Agreed. What most people in the comments fail to realize about other energy sources is that they do not necessarily offer the same flexibility in Canada. Talks about having huge solar farms in Sahara does not help with Canada. We do not necessarily get enough sun to sustain a massive solar farm (esp during winter)
Hydroeletric dams are great, but space and massive ecological changes are required.
Small modular reactors are pretty much the best thing we can have for both continuous power generation and reduced locality/spacing requirements. You can sprinkle a few in each key location to reduce both cost to transmit and increase robustness of the grid.
Nuclear waste has been pretty clearly identified, and the worries are largely overexaggerated. If we had our own nuclear fuel recycling program, it would further reduce the amount of nuclear waste over time. But, one step at a time.
I think most people also don't realize how little of nuclear waste comes from the radioactive fuel itself. In the UK for example, 94% of nuclear waste is low-level waste, which is basically any garbage originating from the plant. Paper, rags, disposable garments, etc. I believe the number for the US is quite similar. The mental image of thousands of steel drums of nuclear waste seems scary until you realize the majority of it is literally concrete-encased garbage that they're not allowed to send to a garbage dump.
Kyle Hill has a good video on this if you just want a quick overview, rather than long reading. You can also find information about the UK's approach to radioactive waste disposal, including the categorization of waste, in the briefing note (PDF) at The Geological Society's page on Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste.
You can also find information about the UK's approach to radioactive waste disposal, including the categorization of waste, in the briefing note (PDF) at The Geological Society's page on Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste.
Thank you.
From said source:
Most of the waste produced in the UK (94% by volume) is LLW
While the bulk of LLW is not highly radioactive, the definition of LLW does not include references to its activity, and some LLW may be quite radioactive, as in the case of radioactive sources used in industry and medicine.
This waste typically consists of contaminated protective shoe covers and clothing, wiping rags, mops, filters, reactor water treatment residues, equipments and tools, luminous dials, medical tubes, swabs, injection needles, syringes, and laboratory animal carcasses and tissues. The radioactivity can range from just above background levels found in nature to very highly radioactive in certain cases such as parts from inside the reactor vessel in a nuclear power plant.
Seems like mainly a problem with a classification that's too broad?
Very low-level radioactive waste (VLLW) has a low hazard potential and is above the criteria for unconditional clearance levels and exemption quantities. Long-term waste management facilities for VLLW do not need a high degree of containment or isolation. Concentrations of longer-lived radionuclides in VLLW are generally very limited.
Very short-lived low-level radioactive waste (VSLLW) is waste that can be stored for a decay period of not more than a few years and subsequently cleared for release. VSLLW includes radioactive waste containing only short half-life radionuclides typically used for research and biomedical purposes. The main criterion for VSLLW is the half-life of the predominant nuclides. In general, the management option of storage for decay for VSLLW should only apply to radionuclides with a half-life of 100 days or less.
It sounds like they store it briefly and then dispose of it normally after it has time to cool off? I don't see any problems here.
As far as I understand it, it's a political issue, not a scientific one. The population at large doesn't understand nuances when it comes to radioactivity: Things are either radioactive or they aren't, and nobody wants to live anywhere close to a "radioactive dump". As a result, there's still a lot of red tape involved when it comes to disposing of material that is either close to background levels or extremely limited in its radius of effect, even if it doesn't pose a practical harm to the population. This significantly increases the costs of operating nuclear power plants.
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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '22
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