until other sources of electricity become less expensive, it makes sense for Japan to be open to restarting the PRODUCTION OF ENERGY WHICH RESULTS IN RADIOACTIVE WASTE THAT IS LETHAL FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS).

Yeah. Right.

What IS good for the country? Short term consumption, or long-term sickness, death and mutation? What would Hoppe say, in terms of a time preference analysis?

[jacques_chester]

The concept of a half-life explains why LETHAL FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS is a bit of an overselling of the situation.

The more radioactive a substance is, the shorter its half life. That is, the sooner it will become less radioactive. And vice versa: if a substance has a long half life, it will simply emit less energy per unit of time.

It's just inverse formulae. Nothing magical.

But people imagine high-powered radioactivity lasting for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. It just doesn't happen like that.

[nacker]

Jacques, I feel reluctant to disagree with you, because to search out the supporting references is a bit of a chore, but I had a good education in physics, I was a very good student, and I am confident that lethal for thousands of years is not overselling of the situation. If anything, thousands of years is underselling, as hundreds of thousands would be more accurate.

[fixedit]

Let me help you with that. Jacques is correct in his description of activity. I just checked my radiation detection text book to make sure (that would be embarrassing wouldn't it!)

However, "lethal" is a bit of an ambiguous term when applied to the waste from the nuclear power generation. After cooling down, the fuel assemblies will most certainly be emitting ionizing radiation that will be detectable for hundreds of thousands of years, as you suggest. This does NOT mean it is "lethal" for this time period. UNLESS you open one of the assemblies and make an industrial waste smoothie. Most of the long lived isotopes contained in the assembly will be deadly as heavy metals. So there is still danger, but it is easily manageable, just like the waste from many other industrial processes (like making solar panels, or batteries for hybrids for instance).

[maxharris]

but I had a good education in physics

Really? If that were true, you'd be able to answer him easily with facts and explanations that draw on those facts to provide an integrated understanding of reality.

I have a friend that just graduated from a nuclear engineering program. He is well-educated in physics.

[slurgfest]

Your angry capitalization does not substitute for understanding of where the waste will go and what the actual health impact would be. We have actually had some time to see how this goes, what are the results so far?

[nacker]

Oh please. I'm sorry you interpret my capitalization as "angry". It's a typing style I'm used to. I'm 52, and I've been on the net since the late 80's, if you want to suggest a simple italicization trick for HN, please let me know.

As far as the rest of your question, I am completely dumbfounded, gobsmacked, and bewildered as to WTF you are saying.

[pessimizer]

Surround what you're typing by asterisks. It feels awkward to me after spending a long time _underlining_ things, but it certainly looks better.

[nacker]

But Holy Skeet, youngsters, I'm now off to the "Why time appears to speed up with age" thread!

No time to lose!

[nacker]

Like this?

Thanks!

[damienkatz]

> RADIOACTIVE WASTE THAT IS LETHAL FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS

Honest question, isn't the fuel also lethal, and decaying it makes it less lethal? I understand storing the waste might be somewhat problematic, but is it really that hard to put it somewhere safe?

[nacker]

Damien, to be honest, once radioactive fuel is "in the country", as far as I know, feeding it into a reactor produces more radioactive waste than the original material.

But I could be wrong about that. I'm sure some of the nuclear experts, and captains of industry, and Wall Street apologists whose jobs depend on it would be able to give you a more scientific answer ;)

As far as I am aware, the safest policy for "the country", whatever that territory might be, is to get any radioactive material "outside" ASAP.

Also, as far as I am aware, there is no shortage of governments who are willing to be the hosts of such long-term poisons/weapons material, which doesn't really say much for them morally, does it?

[rdl]

Reprocessing some kinds of nuclear waste actually reduces long-term radiation levels. TRUEX, from Argonne National Laboratory, can remove (and then burn up) transuranic alpha emitters, and basically you end up with short-lived high activity isotopes (safely stored above ground for decades in fuel ponds on-site) and long-lived low-activity isotopes (fairly similar to the natural ores, and could be stored underground long-term, or in subduction zones in the mantle). The problem is that doing this has a proliferation risk, but I have zero fear of the Japanese developing a nuclear weapon, and as far as the US, UK, FR, CN, RU doing so, well, that ship sailed in the middle of last century.