Nuclear Waste?

[DeeZire]

As a liberal environmentalist, I always dismissed the nuclear power option because of the inadequacies of waste containment technology. However, now that I’m a faux conservative, I have to consider embracing nuclear power as a way to reduce global warming.

Is there credible science proving the viability of storing nuclear waste safely, or is it the same kind of ‘credible science’ that discounts global warming as a hoax? In other words, has the safety issue fallen victim to Right Wing propaganda, or Left Wing intransigence?

This quote, in the context of the underground burial of vitrified waste, seems to be indicative of what’s available on the web:

“This combination of artificial and natural barriers is thought to be sufficient to ensure the safety of the underground disposal of high-level radioactive waste.”

“Thought to be sufficient” is not very reassuring. Twenty-some years ago, in Washington state, they put radioactive waste into tanks, tanks that are now leaking, threatening to pollute the Columbia river. Obviously, at the time, they thought the tanks would be sufficient to ensure the safety of the radioactive waste, but they were mistaken.

What if they’re also mistaken about current technology? Is it a gamble worth taking? To put it another way, do we have the moral right to imperil future generations because of lifestyle choices we make today - lifestyle choices that demand more energy than we can safely produce?

 

[Carnevil9]

At a minimum, you've got the example of 40 or so years of problem-free waste containment in countries that didn't have our liberal pinheads to stop them from trying.

 

[JagFarlane]

I think, we need to study Africas natural reactor more, and understand how the radiation from it didn't affect its surroundings as much.

 

[Duleigh]

First of all, the opposite of environmentalist is NOT conservative. I'm an ardent conservative and have proudly done more to save endangered species and restore land to a natural state than any 10 liberals weekend warrior environmentalists who spend their free time carrying signs rather than getting their hands dirty than I've ever met. I've spent much of my life involved in the actual reclamation of land that was once over farmed or used as dumping grounds and have helped the wild turkey and coyote return to NY state.

As for nuclear waste - the fact that it exists is probably the most embarrassing thing about US Energy policy. Nuclear waste can be recycled and reused. Older US reactors create 2,200 tons of radio active waste annually, which is the completely bass-ackward way of looking at it. In reality if we built new, state of the art plants these older reactors will then produce 2,200 tons of potential radioactive fuel per year.

To recycle the spent fuel they dissolve the fuel in nitric acid to chemically extract the the highly radioactive elements plutonium, neptunium, americium and curium, also known as actinides as well as depleted uranium. The uranium is then re-enriched, recombined with the actinides, and compressed into fuel pellets for state-of-the-art reactors. In this scenario waste is used repeatedly, transforming it into less harmful elements with each cycle.

This reuse of fuel in new reactors will produce 100 times as much energy as conventional reactors and produce 40% less waste. This actually works. Spent fuel recycling is currently on going in France with an unblemished safety record. The US actually stumbled upon recycling nuclear waste during the Manhattan project.

Now THIS is a real solution, not a lot of hand-wringing and sign waiving that accomplishes nothing other than making someone feel good that they 'raised awareness' without having raised a sweat or actually accomplish anything.

 

[rgraham666]

You could have told us that without the ranting, you know.

 

[DeeZire]

You could have told us that without the ranting, you know.

I think I invite the ranting with my faux conservative charade. I should just give it up, but it's been a real eye-opener, trying to see issues from the other side.

I'm still curious about the long term viability of storing nuclear waste. 40 years is nothing in the big scheme of things. What is our nuclear waste storage going to be doing to the environment in 400 years?

 

[keeblercrumb]

"5, 4, 3, 2.... Uhhh Ivan? Did you remember to..?"

At a minimum, you've got the example of 40 or so years of problem-free waste containment in countries that didn't have our liberal pinheads to stop them from trying.

Being a liberal pinhead myself, I find it more than a little amusing watching the reactionary right wrap itself in the nuclear firmament....

Conservatives have been against environmentalism for so long they have forgotten why..... Let me remind you.... "the status quo"... that is what conservatives in every nation in the world are in favor of... it DEFINES conservatives. Conservative Russians believe in communism..... etc.....

But now for the ironic and humorous part of this nuclear b.s......

First.... conservatives who have hitherto decried there even is such a thing as global warming now embrace nuclear energy as the answer!! Oh yeah... and drilling for more fossil fuels to keep the CO2 production up at the same time... That'll work.....

Second... In the history of the world there has never been a more government subsidized energy source than nuclear power.... From basic research to modeling to full scale development to waste storage.... Billions upon billions upon billions of taxpayer money.....

The nuclear "glory days" conservatives long for was a massively uneconomical basis for power there has ever been... and THAT is why it disappeared... that and those little hiccups at 3-Mile island, Chernobyl, Japan and a couple hundred more "incidents" that never made the news...

And how does this fit into the Free Market system? It doesn't. Never has... extremely unlikely that it ever will.....

It's singular virtue is that environmentalists used to be against it....

Great stuff…. Us pinheads stay up all night laughing about it….


-KC

 

[gauchecritic]

that and claiming that nuclear energy is actually nuclear energy.

It's not. They boil water with it.

 

[DeeZire]

that and claiming that nuclear energy is actually nuclear energy.

It's not. They boil water with it.

A glorified steam engine? I never looked at it that way.

Palo Verde is about 100 miles from where I live in southern Arizona (which is a parched desert.) There was some local grumbling when it went in. We're depleting our underground aquifers at a rate of 3 or 4 feet per year, (Sustainable water use? In this day and age?) and the water situation was an issue. I wonder how much water Palo Verde uses? Compared to farming, it might not be much, but it is a factor.

 

[Carnevil9]

Conservatives have been against environmentalism for so long they have forgotten why..... Let me remind you.... "the status quo"... that is what conservatives in every nation in the world are in favor of... it DEFINES conservatives. Conservative Russians believe in communism..... etc.....

This is patently ludricous. There is nothing more conservative than wanting to maintain the environment in its pristine condition. Conservation = Conservatism, conserving the environment.

The difference between a Conservative Environmentalist and a Liberal Pinhead Whacko Environmentalist is that a Conseravitve Environmentalist tilts the balance a little more toward human life and society than he does toward spotted owls and California condors.

 

[keeblercrumb]

"5, 4, 3, 2.... Uhhh Ivan? Did you remember to..?"

This is patently ludricous. There is nothing more conservative than wanting to maintain the environment in its pristine condition. Conservation = Conservatism, conserving the environment.

The difference between a Conservative Environmentalist and a Liberal Pinhead Whacko Environmentalist is that a Conseravitve Environmentalist tilts the balance a little more toward human life and society than he does toward spotted owls and California condors.

Speaking on behalf of Liberal Pinhead Whacko Environmentalists everywhere, I find nothing I said ludicrous, but then I would, of course. I love how you go from conserving the “pristine environment” to killing off spotted owls and California condors… Is that one of those “pristine” with an asterisk things?

As you have just demonstrated, a “conservative environmentalist”, is damn near an oxy-moron but in your case I may only be half right.

Saving spotted owls and California condors is important because the shit that is killing them… over-development, de-forestation, chemical pollutants, and air pollution WILL kill us eventually… But even if we are just denied the pleasure of their company on this planet, it should serve the same purpose as a canary in a mine does….. Think of it as an early warning system.

Protecting the environment is ALWAYS tilting things away from SOMEBODY. Keeping people from cutting down all the trees, catching all the fish, hunting all the wild animals costs many people their jobs… Of course, if we don’t do it… their jobs will not last much longer anyway…. Ask the cod fishermen….Ask the Chesapeake bay watermen as they have watched first the oysters go away and now the crabs…

But I can’t help but notice you did not mention the whole point of my post… the irony of “conservatives” supporting government subsidized nuclear power industry. Where is the free market when you need it?

But the ironies just keep coming, don’t they?

Being in favor of nuclear power to help against global warming but then supporting drilling up the environment to produce even more fossil fuel to burn off as greenhouse gases..…. Yeah… like THAT makes sense.

But back to your point…. Just what part of the environment does a “conservative environmentalist” actually want to conserve? I am a little fuzzy on that…..

-KC

 

[DeeZire]

The difference between a Conservative Environmentalist and a Liberal Pinhead Whacko Environmentalist is that a Conseravitve Environmentalist tilts the balance a little more toward human life and society than he does toward spotted owls and California condors.

I think it could be argued that the statement 'tilting the balance towards human life and society' tilts a little towards fiction. Tilting the balance towards profit without regard for consequences is more like it, especially since human life and society suffer when the environment goes to hell.

Perhaps we need to better define what a society thinks it needs, and figure out if it's realistic to meet those needs, or if those needs will end up hurting society in the long run, as is happening today with global warming. People, by nature, are greedy and lazy. Providing them with devices to make their lives easier and more comfortable will always be considered a 'need', but in the big scheme of things, could end up rendering humans extinct.

 

[Stella_Omega]

You could have told us that without the ranting, you know.

No, he couldn't. No conservative can.

 

[rgraham666]

Colly could have.

I miss her.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I've been going through a stack of science magazines, trying to find the article I read. An environmentalist talked about the newest research, and how close nuclear technology is coming to being safe. There was some interesting news on that front. Only I can't find it. If it were on the net, I'd have bookmarked it, dammit!

 

[R. Richard]

As has been already stated, the european countries don't have handy western deserts in which to store their nuclear wastes. Thus, they recycle their 'nuclear waste' and use it to produce still more cheap, reliable power.

Now, let's discuss the 'dangers' of nuclear power. Yes, Chernoble melted down. That was a prblem with the soviet beaurocracy. At Three Mile Island the 'disaster' consisted of the release of about one chest x-ray worth of radiation into the stmosphere. The US Navy has been operating nuclear ships for decades, with no accidents, incidents or problems.

Why doesn't the US switch to nuclear power instead of fossil fuels? If the US started to switch to nuclear power today, it would take maybe 10 years to make the switch. In the meantime, we have a civilization to run. The US needs oil to power that civilization while we wait for the replacement for oil power. While we wait, every 'conservation' group will fight against nuclear power and delay the construction of new nuclear power facilities as long and as much as possible.

All right, the US manages to generate power from the hot air coming out of Congress and we have all the power we need, without oil or nuclear. Problem solved! Just a couple of little questions, what does the US then use to pave its roads? What does the US then use to feed its plastics industry? With what does the US petrochemical industry operate? Who pays for the switchover from heating oil to electric heating [very inefficient. by the way]?

 

[Weird Harold]

“This combination of artificial and natural barriers is thought to be sufficient to ensure the safety of the underground disposal of high-level radioactive waste.”

“Thought to be sufficient” is not very reassuring. Twenty-some years ago, in Washington state, they put radioactive waste into tanks, tanks that are now leaking, threatening to pollute the Columbia river. Obviously, at the time, they thought the tanks would be sufficient to ensure the safety of the radioactive waste, but they were mistaken.

Depending on what that quote is in reference to, it may or may not be more reassuring than the CYA choice of words would indicate.

Kufru though the largest masonry structure mankind has ever built was sufficient to protect his earthly remains for eternity -- the looting of the Great Pyramid mere centuries after his death tends to make people cautious about predictions of inviolabililty for extremely long time frames.

The reason I say it depends on what the quote is in reference to; it sounds like the weasel wording of the "science" related to the proposed nuclear waste storage Yucca Mountain, NV and the proposed methods of where and how to bury the waste there are NOT reassuring to anyone who really looks at the history of the "search" for a "national waste storage facility."

Burying nuclear waste where you can drive the delivery truck to the final resting place is a poor place to store Nuclear Waste -- whether it's vitrified or just canned. That includes abandoned salt mines, abandoned coal mines, or any other sort of abandoned mine as well as any purpose built tunnel system as proposed for Yucca Mountain.

Any place where you can drive to the final resting place is a place where some post-apocalyptic neo-primitive archeologist can eventually walk to or tunnel to in search of "ancient secrets."

On the other hand, dropping vitrified blocks of waste down a 3,000 ft deep bore hole generally puts them below the water table and into geologically stable rock (if it doesn't, just drill deeper) where it would be exceedingly difficult for neo-primitives to just stumble across and it would take geological time spans to bring it the surface or even up into the water table.

With fuel recycling to reduce the amount of waste -- down from Duleigh's assertion of 2,200 tons (which, I believe, is a seriously inflated figure for the amount of "high-level" waste that can be reprocessed into new fuel rods) to about one or two tons/year -- one 3,000+ ft bore hole per nuclear plant will take care of a decade or so worth of waste.

Nothing is absolutely certain, but deep, vertical, burial puts the waste out of reach of everything except an Act of God and Vitrification, properly done, reduces the specific hazard of any particular pound of waste to about the same hazard as a 1940's vintage aviator's watch (with a radium dial) so it won't really matter if God does bring it back to the surface before it decays competely.

 

[DeeZire]

Thank you, WH, for an on-topic response, although the preceding rants were more entertaining.

Assuming this bore-hole theory would work, it sounds like state-of-the-art nuclear technology could be a viable source of energy. In this light, I would think conservation groups would be happy to go nuclear as an alternative to more fossil fuel burning.

What the hard-core Conservative needs to understand is, the hardcore conservationist is so used to be lied to by Conservatives, it will take time for the concept of safe nuclear power to break through their defensive barrier. This thread is the perfect example of that. It took how many posts to get to the heart of the matter? When the safety of nuclear power is common knowledge, it will be a lot easier to bring it online without objections.

Let's hope the bore-hole theory holds water, (or doesn't hold water, if there's a water table nearby,) so I don't have to give up my computer and my heat/AC in an effort to balance my energy needs against available supplies.

 

[Weird Harold]

What the hard-core Conservative needs to understand is, the hardcore conservationist is so used to be lied to by Conservatives, it will take time for the concept of safe nuclear power to break through their defensive barrier. This thread is the perfect example of that. It took how many posts to get to the heart of the matter? When the safety of nuclear power is common knowledge, it will be a lot easier to bring it online without objections.

As I understand it, the French and other european countries have been using fuel rod recycling, vitrification, and deep boreholes for a long time. It's only the US where the hardcore conservationsists have created such a bogeyman out of nuclear waste that they're now trapped by their own propaganda.

In another thread, a nuke supporter pointed out that coal-fired powerplants and factories do far more damage over a far wider area than even Chernobyl managed and orders of magnitude more damage than any American reactor or nuclear waste storage has even threatened -- including the Hanford Superfund site's threatened pollution of the Columbia River.

That's immediate and long-term damage from Acid Rain, heavy metal emmissions, and carcinogenic soot, not nebulous carbon dioxide contributions to Global Warming.

Unfortunately the environmental opposition to nuclear power (nuclear anything) in the US has compounded the "waste" problem by including things like one-time-use latex gloves which might be contaminated by minute amounts of radioactive material in the same category as spent fuel rods. That has inflated the amount of waste and generated the push for a single nuclear waste repository -- where any danger from nuclear waste is compounded by concentrating the wast ein one place.

Consider, a one pound pellet of radioactive uranium-lead alloy -- aka depleted uranium -- dropped into a borehole near the reactor it was removed from presents a small hazard to a small area even if it should get regurgitated somehow.

That same one pound of radioactive lead time 2,000 boreholes at 2,000 widely space reactor sites presents almost no increase in normal background radiation levels in any one place. Take those 2,000 radioactive lead pellets and bring them all to one single place, and you have a ton of radioactive material that generates a consideraable amount of radiation in one place.

Depending on just how "depleted" the Uranium is, that much radioactive lead in one place could approach a critical mass, so it requires shielding and other measures to partition and isolate smaller amounts.

The US Nuclear policy has been so screwed by catering to the hardcore environmentalists' fears and ignorance that I don't hold out much hope for any sort of rational policy development in the near future. Ther ar esill too many hardcore environmentalists that beileve their own fear-mongering propaganda and too many hardcore nuke supporters that consider every word from an environmentalist a fear-mongering exageration. There's damned few in the middle who can see the idiocy of consolidating hazardous material that gets more hazardous in large concentrations.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Ehm, the author of the Gaia theory supports nuclear power.

So really, how 'conservative' is that?

France, which is far more liberal than America, has tons of nuclear power. American liberals are considered to the right of French liberals.

*scratches head*


Why are American liberals opposing nuclear energy while those far to the LEFT of them in other nations, consider it just the way things are done?

 

[DeeZire]

Why are American liberals opposing nuclear energy while those far to the LEFT of them in other nations, consider it just the way things are done?

Lack of information? Idealism? Distrust of companies like Haliburton who would get the contracts for the facilities? Distrust of science financed by vested interests? Kneejerk negative reaction to years of government lies?

In spite of all that, I'll try to get the word out, but now that I'm a faux Conservative, I doubt that any of my liberal friends will take me seriously.

I think I may have heard Obama mention nuclear power as a viable energy source, which means he could utilize the bully pulpit, or at least, the campaign, to raise awareness. However, with the horrible reputation the French have earned at the hands of the Right Wing smear machine, it would behoove Obama not to mention that particular European country in his nuclear spiel.

 

[ishtat]

France, which is far more liberal than America, has tons of nuclear power. American liberals are considered to the right of French liberals.

Why are American liberals opposing nuclear energy while those far to the LEFT of them in other nations, consider it just the way things are done?

1 France is not more liberal than America. It is more socialist but is deeply nationalistic culturally. For example it still hangs onto the remnants of its imperial past. Frenchman believe viscerally that their culture is superior to any other and also believe in putting France 1st, 2nd and 3rd in all things. After losing Algeria in the 50's they had no secure source of oil and their coal resources whilst plentiful are of indifferent quality or difficult to mine. They went into Nuclear Energy primarily to retain independance from suppliers. Concentrating waste and re-cycling was a logical extension of that. Now their technical knowledge of nuclear power is better than any other country particularly in the development of advanced reactors.

2 Why is there a difference in levels of opposition, mainly because the US is now having the debate the French went through 50 years ago. France also has a highly centralised government which whether of the right or left tends to be fairly authoritarian.

3. A sound basic account of the problems and current solution for dealing with Nuclear waste can be found herewww.world-nuclear.org/info/info04.html

4. Finally it might have been more helpful for some people to note that Duleigh's first post was limited but factually accurate. Certainly it tended to be a very mild rant but by board standards was pretty tame.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm a rabid leftist indoorsman chemist who actually worked with vitrified reactor waste back in the 70's at Argonne National Laboratory. I saw it, handled it, tested it, fiddled with it.

You might like to know what it is. It's not the same as the slop they stored in barrels that are now leaking. "Vitrified" means that it's been diluted with sand and turned into glass. Glass balls, in fact, a little bigger than marbles, solid glass all the way through, in which the waste is highly diluted. So dilute that the reactivity is only slightly higher than normal background radiation. So this stuff can't leak because it's not a liquid. It's a solid dispersed in glass.

We examined these glass balls to see if water could leach out any radioactive material and it couldn't. Neither could acid or base or any organic solvent. (That's why they store acids and bases and organic solvents in glass bottles, because glass is impervious to them.) The only chemical that attacks glass is Hydrofluoric acid, which is too reactive to be found on the planet earth.

The only possibility of releasing this waste from its glass prison would be if it should somehow melt, like, say, if attacked by hot lava, in which case they would dissolve in the hot lava, which would further dilute them, rendering them even less harmful.

I would be willing to live next to a vitrified nuclear waste dump and have my kids go to school over one. It's that safe.

I don't know how much clearer I can make this. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

 

[DesertPirate]

Dr_M, that works for me!
I served on a Nuc Sub and took less radiation lifetime than a month in NM sunshine. The Corpsman gave me a fresh TLD that sat on my dashboard while on leave for a month.

It seems France, Germany, and the Scandanavian countries have not had any problems with their waste either. They also have stronger "Green" parties than we do to fight it if there was a problem.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Dr_M, that works for me!
I served on a Nuc Sub and took less radiation lifetime than a month in NM sunshine. The Corpsman gave me a fresh TLD that sat on my dashboard while on leave for a month.

It seems France, Germany, and the Scandanavian countries have not had any problems with their waste either. They also have stronger "Green" parties than we do to fight it if there was a problem.

Yeah. The waste problem has become a case of permanent hysteria.

Harold's right too. Low level waste, like gloves that are used to handle closed containers of fuel and the paper suits we'd routinely wear in the labs, are treated like they're as dangerous as the really hazardous stuff, merely because the public doesn't know what's what and goes apeshit whenever they near the word "nuclear". And I understand. It's scary stuff. I've been contaminated a few times after handling irradiated fuel rods and it's pretty creepy, but it's not the end of the world. We wiped it off with some Kleenex.

It's unknown though, and people are afraid of the unknown. 'Twas ever thus.