Eli5: What is so bad about the waste of nuclear power plants? Why are many governments so against it? What is so hard about storing the waste in a safe place?
In: Technology
The waste from current nuclear power plants is highly radioactive and also toxic. It is stored on site under a pool of water until the worst of the radioactive isotopes have decayed but some of the particles will have half lives in the thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. This means the waste remains dangerous for thousands of years. Finding a place which is safe to store it is difficult, convincing locals to let you build that storage is even more difficult and then you have the cost of actually building long term storage.
There’s been serious talk about having absolutely huge sites deep under ground near bedrock and have different types of signs that will be understood by people 100.000 years from now. That no treasure or valuables are buried here. Only death that will get worse the closer you get to it.
And possibly even make a sort of religion around it to pass the knowledge to future generations.
Nuclear waste stays radioactive for a REALLY long time. During the first hundred years this presents little or no problems. BUT, after a while the drums sealed in concrete can and will begin to leak. Any leakage not only contaminates the the outer container but any surface the containers are in or on. That means you have to dig up the floor or dirt in the facility and recontain it and the original containers. This isn’t a big deal in the short term but over hundreds and hundreds of years it’s going to be a big problem! If 1 tom of waste is produced in the first years and each year there after: Year one = 1 ton of waste. Year two= 1 ton plus one ton equals 2 tons, Year three= 1 ton plus two tons, plus 2 tons, year four = 1 ton plus 3 tons equals four tons of stored waste. Still not a big deal, eh? Okay, lets say an accident occurs on year 8 and 44 tons of contaminated waste needs to be stored. Suddenly you have 54 tons of store waste!. Now, repeat this cycle every 20 years and by year 100 you have hundreds of tons of radioactive waste to watch over, contain and monitor. If an earthquake hits and damages the storage site you could have thousands of tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste to contend with. Politicians can safely say “they” have nothing to worry about whole ignoring the radioactive legacy they leave for our descents to live with.
Several items we call waste. First off the fuel which is highly radioactive is placed in dry cask containers, welded shut and filled with helium as a heat transfer medium. Casks are placed outside to continue to decay and you can walk right up to them. This is done all over the world. In the US there was discussion to consolidate the containers but currently the casks are stored on site. This is not hard and has been done for twenty years here in the US.
Second by product is contaminated waste which includes old components, consumables for service work. These get packaged up and sent to a burial site where they are sorted. Some of the old components are stored on site as they are too large to move so utilities make a bunker and let the part cool off radiologically.
All of the waste is monitored and disposed of safely and correctly with very few exceptions.
The largest risk of nuclear is not really the waste. It is the potential for a large scale issue like Fukushima which could impact the area.
Nuclear waste is really difficult to store, because it’s so radioactive, it destroys things that it’s in or next to. And then it’s out. So it’s hard to store.
However, we do have some places that we store it already. A cavern under a mountain is a popular choice.
The main problem is that if it gets into the ground water, it will contaminate the entire water table of that area, for a long long long time.
The main thing that really upsets people about nuclear waste is that it doesn’t stop being nuclear, and standing “near” it for a bit will kill you. Slowly and painfully.
Easy. encase the waste un glass, and burry it a kilometer deep in granit, seal the well, and never look back. we found it first at much shallower depths than that.
What really needs to happen: refine it, reuse it. This is possible and would save loads of money and prevent further spent fuel needing to be stored. This is completely possible and done in some countries-France for example, and should be an environmental priority.
Cause you have to store it essentially forever and nothing lasts that long. Look up the WIPP in New Mexico for some interesting thoughts on it. Essentially, our civilization and language will die out long before the waste is safe.
Nuclear waste is radioactive and harmful to people. Bad particles come out of it and if they hit you, they can really hurt your body.
Because of this, many people are scared of it. And it’s right to be scared of nuclear waste, it’s dangerous.
Thankfully, scientists have have worked really hard to make new technology so that the waste isn’t as dangerous. Nuclear reactors are more efficient now and we have storage containers that can stop the bad particles from getting out. The waste is still dangerous though, so we have to be really careful.
Since this is meant to be ELI5…
You know when mummy and daddy ask you to tody your room? And you just try to shoce everything under your bed, and hope that things work out? Unfortunately, thats about where we are with the solution to nuclear waste. Problem is, unlike your toys and dirty clothes, there’s a chance some of the nuclear waste can escape, or that people might find it in the future and be harmed by it. So until we can find somewhere better to put it than under the bed, it will remain a big problem to society.
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