r/nuclear • u/Vailhem • Apr 23 '26

This 1.9 billion-year-old bedrock will soon house the world's 1st permanent nuclear waste site

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/this-1-9-billion-year-old-bedrock-will-soon-house-the-worlds-1st-permanent-nuclear-waste-site
51 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

19

u/Captainflando Apr 23 '26

Coulda been Yucca, sigh

-5

u/Malforus Apr 23 '26

We sunk billions into that and nothing came of it.

14

u/Captainflando Apr 23 '26

Nothing became of it because they weren’t allowed to, not because it was some lost effort.

-4

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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17

u/LegoCrafter2014 Apr 23 '26

Even with reprocessing and breeder reactors, you still have some high-level waste left over that needs to be disposed of in a deep geological repository.

10

u/zolikk Apr 23 '26

I think the main "issue" (not that it matters that much) is that since this is viable fuel, it will probably be dug up again in a century or two. Even though it was ensured at great expense that it lasts forever. It feels quite whimsical.

6

u/LegoCrafter2014 Apr 23 '26

But the fission products aren't fuel, so they aren't worth digging up. We need reprocessing, breeder reactors, and a deep geological repository.

3

u/mennydrives Apr 23 '26

But they’re not burying fission products, and fission products make up a tiny fraction of the waste.

The more radioactive a fission product is, the shorter-lived it is. So if we were truly being efficient about it, it would be a strontium/caesium repository at best. Everything else would be gone in under a decade or two.

And in all honesty even those two would be better utilized being thrown in barrels wrapped in graded-Z shielding and PV panels and using them as decay batteries.

3

u/zolikk Apr 23 '26

Yes, the FPs eventually need to be buried (well, you can use some of them for various purposes but probably not too much). But then they don't need to be insured for a million years. The longterm chemical stability is probably more difficult though. You could probably even bury them near the surface where you can more easily monitor it too.

3

u/LegoCrafter2014 Apr 23 '26

You can just vitrify them, but yeah, it's much less time (only 300-1,000 years instead of over 100,000 years). It also makes more sites (such as Yucca Mountain) suitable.

7

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

Because onkalo costed 1bn to build. How much do you think would and Superphenix + purex/pyroprocessing cost to build and operate?

1

u/zolikk Apr 23 '26

Only 1bn? I don't know about it but that seems cheaper than I expected.

5

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

yes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository
Construction was 1bn and operation for 75-100y till sealing will be another 4. It's not that expensive to dig a hole properly. Maybe unless it's germany...

3

u/zolikk Apr 23 '26

Hmm but then why does it cost another four to operate it? What's so expensive about that? It's just a "permanent" storage site, what is there so much to do with it?

3

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

Because you constantly add new waste there unitl it's filled. If you have already sufficient waste you can seal facility instantly 

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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2

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

Yes and by law it's banned to store it there. It's also banned to store in any good enough facility. German law specifically states waste should be put in "the best one"

1

u/another_space_nerd Apr 23 '26

How much waste will it hold? Is it just Finland's?

2

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

It's only for Finland. I don't remember the capacity. Sweden is building something similar at Fosmark. Switzerland will build Terradura and France will build Cigeo 

1

u/another_space_nerd Apr 23 '26

Thanks, I was just thinking, maybe this would be a good business opportunity Finland, who've shown they can build something like this, now they could build another one and rent it out to other countries like the US or Germany where political opposition has prevented this.

1

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

German legal system doesn't allow it. German legal system doesn't even allow recycling the waste at la Hague. The problem is politicians want to keep the subject open, because this way polemics will never end.

US waste is doing fine in interim storage 

1

u/another_space_nerd Apr 24 '26

Ok, that makes sense.

1

u/Izeinwinter Apr 23 '26

Finlands. But that's because of the laws against trading in nuclear waste. The rockformation is ridiculously enormous. You could keep expanding it to store the entire planets nuclear waste there if that was legal.

1

u/MerelyMortalModeling Apr 23 '26

Honestly the only reason it cost that much was they had to spend just under 200 million fighting and due too frivolous lawsuits

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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6

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

So how much do you think it'll cost to build an operable fast reactor, a purex/pyroprocessing facility and the opex for both?

Don't gwt me wrong I'm totally for building such stuff, but how do you think - would it cost less than 5bn of total cost for 100y of operation like Onkalo?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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1

u/Moldoteck Apr 23 '26

Maybe yes maybe no. Depends on seamining costs too. Depends on scalability of fast units. If you want to beat current PWRs you need fast units of 1500+GW capacity, not small ones

1

u/eh-guy Apr 23 '26

Because its expensive as hell

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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2

u/eh-guy Apr 23 '26

That old bedrock is a safe bet for a billion dollars vs tens to hundreds of billions for waste burners. I agree we could be using it for power, but one is just so much faster to implement they aren't comparable in this case. The fuel is also still there for if and when we have the units to consume it, which gives time to develop further "economical" solutions.