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
I’m a nuclear engineer. Elements can have different weights when they have different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus. A reactor is a neutron throwing machine. Certain atoms split into pieces when it absorbs a neutron, making smaller atoms, while others hold onto the neutron and get bigger. Generally, more neutrons make the atom radioactive, meaning it spits out energy and/or parts of the atom to be more stable, like a ball rolling down a hill. So, after running for 3-4 years, nuclear fuel has made some of every element in different weights. That includes toxic metals, which makes it chemically toxic, and many radioactive versions of atoms.
People have long been conditioned to be afraid of radiation, though compared with most industrial hazards it is pretty easy to manage. In fact, the atoms that decay slowly (“they last for hundreds of thousands of years”) release radiation slowly, and is of little risk. The real problem ones last a hundred to two hundred years, which is relatively easy to store.
The short answer is fear and lack of perspective. Basically, reactors make a chemical soup that is capable of putting out a lot of energy for a couple hundred years, and after that you’re left with a weird mix of elements. We have multiple techniques for reusing, recycling, and safely storing the used fuel, but fear keeps hitting those ideas down and we’re left in a weird limbo as an industry. Essentially, a technically challenging but solved problem is being confused with the politically challenging and unsolved problem.
Think of it this way, large amounts of water are required for cooling. That normally means plant sites are near bodies of water. This increases the chance for radioactive fallout.
On top of that, a lot of sites are built on seismically active faults, which is bad news in the event of an earthquake.
And not to mention the more we make, means more waste sites, with more potential issues and environmental problems.
How much nuclear waste is left once a plant is decommissioned?
I know it might be an insane idea but would it be possible to put it on a rocket and fire it into the sun?
unrational fear of the people, and government workers are generally directly or indirectly elected by the people.
Older people know of chernobyl and younger people learned of it, and then saw fukushima, even though they are not related in the slightest.
They also see the direct deaths of chernobyl and not the indirect deaths of coal miners, oil harvesting and all the other side affects of dirty power.
So people are afraid, thus government has to act afraid, even though it would be better and much much safer.
Waste is not an issue, the world has thousands of sites we could easily store waste, and the waste created is very small amount.
I think people have covered with the waste is hard to deal with.
People also have a very negative response to nuclear power because when things go wrong the waste is no longer your only problem.
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