It's epoxy - fiberglass composite. Epoxy, like silicone, can't be melted down and recast, once it's cured you can do is burn it.
Meanwhile we've known for decades how to turn the waste from an enriched uranium nuclear reactor (that normally takes thousands of years to decay) into energy and waste that decays in only 20 years. It's just not profitable.
Well, Uranium mining is real bad, as since it's so scarce and you need to refine the right rare isotope out of the ore, you need to dig a lot.
A bigger worry is its still limited; current tech at current (low) usage, it's estimated there's only 90 years left of uranium. Better tech will improve that, but unless we figure out something like pure thorium, nuclear won't power the world. (fwiw, current expirimental thorium still uses uranium to enrich the thorium. Still more efficient, but it's main draw is that it's safer).
It's epoxy - fiberglass composite. Epoxy, like silicone, can't be melted down and recast, once it's cured you can do is burn it.
Meanwhile we've known for decades how to turn the waste from an enriched uranium nuclear reactor (that normally takes thousands of years to decay) into energy and waste that decays in only 20 years. It's just not profitable.
They would make it profitable by selling it to right-wing death squads to set off dirty bombs in Venezuela anyway
Well, Uranium mining is real bad, as since it's so scarce and you need to refine the right rare isotope out of the ore, you need to dig a lot.
A bigger worry is its still limited; current tech at current (low) usage, it's estimated there's only 90 years left of uranium. Better tech will improve that, but unless we figure out something like pure thorium, nuclear won't power the world. (fwiw, current expirimental thorium still uses uranium to enrich the thorium. Still more efficient, but it's main draw is that it's safer).
I wonder how many years of power we could get by burning up all the plutonium in existing nuclear weapons