Yucca Mountain

[Anonymous No.5757523]

What's your opinion on the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, /sci/? Right now it's shuttered and sits empty.

It was built with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax payer money to properly contain nuclear waste. Also from wikipedia (I know, it's shit but this line blew my mind)

>In the 2008 Omnibus Spending Bill, the Yucca Mountain Project's budget was reduced to $390 million. Despite this cut in funding, the project was able to reallocate resources and delay transportation expenditures to complete the License Application for submission on June 3, 2008. Lacking an operating repository, however, the federal government owes to the utilities somewhere between $300 and $500 million per year in compensation for failing to comply with the contract it signed to take the spent nuclear fuel by 1998

It costs several hundred million a year because we are out of compliance in disposal and containment of nuclear waste.

tl;dr Nuclear waste is ALL OVER the country right now. We keep it in huge drums usually in open air "parking lots" with little security by power plants. One bad flash flood, tidal wave or earthquake could be made much worse with a containment breach of nuclear materials.

People argued that having the nuclear waste in one region was "bad" but I think keeping it everywhere with no long term containment is even worse.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.5757533]

>Inside Yucca Moungtain

[Anonymous No.5757541]

>>5757533
Why sage you dick?

Give some input you asspie.

[Anonymous No.5757571]

Op here,

So /sci/ like to praise, and piss and moan about nuclear technology all day long but doesn't want to discuss "nuclear waste disposal" which is an important part (if not the most important part) of nuclear energy?

I bet you leave your mom's house a total mess staying home all day.

[Anonymous No.5757587]

>>5757533
>Moungtain

I found the image off google for shitsakes.

[Anonymous No.5757590]

US nuclear waste laws are pants on head retarded. In every other country with nuclear plants the first-round nuclear waste which still contains quite a bit of radiation is cycled back into reactors and reused, both decreasing the amount of fresh fuel that is used and making the end product waste much less harmful. But in the US that's illegal, so nuclear waste that's highly radioactive is produced everywhere and the companies can't do shit with it, they legally have to just sit on it.

But the nuclear waste, itself, is not really dangerous, it's highly contained and emits miniscule amounts of radiation, it's not really a security threat because anyone attempting to steal it to do something with it would be hunted down and caught before they could do anything, the only danger is if it gets into the water supply which is extremely, extremely unlikely. The standards at Yucca Mountain are so high because it's supposed to last forever, it's supposed to be able to contain nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years with no contamination at all occurring. Obviously this is really fucking hard to accomplish but keeping it safe short-term (ie on the scale of generations or centuries) is really not a problem.

[Anonymous No.5757591]

>>5757571
Quit bitching, we're into bump 8 year old autists mode now.

[Anonymous No.5757606]

>>5757590
>the only danger is if it gets into the water supply which is extremely, extremely unlikely.
Why is that extremely unlikely? There are hundreds of sites around the country with nuclear waste. That's playing some shitty odds that a natural disaster can't happen to any of these sites.

I think of it this way; it's easier to store it in one location (like yucca mountain) and avoid a natural disaster like a flood in a desert rather than have hundreds of sites and claim "it's highly unlikely" until it happens.

This nuclear waste will be around so long there is a good chance everyone will forget most or all of these sites overtime. We don't know what the future holds. The short term "solution" is vastly insufficient given how long this shit lasts and how shitty current storage and security is.

[Anonymous No.5757613]

>>5757590
Let me also point out that nuclear waste storage, as it currently is, is utter shit.

You are vastly over stating it's sufficiency. Imagine lined casks on a slightly elevated concrete slab, outdoors with a part-time security guard jerking off in a booth ignoring the many boring toxic barrels that never move. Top that with little to no inspections and no one checking if the casks are full or empty (someone could steal it and no one would notice. Who the fuck is weighing them? You?)

[Anonymous No.5757620]

>>5757591
Fuckola, I'm just giving you salvation from the 12 year old autistic tard you're all in competition with.
>he's winning by the way.

I give you gold (topic about nuclear energy) and some of you give back shit.

>kids these days.

[Anonymous No.5757639]

So is this why the nuclear energy argument fails?

No one wants to clean up the mess made by the "awesome toy"?

I guess back to geothermal, wind and solar.

[Anonymous No.5757646]

>>5757606
>Why is that extremely unlikely? There are hundreds of sites around the country with nuclear waste. That's playing some shitty odds that a natural disaster can't happen to any of these sites.
But even "a natural disaster" is very very unlikely to result in any contamination. It's not just any natural disaster, it has to be one that somehow moves the barrels of waste into freshwater or groundwater, disperses them far enough that they can't be easily retrieved and at the same time opens the barrels, breaches the containment and exposes the waste to the water. And if something on this scale does happen, there are going to be a whole hell of a lot bigger problems for the area than some nuclear waste in the water.
>I think of it blah
But that's not the point of yucca mountain. The point is to keep it there permanently. It doesn't need to be in one location now, that doesn't make it much safer than it already is, certainly not hundreds of millions of dollars safer.
>This nuclear waste will be around so long there is a good chance everyone will forget most or all of these sites overtime.
No. Yucca mountain is the permanent solution. Maybe 10, maybe 50 years down the line yucca mountain or some other permanent solution will be ready and the waste will be moved. It's not going to sit there permanently, and barring an apocalypse scenario people aren't going to forget where it is. It's nuclear waste FFS it's pretty important.
>You are vastly over stating it's sufficiency.
Perhaps a bit but you are vastly understating it. The waste is stored in lots with basic security including cameras. If someone breaks in and steals a barrel it is going to be noticed.

And you don't seem to understand the containment. The fuel rods are encased in molten glass that hardens inside the barrels. You can't just open it and take them out. It's basically a solid block.

[Anonymous No.5757662]

>>5757639
Do you even into MSRs.

Also whats the deal /sci/? You guys loved LFTR, what happened?

[Anonymous No.5757670]

>>5757646
That natural disaster you talk about is called a flood. A flood would be made a whole lot shittier with nuclear waste mixed into it. Flood happen all the time in America since you're ignorant of this. A flood can be very powerful and can "move heavy stuff around" which you don't seem to understand.

You also minimize the damage of nuclear waste when involved with a natural disaster. The most destructive part of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami wasn't the Tsunami. They can clean up destruction. The Fukushima meltdown and subsequent nuclear waste contamination is the most difficult and destructive part of that event.

My argument is, why be satisfied with potential threats we see coming when we can solve it today?
> The point is to keep it there permanently. It doesn't need to be in one location now, that doesn't make it much safer than it already is, certainly not hundreds of millions of dollars safer.
Hey asshole, it's costing $500,000,000 a year from NOT USING YUCCA MOUNTAIN. The government broke an agreement with nuclear power companies that have to store the waste annually instead of the onetime, already fucking paid for "permanent solution" (your words).

Sounds pretty good to me. Wow, I thought /sci/ would be all over Yucca Mountain and advocate it's opening. Instead just excuse making for the shitty ways things already are.

I bet next you'll give some asshole idea like "Just rocket it into the sun, man."

[Anonymous No.5757675]

Deep geological repositories like Yucca and WIPP are a waste of money (although I admit they definitely have potential for permanent disposal and are the most developed solution thus far). MSR's to consume the waste or utilizing deep borehole disposal would be much better.

[Anonymous No.5757680]

>>5757662
Nuclear waste is still a problem, maybe a diminished one, for LFTR.

The issue is, what do we do with nuclear waste that we ALREADY HAVE. There is tons of it in hundreds of sites all over the country. If we switch to LFTRs we still have a problem with the old nuclear waste and no solution for the "less radioactive" new nuclear waste.

"less" radioactive will never mean "not" radioactive.

[Anonymous No.5757688]

>>5757675
My point is Yucca Mountain is finished and ready to go. If a better solution arises, they can relocate the waste if it's that important.

Right now there are hundreds of sites everywhere waiting for something to happen.

>>5757646
>f someone breaks in and steals a barrel it is going to be noticed.
How sure are you of that? Every hick town by a nuclear power plant with local budget cuts, layoffs and small towns going bankrupt, you're absolutely sure "someone's going to notice". Well, maybe not. I clearly remember a fertilizer factory blowing up recently that wasn't inspected since the 1980's. That shitstorm resulted in many deaths and not much action. If you're being honest, and you're not, nuclear waste security and inspections aren't that far off from the plant in Texas.

[Anonymous No.5757710]

>>5757670
>That natural disaster you talk about is called a flood.
But a normal flood doesn't actually do enough to contaminate the water. You see, barrels of nuclear waste are very very heavy. That means they sink instead of floating away in floodwater. Now, a tsunami like at Fukushima isn't a flood, it is a powerful wave that washes away everything in its path. Floods just involve rising water. They don't wash massive heavy barrels away and disperse them over a large area. And nuclear waste containment barrels being in water doesn't actually contaminate the water, the barrels have to be actually broken apart and basically pulverized for the radioactivity to get into the water. Which doesn't happen in a normal flood.

>The most destructive part of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami wasn't the Tsunami.
Uh no. It was the tsunami. They contained the meltdown and didn't release nuclear waste across the Pacific killing millions, remember? And tsunamis don't happen just anywhere, if there are nuclear waste storage facilities in tsunami prone areas that's a really terrible idea, it doesn't mean all nuclear waste storage is unsafe.

>My argument is, why be satisfied with potential threats we see coming when we can solve it today?
Because the threats aren't real. You're making them up and freaking out about them, when they do not represent a major concern on any short-term time scale.

>Hey asshole, it's costing $500,000,000 a year from NOT USING YUCCA MOUNTAIN.
Now obviously I'm not defending the fucktarded agreement Congress signed. Government incompetence is never good and is a particularly big issue with nuclear power. But, fuck, better to waste the money and use Yucca Mountain when it's finished and done right than stash a bunch of shit there now and have to completely start over looking for a long-term solution.

[Anonymous No.5757716]

>>5757710
>Floods just involve rising water.
Fuck it. You're an idiot.

[Anonymous No.5757718]

>>5757688
I agree. WIPP and Yucca are ready to go so we might as well use them. However, for future development I still advocate MSR's and deep borehole disposal.

[Anonymous No.5757720]

>>5757710
>they do not represent a major concern on any short-term time scale.
You're a fucking babyboomer aren't you?

[Anonymous No.5757724]

>>5757710

If ever something extraordinary like Yellowstone popping happens, I can see a flood saturated with ash, being able to make those containers float. Granted, there's probably some plan to force a cave-in if something like that would occur.

[Anonymous No.5757727]

>>5757688
>How sure are you of that?
Pretty fucking sure.
This isn't the fucking Soviet Union in the 1980s. Nuclear waste is stored at plants that ARE STILL RUNNING and ARE STILL ACTIVELY BEING RUN BY NUCLEAR POWER COMPANIES. There are A SHITLOAD of government regulations required to be followed at temporary nuclear waste facilities. If these are not followed, the companies will be fined millions of dollars. Therefore the companies take basic steps to secure their nuclear waste. And since it's stored either underwater in hot rods that you can't exactly pick up and run off with, or in extremely massive fucking barrels. And even if da ebul terrorists you're so scared of hire a team of master thieves to steal a barrel without anyone noticing, they can't really do anything with it without a lot of time and equipment and a whole fuckload of knowledge of what they're doing. Something hypothetical domestic terrorist cells do not exactly have.

[Anonymous No.5757756]

>>5757716
>Floods are somehow going to take solid blocks of glass encased in steel, sweep them miles away, remove the sealed outer steel casing from the barrels and shatter the solid blocks of glass inside into millions of radioactive shards
This is all without you ever providing a shred of evidence that any temporary nuclear waste containment facilities are in an area with a high risk of floods, BTW. I'm still not exactly concerned.
>>5757720
When we're talking about radioactive material, "short-term" does not mean what it normally means. It does not mean "my lifetime". It means "generations". "Long-term" isn't decades or centuries, either, it's hundreds of thousands of years.
>>5757724
Yes, if something extraordinary like Yellowstone popping happens, nuclear waste might really become a problem. However, there will be a lot more pressing problems to deal with too, such as the entire west coast being in geological turmoil, ash clouds blotting out the sun for years, stuff like that.

[Anonymous No.5757891]

>>5757756
>"Long-term" isn't decades or centuries, either, it's hundreds of thousands of years.
So why not the long term solution, jackass?

[Anonymous No.5758476]

>>5757606
>This nuclear waste will be around so long there is a good chance everyone will forget most or all of these sites overtime. We don't know what the future holds. The short term "solution" is vastly insufficient given how long this shit lasts and how shitty current storage and security is.
Remember this. And even if and when the accident happens, nuclear will still have killed far less people than all known alternatives, including solar and wind.

[Anonymous No.5758478]

>>5757662
Still do.

[Anonymous No.5758904]

Anyone who thinks that nuclear waste (spent fuel rods) aren't a danger just sitting there, is profoundly uneducated about what such a thing really is: It's a fire waiting to happen. The oxide powder inside those hot-as-fuck cases would merrily burn in the open air.

Some of these are put into air casks that are designed to keep air flowing around them to keep them cool enough to avoid cracking their casings. But even that isn't good enough for the long term. And the rods taken out of reactors are hotter than that; they have to be kept in water pools that constantly circulate COOLED water in order to suitably absorb the massive heat given off by these 'spent' rods.

It's a huge problem. Sure, our laws about it are retarded. But WE are retarded to keep tolerating such a system. Nuclear power is so fucking unsafe that we're just waiting for the next world-affecting accident to happen. The nuclear powers of the world simply have too much nuclear material to play with. Do any of you retards know now many nuclear weapons that the USA alone has LOST? Lost in accidents? How about all the military nuclear reactors that Russia just DUMPED during the Cold War period?

The Fukushima disaster is still unfolding. You can't find a more civilized, regimented and technical society on Earth than Japan, and they STILL permitted that sort of horror to affect the world. Understand? Germany's reaction of "no nukes whatsoever" after Fukushima was in fact the right decision. Humans can't handle high-nuclear material. Clearly we're not responsible enough to do it.

[Anonymous No.5758928]

why can't we just dump nuclear waste into space?
A space elevator is propably cheaper than all those dumping places.

[Anonymous No.5758990]

>>5758904
>Humans can't handle high-nuclear material.
So lets kill more people by using shit-dirty ass-coal instead. Great decision retard.

[Anonymous No.5758998]

>>5758904
>they have to be kept in water pools that constantly circulate COOLED water in order to suitably absorb the massive heat given off by these 'spent' rods.
No, they have to be kept in water pools that are topped up to compensate for evaporation.

> Nuclear power is so fucking unsafe
That we've had only one major disaster since we started using it before you were born.
Meanwhile, people die from coal every day, from pollution or mining. Also, coal burning releases more radioactive waste into the atmosphere than nuclear. And before you say we should replace nuclear with renewables: IT'S NOT FUCKING POSSIBLE.

Do you know why germany is streamlining their legislation for gigawatt scale coal powerplants? Yeah, that's right, because their renewable projects is a failure and their irrational fear of the only good form of energy means that they have to fall back to coal.

I hope you and your loved ones die of respiratory distress one foggy morning.

[Anonymous No.5759009]

>>5759007
0.001 per year, based on recent data, maybe 2000.

[Anonymous No.5759007]

Nuclear power actually has the lowest death rate (something like 0.01) compared to other energy techs in industrialized countries. It's mainly due to the extensive policies in place.

I done an assignment on it, if you really want I can look for the file and get the citations.

[Anonymous No.5759028]

>>5758904
>technical
they still use the fax and have no central heating.

[Anonymous No.5759046]

>>5759007
How is the 0.01 defined? 1% of all employees of nuclear power plants? I would be interested in the assignment, if you don't mind posting it.

[Anonymous No.5759052]

nuclear power will not be used extensively because all the lefties want solar power and wind power instead

[Anonymous No.5759057]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but isn't there already more nuclear waste slated to be placed in yucca mt than can fit? I thought this was common knowledge.

[Anonymous No.5759062]

>>5759057

and reading the wiki, sounds like the project was pulled. am i missing something?

[Anonymous No.5759066]

>>5758928
a space elevator only takes the waste into leo

[Anonymous No.5759099]

>>5759046
Alrite, here you go. It was slightly higher than I quoted. It's based on; per energy generation unit.

A study conducted in Sweden based on results from ExternE (Starfelt and Wikdahl, 2010) shown in Fig 6 clearly shows that nuclear power only caused 0.04 deaths/TWh in the EU, which is significantly lower than energy resources such as oil at 36 deaths/TWh, coal at 25 deaths/TWh, gas at 5 deaths/TWh and biomass at 12 deaths/TWh. Thus based on this data, nuclear power is around 1000-fold safer than oil, 625-fold safer than coal and 125- fold safer than gas. These are the same numbers quoted by the author Barry Brook in his argument.

Pic: Figure 6: Deaths per TWh of multiple energy sources in the EU (Starfelt and Wikdahl circa, 2010)

[Anonymous No.5759101]

>>5758990

Actually, it IS a great decision, since Humans killed by air pollution are killed in that generation. Radioactive waste kills and malforms Humans for many generations.

The creation of radioactive pollution is one of Humanity's greatest horrors. It's time to put a stop to it. There's no argument here. It's simply TIME.

> inb4 your statement that it's worth it to pollute the Human genome itself

[Anonymous No.5759102]

>>5757523
NIMBY idiocy at its finest. Feds should just override local Nevada politics and activate the facility.

[Anonymous No.5759108]

>>5757680
LFTR is the solution! LFTR can be configured as a "waste digester", burning up the remaining uranium and long-lived actinides. Kirk Sorenson has a whole separate presentation on this concept.

[Anonymous No.5759112]

>>5757523
What's our point? We have nuclear waste being dumped all the time, and if its being dumped than it has to go somewhere. And we dump it in seemingly useless countries like we Sweden or other seemingly useless export European or Asian countries cause no one cares about them

[Anonymous No.5759114]

>>5758998
> No, they have to be kept in water pools that are topped up to compensate for evaporation.

You're one of those herpderps that often confuses the function of two body openings: Ass and mouth. Today, you've used YOUR ASS to post here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool#Operation

"The fuel pool water is continuously cooled to remove the heat produced by the spent fuel assemblies. Pumps circulate water from the spent fuel pool to heat exchangers, then back to the spent fuel pool. The water temperature in normal operating conditions is held below 50°C (120°F)."

Have you had enough of being TOTALLY FUCKING OWNED, or must I slap you in your face with my pwn-dick again?

Do you RETARDS have any idea how fucking close to breaking out into flames these 'spent' rods are when removed from the reactor? Their cores reach 2000degC! The cladding is routinely at 800degC! These are extremely dangerous items for 100s and 100s of reactor sites to handle. And in the USA we're running out of cooling-pool space for these. The EPITOME of a massively mis-planned event in what's SUPPOSED to be a highly planned and prepared and CAPITALIZED technological society.

The West is a fucking DISGRACE.

[Anonymous No.5759116]

>>5758928
>space elevator
yeah, lets spend trillions of dollars on an unworkable sci-fantasy project to solve a billion dollar problem!

[Anonymous No.5759120]

>>5758998
> That we've had only one major disaster since we started using it before you were born.
> HERP + DERP = ANALSPEAK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Disasters

I'm almost speechless. Why are you fucks this totally ignorant? Nuclear power is a fucking DISASTER. We've emitted so many radioactive pollutants that the death count is simply NOT KNOWN. Nobody knows what caused your lethal cancer, BUT IT KILLED YOU ANYWAY.

[Anonymous No.5759123]

>>5759120
Shut up Captain CapsLock, adults are speaking here.

[Anonymous No.5759132]

>>5759007

FALSE. The reality is that NOBODY KNOWS the death rate from radioactivity releases. It joins the background rates and nobody has the tech to track which gamma ray or beta particle that fucking zapped your cancer into existence.

The death and suffering costs of nuclear power and even nuclear weapons has been 99.9% socialized. Nobody knows. But we do know radiation is a very bad pollutant. Therefore it's a primary conclusion that nuclear power is a causative agent.

Once again: The Germans did the right thing. They watched what was arguably the best society on Earth, produce the worst nuclear disaster ever. The best society for regimentalization, capitalization, and technology ended up TOTALLY FUCKING IT UP. The rational reaction is to stop playing around with nuclear designs that sit there in metastable positions.

But that's exactly something we can't get around. Nuclear power designs are run ON that metastable peak, taking those chances because it results in MAXIMUM EXPLOITATION. Human greed, in other words. And now we're ALL paying for it. I'm 12000 fucking miles from Fukushima, but its fucking Cs-137 is in MY FUCKING AIR. All because some fucking Nips wanted the maximum return on their power investment.

[Anonymous No.5759138]

>>5759123

Make me, bitch. The people are waking up more with every nuclear accident that you smart guys keep claiming CAN'T HAPPEN. Eventually nuclear power as designed will be illegal. That can't happen soon enough.

[Anonymous No.5759142]

>>5759108

Sorry, the West is out of the capital formation game, as well outlined by James Howard Kunstler. The West already BLEW ITS WAD on uranium and plutonium. There's simply no money left to invest in a thorium nuclear power system. Thorium reactors that were built, are now shut down. There's a very good economic reason for that.

[Anonymous No.5759151]

>>5757541
Sage isn't a downvote, fucktard.

[Anonymous No.5759177]

>>5759132
And then the French build more nuclear power plants on their border lel

[Anonymous No.5759186]

>>5759132
>They watched what was arguably the best society on Earth, produce the worst nuclear disaster ever.
The fact that you think the Soviet Union was the best society on earth pretty much makes it clear you have absolutely no fucking clue what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.5759187]

>>5759186
Holy shit I hope you're a troll. Do you not read any news ever?

[Anonymous No.5759194]

>>5757523

For 500 million a year why cant they just pack it up and send that shit into the Sun.

Heck, the rockets can be powered by the very nuclear fuel they are about to dispose of into the sun haha.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759267]

>>5759101
>Greatest horrors.
Talking out of your ass. I know it's scary, but you really need to put this in perspective. It's like a single pile of this stuff can kill everyone. I remember a family member of mine who once said a single plutonium atom could kill a dozen people - someone said so on TV. Fucking ignorant people everywhere.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759272]

>>5759114
Compared to the alternatives of mass starvation, loss of our technological society, global climate change, and so on, it's not that bad.

That's also why /sci/ promotes better nuclear which has far less nuclear waste that's also easier to handle, and lasts for less time.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759279]

>>5759120
Protip: LNT is bullshit. More people have died from a single coal mine accident than from all accidents at nuclear power plants put together, even Fukushima. (Note that Chernobyl was a research reactor, not a power reactor.)

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759282]

>>5759132
Again, more radioactive materials are released per gigawatt hour from coal plants. Nuclear plants in normal operation release far less radioactive material.

I don't have the numbers on me, but it wouldn't surprise me if you have more radioactive exposure from your countries coal plants than from that single incident.

And so what that your Cs-137 is slightly higher? LNT is bullshit. You're fine. Amounts below a critical threshold are indistinguishable from not being there.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759286]

>>5759194
Because that's a waste of good money for no reason that poses a far greater safety risk e.g. the rocket exploding.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759291]

>>5759186
>>5759187
Instead of asking if we read the news, could you possibly defend your fuck-tarded assertion that the Soviet Union was viewed as some kind of Utopia? Pretty sure half of the world disagreed with you officially, and most of the other half did unofficially.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759292]

>>5759282
>country's

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5759294]

>>5759132
>Nips
Also, further evidence to the assertion that racism is associated with stupidity.

[Anonymous No.5759312]

>tfw working on a decommissioning project and have taken a radiation does less than that of a flight over the last few months

OPs paranoid

Also
>no counter solution

[Teichii !!+Ic1HejArqD No.5759314]

>>5759282
>More radioactive material are released per gigawatt hour from coal plants
I've been telling people this for years.

[Anonymous No.5759351]

I think its a vault.

maaaaaybeeee,
you'll think of me,
when you are all alone!

[Anonymous No.5759360]

>>5757613
You pulled that out of ur ass didnt u?

[Teichii !!+Ic1HejArqD No.5759372]

>>5757613
I don't know if you got this idea from films or if this is how it is america, but here in the UK i know from personal experience that nuclear waste is extremely secure.
Not only is it placed in highly secure areas before being moved but it is moved in a spent nuclear fuel cask that has been tested and is capable of withstanding a jet liner impact and a full speed train impact (were it to ever somehow be on the back of a truck at a level crossing).
Not only is this precaution taken, but the trucks which carry the flasks to their destination are usually followed by an armed police escort.

[Teichii !!+Ic1HejArqD No.5759377]

Cool video bonus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJflu7z4QyI

[Anonymous No.5759383]

Are we specifically only talking about nuclear waste and spent fuel rods, rather than the storage of ANY radioactive waste?

Case in point:

>be working at medical research center
>see parking lot full of barrels
>"What's in the barrels?"
>"Rabbits."
>wut
>medical center tested radioactivity on rabbits some years back
>now had to store radioactive, dead rabbits in barrels for decades

[Anonymous No.5759382]

>>5759372
>not linking a video
youtube.com/watch?v=v3iRu71PGDA

They're very strict with any contaminated material here, new buildings going up all the time to re-process on site. The specialist police service for transporting any material is pretty well armed too

[Anonymous No.5759388]

>>5759383
Radioactive waste produced in industry or medicine is not considered as highly radioactive waste

[Nuke Guy !hAZB6OI49g No.5759389]

I work on the DoE's TRU waste project and everything is going just fine. We ship out the waste to WIPP and some other place in Nevada, but right now we can't because the Department of Energy only allows a certain company to transport the waste and they're off doing something else so we have to store it at work.

[Anonymous No.5759395]

>>5759388
It will still fuck up a town if released into the water.

[Teichii !!+Ic1HejArqD No.5759400]

>>5759382
I can't for the life of me understand why they used rockets.

[Anonymous No.5759404]

>>5759395
Yes, but storing low level and mid level radioactive waste is not problematic. We still have to find a solution for storing highly radioactive waste produced in nuclear power plants

[Anonymous No.5759408]

>>5759404
If barrels in a parking lot with little security is problematic storage, then there is aproblem with how we store low-level and mid-level radioactive material.

The main problems with storing high-level waste are still there for the other stuff: natural disasters opening barrels and releasing contents into water, theft, terrorist attack.

In fact, this should be MORE pressing because the security of the barrels and the security of the storage is much less. I'm absolutely certain those radioactive rabbits were not encased in molten glass.

[Teichii !!+Ic1HejArqD No.5759410]

>>5759408
Are you one of those fluoride people?

[Anonymous No.5759413]

>>5758928

1. Space elevators don't exist yet.

2. It takes one catastrophic launch (and don't deny that we still have catastrophic launches) to scatter radioactive fallout to the winds of the upper atmosphere, where it will rain down all around the earth.

[Anonymous No.5759527]

>>5759062
The project wasn't just "pulled". The facility was completed THEN ignorant people bitched and moaned and the site was shuttered.

It could be operational tomorrow if people would just let it.

[Anonymous No.5759545]

>>5759312
You didn't read the, Op.

Op is advocating on using Yucca Mountain not letting it sit there and rot.

also,

>downplaying radioactive waste like it's part of every growing child's complete breakfast.

[Anonymous No.5759548]

>>5759282
You are talking about radioactive waste released during operation (comparing a nuclear plant vs. a coal plant). Where you are criminally stupid/dishonest is where you're asserting that spent fuel rods are less radioactive than coal ash.

GET FUCKED.

[Anonymous No.5759551]

>>5759360
Nope, people have been complaining about nuclear waste storage for years. The refined stuff is heavily protected. The waste is thrown into a parking lot with a chain link fence.

[Anonymous No.5759566]

>>5759408
I find your story hilarious and sad.

This is what we do with our most dangerous waste. We put it in a barrel on a parking lot. It's not processed in anyway. Worse than that, we pretend that we can keep this shit up forever.

I imagine humanity in the future where half the population is employed as a security guard watching radioactive barrels on a parking lot because the materials will still be hot for another 50,000 years.

[Anonymous No.5759569]

>>5759545
>>downplaying radioactive waste like it's part of every growing child's complete breakfast.

[Anonymous No.5759584]

>>5759569
Yeah, I know you understand that "radiation" and "radioactive waste" are two different things.

Have a spoonful of radioactive waste for breakfast. See where that gets you. I'd rather have 20 CT scans.

[Anonymous No.5759590]

>>5759548
He never made that assertion.
You just wish he did so you would have something to be mad about.
The truth it, that radioactive waste from power plant operations is handled in a way that it doesn't come into contact with the outside world as to release radiation into the general population.
Whereas, coal ash is just straight up released into the surrounding environment.
If i had the choice i would much rather live near a nuclear plant than near a coal plant.

[Anonymous No.5759603]

>>5759590
Mainly because of the air pollutants rather than radiation.
The radiation you receive as a member of the general population from man made sources outweighs the background radiation you receive by at least 5 times.

[Anonymous No.5759615]

>>5759566
It's a fucking low level radioactive waste, its not like there are spent fuel rods in the barrels

[Anonymous No.5759621]

>>5759590
barrels on parking lots are not a permanent, long term solution for highly radioactive waste.

Left as they are they will eventually be "released". It just takes time for people to forget it's there.

Fuck coal and fuck how we currently handle nuclear waste. We could do better rather than nihilistically explain away that "Well something else is worse, so lets ignore both!"

People like you are scum.

[Anonymous No.5759638]

>>5759615
>It's a fucking low level radioactive waste, its not like there are spent fuel rods in the barrel
There still needs a better solution than "put it in a barrel on a parking lot with a fat security guard."

There is no end to this dog shit. No long term plan. Just babysit it until someone cuts a budget somewhere and we begin to forget it exists. Where are those radioactive rabbits going to be in 100 years?

Better question: What is our plan for "highly" radioactive waste in 200 or 500 years? It's so ridiculous, maybe we can make the sites a tourist attraction in the future showing people how short sighted we were in our nuclear power ventures and the revenue can help hire baby sitters and keep containment. Maybe we can make it the state religion to worship the waste in order to maintain interest.

Where does this bullshit stop? Can we put it in Yucca Mountain already?

[Anonymous No.5759664]

>>5759638
Why are you so worried about those barrels in parking lot?

And nobody has a good solution (yet) for storing highly radioactive waste.

[Anonymous No.5759666]

>>5759621
Why are you obsessed with these barrels of radioactive waste sitting around in parking lots everywhere?
You know that's not a thing right?
You know that's just something you have made up in your head?
I can't imagine this situation anywhere but the movies. Sure hazardous waste from medical centres and such is kept under pretty laxed conditions. Who cares, there are plenty of chemicals and other such things which are kept in pretty lax conditions which if someone were to take and purposely add to the water supply could fuck things up.

The problem here is you are paranoid.

[Anonymous No.5759669]

>>5759638
That rabbits were irradiated, it's different than being a radioactive material. I doubt half-lives are a factor. My concern was immediate integrity of the barrels.

>>5759410
>Are you one of those fluoride people?
No. Is weak and ineffective ad hominem the only rebuttal you can muster?

[Anonymous No.5759682]

>>5759666
>Sure hazardous waste from medical centres and such is kept under pretty laxed conditions. Who cares, there are plenty of chemicals and other such things which are kept in pretty lax conditions which if someone were to take and purposely add to the water supply could fuck things up.
Not being paranoid. There are a lot of loose ends. There is toxic shit everywhere and we're not dealing with it in a responsible way. There is no long term plan for a long term problem.

Nobody has to put up with this shit just because you don't personally give a fuck.

How about this for a plan. How about we force feed people like you the waste and send you to yucca mountain.

[Anonymous No.5759689]

>>5759682
>not paranoid
>toxic shit EVERYWHERE

[Anonymous No.5759696]

>>5759682
You can put in stricter regulations, the thing is, people always cut corners, people like to save money.
Don't get me wrong i care about this. The problem is that i accept that there is the human factor and that worrying about all the shit people could possibly be doing out there in the world doesn't make me lose sleep at night.

Radioactive waste is dangerous.
We should take methods to prevent it harming us.
In some cases those methods don't work, because of the human factor.
We adjust our methods to account for the human factor.
Still people cut corners.
Whether you like it or not, radioactive accidents happen. The same as any other type of accident. Most accidents can be prevented, but this isn't an ideal world.

I agree with what you are saying, but you are making it sound like we aren't even trying.
This is the first world, we have some of the most strict regulations regarding these problems and right now your country has lots of things to worry about.
Enforcing this stuff costs money.
Extra precautions cost money.

If you are so passionate about this, go do something. Protest or write a letter, don't come here expecting us to agree with your opinions.

[Anonymous No.5759698]

>>5759689
>thousands and thousands of sites filled with toxic and/or radioactive shit all around the country (especially around populated areas) with varying degrees of containment and security. No long term plan for processing or containment for any of it.

>not being at least "concerned"

Is this what they call assburgers? Seems like you have it. Also, seems you're ignorant of something called "superfund sites" (lol, not that you'll look it up). There's probably one near you. Enjoy your drinking water.

[Anonymous No.5759701]

>>5759698
You have some of the best drinking water in the world.
You have some of the best containment sites in the world.
What is it with you some of your people in your first world countries always finding a way to make yourself feel like you live in a shit hole when you can't see how privileged you are to live there.

[Anonymous No.5759710]

>>5759114
>The West is a fucking DISGRACE.

Cleaner than China. They are falling over from the air quality over there. I bet we'll never know where they put nuclear waste.

[Anonymous No.5759712]

>>5759698
Enjoying your neo liberalism much?

[Anonymous No.5759720]

>>5759701
I understand the containment is "adequate" and if things "stay the way they are" my pure fucking drinking water will remain so.

My issue is if we ever go all Soviet Union lots of this shit will get forgotten or lost. There's no getting it out of the drinking water or your organs AFTER it goes into the water supply. This includes me and future generations.

[Anonymous No.5759722]

We shouldn't be putting nuclear waste into the ground because it's not really waste. Something that's spewing so much heat and radiation out is clearly still a very good source of power. We just need someone to come up with a way to use it.

[Anonymous No.5759727]

>>5759712
Neo liberalism is a conservative movement for the total deregulation of business and industry.

I think it's shit and I hope that's what you mean.

[Anonymous No.5759734]

>>5759722
Yucca Mountain is a place where we can retrieve the "waste' if you really want it so badly at a future date.

Also, it's better than leaving it in sites all around the country. Security and containment is far easier at only one site.

[Anonymous No.5760095]

>>5759187
holy shit i hope your a troll. if your implying that fukushima was the worst nuclear disaster you are out of your mind. nobody died in the accident due to anything to do with nuclear power, 1 died because he fell from a crane and even the radioactive particle release was insignificant

[M No.5760222]

>>5760095
You're missing the Chinese guy who ate so much salt that he died.

[M No.5760219]

My research involves using bacteria to clean up uranium contamination in the groundwater, specially the mechanisms involved. Did you know that are millions of acres of contamination? Most isn't due to leakage of these drums, but from mines.

[joker !KNs1o0VDv6 No.5760244]

Why don't we do this in Africa?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal
The concept involves drilling a borehole about 5 km down into the Earth's crust. High level waste, like spent nuclear fuel, would be sealed in strong steel containers and lowered down the borehole, filling the bottom one or two kilometres of the hole. The rest of the borehole is then sealed with appropriate materials, including perhaps clay, cement, crushed rock backfill, and asphalt, to ensure a low-permeability barrier between the waste and the land surface.
The deep borehole concept can be applied to any amount of waste. For countries that do not rely on nuclear power plants, their entire inventory of high-level nuclear waste could perhaps be disposed of in a single borehole.

Current estimates suggest that spent fuel generated from a single large nuclear power plant operating for multiple decades could be disposed of in fewer than ten boreholes. Borehole disposal programs could be terminated at any time with little loss of investment because each borehole is independent. The modular nature of borehole disposal would lend itself to regional, or on-site, disposal of nuclear waste. Another attraction of the deep borehole option is that holes might be drilled and waste emplaced using modifications of existing oil and gas drilling technologies.

Finally, the environmental impact is small. The waste handling facility at the wellhead, plus a temporary security buffer zone, would require about one square kilometer. When the borehole is filled and sealed, the land can be returned to a pristine condition.

[Anonymous No.5760285]

>>5760244
I don't know. You can have several different scenarios where the cylinders are crushed open/earth moves/etc, and you can't exactly check up on them/repair things if they are 5km deep. Once they're broken and the waste escapes, the cleanup can't be done. Though I'm not sure if cleanup is needed because contamination that deep might not matter. (?)

[Anonymous No.5760287]

fyi, most nuclear waste is NOT stored out in the open like you say. A lot of it is put into underground salt deposits which will seal up with solid salt over time. You won't get to it unless you try.

Second, those "barrels filled to the brim with nuclear waste" are hardly full of anything. Nuclear waste containment barrels are extremely thick to prevent any radiation from leaking out. Every barrel is mostly solid steel with VERY little waste inside. This also makes the barrels, for the most part, able to survive and fuckin crazy earthquakes or floods you can throw at them.

Last of all, you're a fuckin idiot OP, you have no understanding of nuclear power or nuclear waste disposal. Research for atleast a day before you post garbage

[Anonymous No.5760291]

>>5760285
thats the point of going so deep, it really shouldn't matter because anu ground water is much much higher. its also surrounded by high density bedrock and at 5km deep there are natural radioactive sources of similar magnitude that pose no threat to us

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.5760322]

>>5759548
I said or implied released into the environment. You're really overstating the harms involved even in the worst case scenarios.

[Anonymous No.5760323]

>>5760244
This doesn't sound like that great of an idea because you'd have to keep making new boreholes every few years to hold all the new waste produced since you fill it in.

However for some reason the idea of dumping a whole bunch of cement and rocks and clay and asphalt and shit into a 5km deep hole from the top is very pleasing to me.

[Anonymous No.5760364]

>>5760323
We don't make as much waste as we used too, not since we stopped building nuclear weapons. That's where the most dangerous waste comes from.

[Anonymous No.5760902]

That one guy with the ridiculous insistence on capitalizing for emphasis. Its always a trait of quacks who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.
The mental voice i get from that is a quack going into a hysterical rant.

If 4chan allowed different font size and bright colors i'd bet you'd see that shit all over his posts.

[Anonymous No.5760905]

>>5757571
>making a comment like that after only 20 minutes

Of course it should be back up and running.

[Anonymous No.5760908]

>>5757590
Source on that first paragraph?

[Anonymous No.5760944]

Storage is not the solution. We need to burn the waste. LFTR or IFR (integral fast reactor) can do it.

[Anonymous No.5760955]

From wikipedia page, reason of closing:
>We're looking at reactors that have a high-energy neutron spectrum that can actually allow you to burn down the long-lived actinide waste. These are fast-neutron reactors. There's others: a resurgence of hybrid solutions of fusion fission where the fusion would impart not only energy, but again creates high-energy neutrons that can burn down the long-lived actinides. ...
> a resurgence of hybrid solutions of fusion fission
>fusion fission
Are they seriously this retarded?

[Anonymous No.5761985]

>>5760908
pls responf

[Anonymous No.5762044]

>>5760944
>Storage is not the solution. We need to burn the waste. LFTR or IFR (integral fast reactor) can do it.

1. Doesn't exist yet.
2. Will take decades of research and development before full scale operation
3. Storage is a good idea

[Anonymous No.5762096]

>>5762044

Last I recall, reactors that can burn off nuclear waste from other plants (primarily LWRs, IIRC) do exist. In fact, the technology is hardly new.

The problem is the waste produced by these reactors isn't any better, and that you could theoretically use these reactors to produce weapons-grade plutonium and whatnot. Which makes politics an even bigger problem.

So for now, storage is the only solution. I wouldn't call it the best solution, as our ability to properly test them is limited.

[Anonymous No.5762135]

>>5760222

sauce on this!

[Anonymous No.5762195]

>>5761985
>>5760908
and again.

I'm not sure of the keywords that I should put into google to find it.

[Anonymous No.5762243]

>>5757523

Nevada native here - fill that hole, fuck Harry Reid

[Сергей No.5762248]

>>5762044
>>5762096

Surprisingly, most waste reprocessing isn't done with fast reactors. France reprocesses and reuses most of their waste until most long lived actinides are gone. And as far as I know, they don't use any fast reactors.

[Anonymous No.5762328]

>>5762096
>Last I recall, reactors that can burn off nuclear waste from other plants (primarily LWRs, IIRC) do exist. In fact, the technology is hardly new.

And they suck ass at it.