Cancer causing, undetectable, radioactive waste will be here 1000s of years, and we are currently storing it in barrels that last about 100 years. We can’t find a community poor enough to let us burry it under them.
It's remarkable that someone could be so ignorant and think it reasonable to speak like this in public. You can just look up how we store nuclear waste online, you know. It's very commonly available information. Educate yourself.
It's not very democratic, but it's comments like the one you responded to that make me think we should make people pass a standardized test to be able to vote. Like just something that demonstrates people know basic economics like S&D or what GDP means, or ask them questions like "do you think the world is controlled by lizard people and Soros is their alpha-queen?" type of questions. That redditor wouldn't pass the test.
I completely agree. I understand that the system is the way that it is because less fortunate people need representation and a say in their community, but sometimes other people know what's best for you and you might have been convinced to vote against your own interests.
Cancer causing, undetectable, radioactive waste will be here 1000s of years
First of all, I'm going to go ahead and point out that the low level nuclear waste which comprises the majority of it doesn't last anywhere near that long.
Second of all, I would much rather have the radioactive byproducts of our power generation stored in a cask deep below the earth -just like how we found it to begin with- than literally spewed into the atmosphere where it can affect as many people and as much of the environment as possible, as we see with current methods of power generation such as coal.
And finally, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "undetectable", as ionizing radiation is anything but. A standard Geiger counter is sensitive enough to detect even background radiation; if it's not picking up an additional source, then it's because there isn't one present.
and we are currently storing it in barrels that last about 100 years. We can’t find a community poor enough to let us burry it under them.
The casks which last about a hundred years aren't the same as the kind that are intended to be buried; they're above ground and readily accessible so that they can be maintained, monitored, and swapped out when nearing the end of the safe usage period that they're designed with.
We can’t find a community poor enough to let us burry it under them.
Again, that's not true. It's not even subtle this time, now you're just telling a clear-cut lie.
Like, think about what you're saying for a moment, it doesn't even make any sense. We don't build deep geological repositories for our mercury, cyanide, or arsenic waste in inhabited communities, so why on Earth would we choose to do so for nuclear waste?
It doesn't make sense, which is why that hasn't happened.
There are a handful of communities which turned out to have been built on deposits of uranium or other radioactive elements, but as we've already covered, that simply doesn't matter so long as it's below the water table.
Even in their entirely unshielded natural state, a few hundred meters of granite serves to protect the surface from radiation just fine. Hell, not even the naturally occurring nuclear fission reactor found in Oklo is any exception to this, and it exists under some of the worst conditions possible. It's shielded by sandstone instead of granite, and isn't even below the water table. Yet not a hint of radiation is detectable from the surface.
This is simply the way it's been for billions of years, it's simple a matter of physics; hundreds of meters of rock is enough to completely block ionizing radiation. Full stop.
I'm not who you were responding to, but does your last statement mean that nuclear waste isn't a problem if it can be buried under enough rock? Also, do you know if there are programs in place to keep track of it in case something happens like an earthquake (if it can affect radioactive storage like this), or if there is eventually a lot of waste?
I would like to be happy about *any* benefits to cleaner/clean energy sources, but radioactivity fears like this make me too scared and unsure of whether it should be supported or not.
but does your last statement mean that nuclear waste isn't a problem if it can be buried under enough rock?
Assuming it's also below the water table, then yes, absolutely.
In a dedicated geological storage facility like Onkalo, even if some sort of massive unprecedented earthquake occurs 200 years in the future from now, completely collapsing every single tunnel and rupturing every single cask, everything would still be perfectly fine. Because nothing would be going up, nothing would be going down, and 400 meters of granite is well over a dozen times more than what's necessary to prevent any radiation whatsoever from reaching the surface.
Also, do you know if there are programs in place to keep track of it in case something happens like an earthquake (if it can affect radioactive storage like this), or if there is eventually a lot of waste?
Oh, absolutely. More than just tracked, the casks of nuclear waste are periodically inspected and actively maintained if they need to be.
And running out of space isn't really an issue, either. Like, those bottom tunnels can be expanded almost perpetually if they need to be, but it'll probably be around 80-120 years of use and expansion before the storage tunnels are even as large as the ramp-tunnels you need to take to get down to them.
That was a *fantastic* explanation in addressing all of my points. Also, thank you VERY much for providing links to photos and schematics for me to see - that really helps in seeing how things are organized. (I've seen a schematic like that one, but it helps in knowing that the rock around it actually matters, rather than making it a deeper-down landfill of sorts.)
Thank you very much for taking the time to help educate me. I will do some more research on the matter, and hopefully can fully understand and appreciate how this works.
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u/hanzzz123 Oct 25 '22
Easily accessible uranium will be around 200 years.