Dry Cask Storage

[Anonymous No.11770673]

Why is this controversial? Storing spent fuel like this is not dangerous in any way, it's cheap, can't be terrorized in any meaningful way and it can even be recycled in the future. Why spend millions on burring the fuel deep into mountains when we literally just can store it on land?

[Anonymous No.11770684]

>>11770673
NIMBYfags don’t really think, it’s all >Nuclear bad
And it would be better if we just invested in better reactors that could use up the waste and retire the old PWRs

[Anonymous No.11770815]

>>11770673
It costs more to store it like that for million years than to just chuck it into a cave.

[Anonymous No.11771031]

>>11770673
>can't be terrorized in any meaningful way
Why

[Anonymous No.11771058]

>>11771031
It wouldn't kill anyone and it wouldn't cause any significant contamination because an IED would not be powerful enough to destroy more than a couple of casks at best. It would be expensive to clean up but after a couple of weeks it would be back to normal. A terrorist would cause a lot more damage and terror if they killed 30 people on a buss instead.

[Anonymous No.11771131]

>>11771058
Untill the terrorist steal the things and just spread it to water sources

[Anonymous No.11771208]

>>11771131
do you see the image? How the actual fuck would you manage to steal fuel rods encased in reinforced concrete? And when you have extracted the rods how do you incorporate them into the water supply? Again, there are 1000 of ways you could pollute the water supply that doesn't involve stealing spent fuel encased in 50 tons of concrete

[Anonymous No.11771331]

It's not just fuel rods you need to get rid of, it's also the depleted uranium left from the enrichment process. That shit's useless for bombs or reactors but it's still radioactive and super toxic, and because it's useless it's almost all kept as UF6 instead of converted back to solid uranium.

[Anonymous No.11771362]

>>11770673
>Why spend millions on burring the fuel deep into mountains
digging a deep hole shouldn't be as controversial as it is. Just fucking do it—it's not that expensive relative to other government spending and is a permanent solution to the problem.

[Anonymous No.11771427]

>>11771362
it's actually a bit complicated, you have to account for groundwater, seismic activity and erosion. It's more than just digging a hole

[Anonymous No.11771438]

>>11771331
how is it radioactive? Uranium 238/235 barely decays at all

[Anonymous No.11771458]

>>11771427
A really deep hole.

Most spent fuel mass can be recycled anyways. Only a minor fraction is undesirable isotopes and elements. So reprocess the spent fuel and you have a small amount to bury under Utah or Nevada forever.

[Anonymous No.11771597]

>>11770673
Wherever we put it, it had better be kept where it can be easily retrieved for reprocessing into fuel, since like it or not we're going to need it before fusion becomes possible on an industrial scale, if it ever does.

[Anonymous No.11772004]

>>11770673
because then nuclear plants would actually have to spend money on dry casks rather than just storing it wet as is.

[Anonymous No.11772026]

>>11771131
You shouldnt voice your opinion on subjects you dont fully understand.

[Anonymous No.11772033]

>>11772004
should we just store it permanently in pools then?

[Anonymous No.11772062]

>>11771427
I'm not saying it's "easy" or won't take engineering or time, just that it shouldn't a controversy whether or not it's worth the money and time.

[Anonymous No.11772088]

>>11772062
yes but why not just store it on land?

[Anonymous No.11772095]

>>11772033
Well duh! Of course we should it's cheaper! Who do you think pays for all these casks?

[Anonymous No.11772113]

>>11772095
You must be completely oblivious if you actually think that permanent spent fuel pools is a practical and cheap alternative

[Anonymous No.11772218]

Why don't we just drop nuclear waste in the middle of the ocean, again?

[Anonymous No.11772774]

>>11771438
>The primary radiation danger from pure depleted uranium is due to alpha particles, which do not travel far through air, and do not penetrate clothing. However, in a matter of a month or so, a sample of pure depleted uranium will generate small amounts of thorium-234 and protactinium-234, which emit the more penetrating beta particles at almost the same rate as the uranium emits alpha rays. This is because uranium-238 decays directly to thorium-234, which with a half-life of 24 days decays to protactinium-234, which in turn decays in a matter of hours to the long-lived uranium-234. A quasi-steady state is therefore reached within a few multiples of 24 days.[109]
not a HUGE radioactive hazard, but still non-zero

[Anonymous No.11772842]

>>11771131
>spread it to water sources
which dilutes it to harmlessness? It's only dangerous when it gets into soil, because it says there and is taken up by plants. In water it diffuses into the environment very quickly. For instance, in a few years annual rainwater will have cleansed pretty much all of the environmental radiation from Fukushima, it will only remain in the soil in a narrow strip below the plume.

[Anonymous No.11773010]

>>11772113
it's cheap in the short run! Only the short run matters! Who knows! Maybe we'll be bankrupt in the long run. Maximize profits now!

[Anonymous No.11773029]

>>11771208
>when you have extracted the rods how do you incorporate them into the water supply?
Are you retarded? Do you even know where tap water comes from?
>be terrorist
>steal fuel rods
>drop them lake/river where water is initially collected from
>millions of gallons of radioactive war gets pumped into the water system before the rods are found
Not to mention the dozens or hundreds of pumping stations inside a network that could also have rods shoved into them.

[Anonymous No.11773695]

>>11773029
Those rods wouldn't do any significant damage unless you pulverized them and made it into a water soluble powder. At that point you might just want to go with cyanide instead. Fuel rod terrorisom is some stupid shit

[Anonymous No.11773717]

>>11772774
So it can be basically be stored in barrels like any other dangerous chemical. It's not the same as high level radioactive waste

[Anonymous No.11774004]

>>11773717
The barrels corrode if they're left outside and they need monitoring, maintenance, and replacement. And theres a lot of them. That's why "put them in a secure place underground" is such an attractive option. It stores them with much less risk of release

[Anonymous No.11774638]

>>11772088
You have to store for longer periods than any civilisation has lasted so far.

[Anonymous No.11774770]

>>11770673
lmao just launch into space

[Anonymous No.11775047]

>>11772842
Then why are they even storing them? Dump them in the sea or in a lake. Something doesn't add up.

[Anonymous No.11775104]

>>11770673
Is it really that expensive to just bury it in an existing deep mine somewhere?

[Anonymous No.11775129]

>>11775047
i guess large amounts of it can build over time... but yeah something doesn't add up.

[Anonymous No.11776145]

>>11775047
>dump radioactive material in the place that makes half our oxygen and is the foundation of many countries' economy and agriculture
yeah real smart idea there genius

[Anonymous No.11776971]

Nuclear waste redpill thread: >>11776903

[Anonymous No.11777922]

>>11776971
cold fusion schizo posting

[Anonymous No.11779470]

>>11771458
>A really deep hole.
A subduction zone is probably the best solution.

>>11775047
>Something doesn't add up.
Sure: heavy metals accumulate in the food chain and ends up on your dinner plate.

[Anonymous No.11779482]

>>11779470
>A subduction zone
Which are the best options?
if they can do this why do they insist on geologically stable regions? is there any conceivable way to use this spent fuel at all?

[Anonymous No.11779670]

>>11779482
Many subduction zones are deep under the sea, a bit complicated. Also these zones are, obviously, prone to massive earthquakes. Injecting things into such zones can induce earthquakes, which means you have to be a long way away from civilisation.

All in all the difficulties are in finding a suitable geographic area and the political problems of getting permission. Unless you are Russia or China and just execute whoever makes protests.

[Anonymous No.11779991]

>>11776145
>>11779470
Oh, so terrorists could do what the other guy told us they can't after all.

[Anonymous No.11780020]

>>11775047
The energy per nucleon in DU is slightly lower than iron or nickel, but it has a lot more nucleons. There are other ways to get energy out, namely breaking apart the stable isotopes in an accelerator moderated reactor or by counter-rotational obliteration. Do it just right and each one of those 2.2+MeV quarks can release their energy in a way we can capture as heat or electron flux.

[Anonymous No.11780479]

>>11771131
Each one of those casks weighs dozens up to 150 tons, and are monitored 24/7. Get back to me with a plan for stealing them.
>>11771131
>>11773029
>>11776145
Dropping them at the bottom of a lake would do nothing but sterilize a small patch of the sediment, water is an excellent material for shielding.
>>11770673
Dry storage isnt controversial, its just a pita to administrate because of the regulations and the sheer volume of radioactive waste we produce.

[Anonymous No.11781495]

>>11779991
Of course.
Acid will leak bad stuff into the soil and then into waterways. Also a lorry full of explosives will turn the concrete to powder, spreading waste as dust into the atmosphere.

When people present a "simple" solution to nuclear waste, there is something they have glossed over.

[Anonymous No.11782151]

>>11771131
>>11779991

>what are security guards

[Anonymous No.11782180]

>>11782151
>>11780479
You going to hire security guards to police the site for 100k years? America has barely existed for 300.

[Anonymous No.11782204]

>>11782180
Who fucking cares what happens in 100k years. I'm serious. Civilized humanity has only been around for a few thousand years, and the progress made has been insane. Kick the can just a couple hundred years and those spent rods will be valuable for something. They'll never sit there for even close to a thousand years.
I forsee us eventually actually using one of those stupid ass underground storages with warning signs and symbols everywhere that a team of 20 took years to perfect. They'll bury a few hundred tons of high grade waste, and pat each other on the back in front of cameras, proudly declaring the world safe from the scary radiation for 100,000 years. Then in 100 years some supercorp will be buying up all the above ground casketed waste for use in something or other, while we all lament ever storing the underground shit in such a difficult to access manner.

[Anonymous No.11782220]

>>11782204
>Who fucking cares what happens in 100k years.
Terrorists when the site is inevitably abandoned at some point, allowing them to steal all that stuff

[Anonymous No.11782839]

>>11782220
Maybe those terrorists are going up against a genuinely oppressive global government and those nearly forgotten casks are their one chance at regaining freedom for humanity.
I can make shit up too. The overwhelmingly likely thing to happen is we figure out cheap spent fuel reprocessing without proliferation risk (or we rightly stop giving a fuck).

[Anonymous No.11783103]

>>11782839
wrong