And perhaps meaningfully contributed to a reduction in the quantity of radioactive waste products requiring custodianship on a timescale that humans can barely conceive of let alone commit to or execute responsibly.

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acidburnNSA 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I always find this sentiment curious for 2 reasons:

1. Radioactive waste gets less toxic over time unlike many toxins like mercury, lead, and cyanide. People seem to emphasize the duration of toxicity for radiation while apparently giving 'forever toxins' a total pass.

2. Short-lived radiation is what's really dangerous. When atoms are decaying fast, they're shooting out energy that can cause real damage fast. Longer-lived radioactive stuff with billion-year half-lives like natural uranium can be held in a gloved hand, no problem. In the extreme, and infinite half life means something is stable and totally safe (radiologically at least).

Yet people still want to emphasize that radioactive byproducts of nuclear power have long half lives. I don't really get it.

	▲	rectang 3 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't trust the coal industry to manage forever chemicals over the long term, and I don't trust nuclear industry to manage spent nuclear fuel over the long term. The question that matters is what bad things happen when their stewardship inevitably lapses and the happy path dead-ends. I don't like either answer, so that heightens the urgency of pursuing alternatives with fewer long-term hazardous byproducts.
	▲	cma 13 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There were also big proliferation concerns out of 70s era designs.

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mgfist 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Coal power produces more radiation waste into the environment than nuclear power. That's because nuclear power has this amazing quality where all the waste is neatly packaged whereas burning coal just releases it into the air.

> requiring custodianship on a timescale that humans can barely conceive of let alone commit to or execute responsibly.

This is fearmongering. Casing waste in big concrete casks is enough. It's so incredibly overblown that we're willing to burn coal and kill people over it.

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rectang 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I distrust techno-optimist promises to manage ever-growing collections of spent nuclear fuel over millennia. We can hardly trust plant operators to manage it safely over decades.

Will it actually get encased successfully, will it be stored onsite in environmentally sensitive areas because it’s too much trouble to move, will your children’s children uphold the commitments you foisted on them through the political and economic turbulence in their lifetimes, and if not what happens comparatively when those coal ash heaps and nuclear fuel dumps are left to rot…

The externalities of concentrated radioactive material are not something that our socio-economic institutions are capable of handling at scale. Tragedies of the commons are the rule and eventually all of that waste will be go through periods of mishandling at one time or another.

	▲	mgfist 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I distrust techno-optimist promises to manage ever-growing collections of spent nuclear fuel over millennia. We can hardly trust plant operators to manage it safely over decades. Nuclear power plants have been extremely safe for many decades! Fuck, even the worst disasters related to nuclear power plants have killed less people than coal or oil disasters, even including Chernobyl which was a fuck up beyond comparison. > Will it actually get encased successfully Yes, this is literally done and has been done for many decades. > will it be stored onsite in environmentally sensitive areas because it’s too much trouble to move What does that mean? You can live 1 feet away from a cask and receive less radiation than you do from the sun. > will your children’s children uphold the commitments you foisted on them through the political and economic turbulence in their lifetimes, and if not what happens comparatively when those coal ash heaps and nuclear fuel dumps are left to rot… This is a bad argument because all of society relies on our grandchildren upholding present commitments. What happens if our grandchildren stop upholding the electricity grid? They die. What happens if they stop large scale agriculture? They die. And on and on and on. > The externalities of concentrated radioactive material are not something that our socio-economic institutions are capable of handling at scale. It's quite literally something society has been doing very successfully for 50+ years.

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3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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