Nuclear waste in Space, disposal of...

Nuclear waste is so dangerous because it's highly radioactive and concentrated in one place.

Why not:
1: Reprocess it (as is already being done) to remove the useful bits such as uranium and plutonium.
2: Hold on to it at secure facilities for tens of years (NOT hundreds or thousands) to let the isotopes with short half-lives and thus extreme radioactivity decay. (Already being done.)
3: Instead of trying to find some place to store it securely "forever," disperse it over a large area of a few hundred square miles, such as a desert.

Yes, the desert will be somewhat more radioactive than normal, but nobody is going to live there. The effort of re-concentrating the waste will be enormous and very dangerous if some terrorist wants to give it a try. And the area may emit a weak but very pretty blue glow visible from space.

Richard

 

I still believe that it would be a horrible waste of a valuable resource to just send the spent fuel bundles into the sun. Of course, the sun wouldn't care

But if we were to send bundles into an impact with our star, we would have to launch them from a fairly isolated area, to minimize to the greatest extent possible, any possibility of fallout from a failed launch vehicle

During the height of Cold War nuclear testing in the Pacific, Johnston Island proved ideal for this purpose. Johnston Island is remote, isolated, thus easy to patrol and defend from terrorists

There have been isolated failures of the Thor rockets used during exoatmospheric nuclear testing. One was detonated shortly after takeoff, due to a booster rocket failure. Another kerploded on the launch pad itself. Other failures shortly after launch, with warheads aboard

http://www.astronautix.com/sites/johndle2.htm

Space Launch Report

Modern rockets are far more reliable than the old Thor, as the Thor started life in the late 1950's.

So, if we are faced with the prospect of keeping spent fuel bundles around in giant swimming pools forever, or shooting them off into the sun, I guess I'd have to vote for the sun

Again, proper "reburn" to transmutate not only spent fuel, but weapons stockpiles, is the proper approach

 

Because as we all know, terrorists can't swim. :blink:

 

Yeah true

Well if it hasn't got 2 legs and a self destructive nature does it really matter?

 

I read an interresting article about radioactive long term storage a while ago.

I mostly remember two "funny" problematic facts about this option :
1/ The memory of humanity cannot be garanteed and history has shown that the maximum period of time during which humanity has been able to keep precise data was approx 500 years.

Basically : we cannot garantee that humanity will not "forget" that we have stored materials under the surface that will remain deadly for thouthands and thouthands of years

2/ Humans have a tendency to "like" digging into the ground. The risk that a forgotten long term storage is digged out in the broad future is real and cannot be overlooked

"The earth is not a gift from our parents. It is being lent to us by our children..." We do need to keep this in mind (if we only care about our children)

 

If they don't want to die before reaching the spent fuel, they'll need a lead wet suit.

 

Trying move it out of the other thread.
Not saying to trust the industry, but part of the cost overruns and increased rates is the amortization of legal fees fighting suits to halt or stop production.
Like I said, don't trust the other side out right, but don't overlook your sides contribution to the problem.

 

I read an article with suggestions addressing this issue. We'd have to erect some type of durable, symbolic warning sign in case a civilization collaspe to scare of people. Think Stonehedge that made eerie noises in wind.

Maybe not the same article, but old salt mines were suggested as a storage site. Their deep underground, dry, and the heat of the waste will cause the salt to expand around it, sealing it in over time.

 

No, of course not. I was just playing "what if"

Proper reprocessing/transmutation will take care of at least 90% of the waste volume. The remainder that is of no use, could be treated to a lovely rocket ride. Or, as you suggested, put right back into those uranium mines

Problem with reprocessing/transmutation is that every step in the goal of extracting more long-lived actinides dramatically adds to the cost. Eg: easily reprocess 30%, costs "x." To get 50%, takes 2x. 80% takes 20x, 90% takes 200x, etc

Folks appear comfy with swimming pools full of spent fuel bundles, but not comfy with dealing with them

We already have the results of intensely radioactive debris in a salt dome. During the Cold War, under Project Dribble, two nuclear bombs were detonated in the same cavity within the Tatum Salt Dome, which is located near Baxterville, Mississippi

The goal of Dribble, part of the Vela Uniform test series, was to test the issue of "decoupling." It was theorized that somebody could detonate a test bomb in an underground bomb crater made by a previous bomb, which would distort seismic readings and give foreign powers the impression the bomb tested was of lower yield that it actually was

This was important for two reasons: 1, that the US thought they could test larger bombs, but have the former USSR believe they were much smaller yield, and 2) to verify that the former USSR wouldn't do the same thing

The first test, Salmon, created the cavity within the salt dome. A couple of years later, Sterling was detonated within the previous cavity

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA382485&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

A couple of years after that, two more tests were done within the same shot cavity, using natural gas pumped in to create a conventional explosion.

Apparently the salt dome contained all the radiation

 

Direct one-way trips to the sun, with chemical rockets, are incredibly expensive and a waste of fuel. Electric rockets are not yet up to the task. Indirect trips, via planetary billiards or lacrosse, add the additional risk of returning to and colliding with Earth, which is why so many anti-nuke activists protested similar nuclear powered interplanetary missions.

Dumping these wastes into Jupiter, or expelling them from the Solar System forever, will be much much more cost effective than dumping them into Sol.

 

Hi All,

I am against this. We already have nuclear waste in space - the Van Allen Radiation belts. One screw up and the livable orbits around the Earth will be gone.

 

Someone thinks of this every few days. It's much too expensive, and not necessary. Breeders and thorium reactors can burn what we now call "waste" as fuel, to the point that it is less radioactive than the original ore. If the day ever comes that it is economical to dispose of anything by dropping it into the Sun we will already have solved all of our energy problems.

 

I was young enough then that I didn't have a "side."

Furthermore, the concept of this all being about lawsuits is as ridiculous as the conservative position on why health care is so expensive in this country. Whatever drivers there were then to increase the cost are even stronger now with the lone exception of high inflation...but don't hold your breath on inflation. The country is unwilling to pay its bills and the only other option when that happens is inflation...unless the GOP takes over cuts spending and sends us into a new Great Depression (this is the deflationary death spiral that McCain's economic advisors wanted--apparently the same folks that Hoover used. )

At any rate, since the net impact of the drivers appears to be approximately the same, you can expect the same sort of cost overruns, and of course, no paying forward for clean up.

Hence, it's a non-starter, and I would be willing to place a long term wager on my estimate being rather close to the mark when compared to industry's.