| What nuclear waste? Where is it? Somebody must be able to point to the nuclear waste by now. There it is, waving frantically in panic, the nuclear waste! It’s coming right for us! Something is either highly radioactive for a short amount of time, or not very radioactive for a long amount of time. But never both highly radioactive and for a long time. In reality, there is so little nuclear waste that most of it has mostly been stored on site where it was generated, taking up less space than any grid scale solar or wind. |
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| ▲ | Retric 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I don’t think nuclear waste is a huge deal, but it does increase fuel costs in a very meaningful way. The classic uranium is cheap therefore nuclear’s fuel is cheap is a tiny fraction of the story. Refueling generally means weeks of downtime, you can’t safely operate at extreme temperatures for maximum efficiency, you need enrichment, and fuel rods, and even with multiple trips through the reactor core a significant amount of fuel isn’t burned or economically useful, and when your done you also need processes do deal with highly radioactive material + the costs of dry casks, and then transport them offsite and then down into some tunnels. Add all that stuff up and fuel is a major expense. Granted that downtime depends on the design, and is also used to do other maintenance tasks but without refueling you’d end up with different tradeoffs. | |
| ▲ | janc_ 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I know where the nuclear waste is stored here. Its storage is funded by the government for now (not included in electricity prices) and nobody can actually prove it will be safe for the centuries it will be dangerous. | |
| ▲ | ImPostingOnHN 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > What nuclear waste? Where is it? Good question! Since you asked: it is largely in cooling pools and piling up in empty lots around nuclear power plants, waiting for safe, secure storage to appear. > Something is either highly radioactive for a short amount of time, or not very radioactive for a long amount of time. This is not true at all, unless you consider "short amount of time" to include decades to centuries to millenia. | | |
| ▲ | TheSpiceIsLife 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > around nuclear power plants Exactly what I said. > This is not true at all Yes it is. I mean, if you’re going to dispute my point without providing any evidence, then all we’ve got is opinions. If we’ve got data, let’s go with the data. If all we’ve got is opinions, let’s go with mine. | | |
| ▲ | Retric 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > I mean, if you’re going to dispute my point without providing any evidence Pure Americium-241 is extremely radioactive 0.0000045 grams of the stuff puts off useful amounts of radiation for smoke detectors, it’s half life is also 432 years. As an alpha emitter it’s not that bad to stand next to but internally it doesn’t take much to be lethal. | | |
| ▲ | TheSpiceIsLife 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Awesome. So how does one go about diverting this from nuclear waste storage to the diet of average citizens, as an act of terrorism? Also, I don’t know how to gauge “useful amounts of radiation for smoke detectors”. α-particles can be stopped by a sheet of paper. | | |
| ▲ | Retric a day ago | parent [-] | | > diverting this from nuclear waste storage This is a manufactured product not waste from a nuclear reactor. We use it because it’s an alpha emitter, there’s harder to shield material with similar half lives they are just less useful. I bring this up because longer half lives don’t mean safety. If you’re looking for a weapon, salted nukes are the stuff of nightmares if they use something with a month long half life or several hundred years. > I don’t know how to gauge And that’s the issue here, you need to do some more research before making such statements. |
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| ▲ | ImPostingOnHN a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Exactly what I said Actually, it's exactly what I said. Here's the quote: >It is largely in cooling pools and piling up in empty lots around nuclear power plants, waiting for safe, secure storage to appear. See? Exactly. > Yes it is. No it isn't. > I mean, if you’re going to dispute my point without providing any evidence lol, you never provided us with any in the first place! Why would I waste more time and effort disproving some claim of yours, than you spent trying to prove the original claim in the first place? That'd be falling for gish gallop. Until you produce sufficient evidence to convincingly prove that your original claim is true, we can safely assume it is not. So, onus is on you: It's up to you to prove your own point, nobody else. If you’ve got data, let’s see the data. |
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