There are fuel mixtures that dont create as much waste( not used now because we are using left over bombs from Russia)
Waste can be reprocessed and used as fuel (it's not done now bc it could theoretically be used for bombs)
The waste that is generated decays at different rates. One of the more dangerous materials cs137 has a half life of 30 years, so in 210 years all the cesium is gone (or it's at back ground radiation) plutonium has a half life of 24 million years, but if it's reprocessed it will be used as fuel and knocked apart into smaller elements that decay faster. This is why the fuel rods sit in pools for the first 10 years or so to decay after that they can be moved to dry cask storage.
It's not that much trash... An Americans life time radioactive waste (under current energy consumption) would fit in their hand.
The most dangerous part imo is the mining and not because of radiation. Because of heavy metal poisoning. My college had a nuclear reactor and I've touched low enriched uranium. It was normal metal. There are stories of people touching high enriched uranium and it's kinda warm.... The problem. Is it is like lead. It will fuck up your insides and kids. See what happened after dessert storm when they made munitions out of uranium or look at the deviation in the 4 corners region on the indians there.
The waste could be used energy. Probably not much tho. There are things called rtg ...radiation? Thermal generators which use thermoelectric ....magic to make energy but may not be worth it
There are different types of radiation. Some are worse then others. Nuclear engineers practice " the cookie test".
Four cookies made of radiation you have to eat one, put one in your pocket, hold one in your hand and throw the other across the room. Which do you do?
There is also amounts of radiation to take into account. For example as a person working with radiation I can take 5 REM a year for the rest of my life and most likely never get cancer from exposure to those sources. In fact I would also rather take that bargain and over the course of a 50 year career get 250 REM instead of getting CORONA once.
So most of the issues are weaponization. I wonder if that is likely to ever happen over the next, potentially, millions of years? Hahaha
Look, it's just dangerous. It's not a boogeyman, but it's not as safe as water. Or wind. Viable alternatives exist, I think they're a wiser choice overall. Nuclear made sense before we had good wind and solar, tech, maybe, but there's just no point now. Plus, whether we choose to remain nuclear or not, we'll run out of fuel some day. It's non-renewable.
You gotta envision all the crazy, horrendous shit people will do over the loong, long stretch, which is hard to do I think. You basically have to assume that every terrible thing that could happen, will, over those long time frames. We can't know, so we have to play it as safe as possible, imo. We'll probably have like 10 mad maxes and 10 civilizations in that time. Gotta cover all the future peoples' bases, while we can
That's a disingenuous interpretation of radiation comrade
So it would be no big deal if someone found a spent fuel rod in 10,000 years? Maybe used it as a source of undying heat? Explain :)
There are fuel mixtures that dont create as much waste( not used now because we are using left over bombs from Russia)
Waste can be reprocessed and used as fuel (it's not done now bc it could theoretically be used for bombs)
The waste that is generated decays at different rates. One of the more dangerous materials cs137 has a half life of 30 years, so in 210 years all the cesium is gone (or it's at back ground radiation) plutonium has a half life of 24 million years, but if it's reprocessed it will be used as fuel and knocked apart into smaller elements that decay faster. This is why the fuel rods sit in pools for the first 10 years or so to decay after that they can be moved to dry cask storage.
It's not that much trash... An Americans life time radioactive waste (under current energy consumption) would fit in their hand.
The most dangerous part imo is the mining and not because of radiation. Because of heavy metal poisoning. My college had a nuclear reactor and I've touched low enriched uranium. It was normal metal. There are stories of people touching high enriched uranium and it's kinda warm.... The problem. Is it is like lead. It will fuck up your insides and kids. See what happened after dessert storm when they made munitions out of uranium or look at the deviation in the 4 corners region on the indians there.
The waste could be used energy. Probably not much tho. There are things called rtg ...radiation? Thermal generators which use thermoelectric ....magic to make energy but may not be worth it
There are different types of radiation. Some are worse then others. Nuclear engineers practice " the cookie test".
Four cookies made of radiation you have to eat one, put one in your pocket, hold one in your hand and throw the other across the room. Which do you do?
There is also amounts of radiation to take into account. For example as a person working with radiation I can take 5 REM a year for the rest of my life and most likely never get cancer from exposure to those sources. In fact I would also rather take that bargain and over the course of a 50 year career get 250 REM instead of getting CORONA once.
So most of the issues are weaponization. I wonder if that is likely to ever happen over the next, potentially, millions of years? Hahaha
Look, it's just dangerous. It's not a boogeyman, but it's not as safe as water. Or wind. Viable alternatives exist, I think they're a wiser choice overall. Nuclear made sense before we had good wind and solar, tech, maybe, but there's just no point now. Plus, whether we choose to remain nuclear or not, we'll run out of fuel some day. It's non-renewable.
You gotta envision all the crazy, horrendous shit people will do over the loong, long stretch, which is hard to do I think. You basically have to assume that every terrible thing that could happen, will, over those long time frames. We can't know, so we have to play it as safe as possible, imo. We'll probably have like 10 mad maxes and 10 civilizations in that time. Gotta cover all the future peoples' bases, while we can
(also: great post . )
Dessert Storm sounds like it would be the American version of the Great British Bake-Off
Am ingeneer can math...English harder