I used to be in the nuclear waste business, and the best idea I ever heard was to put it downhole when detonating nuclear tests.
When you blow up a nuke underground, it creates a large spherical hole lined by a metre of glass. The nuclear waste becomes embedded in the glass, which is impervious to diffusion and allows radioactive elements to decay in situ.
The nuclear test ban treaty of course made this solution impractical, but from a technical viewpoint it is by far the safest way to contain the waste – which is currently piling up on the surface for lack of any better ideas.
Brilliant. The nuclear waste “problem” is a political/imaginary problem. Nuclear waste: Isolate it; Insulate it; Forget it. The world is a huge place. There is plenty of space to handle all the nuclear waste we can possibly produce.
What is it about nuclear radiation that so captures the morbid imagination? There are hazards from radiation but one is more likely to be injured or killed at the Dr’s office from a radiation accident than from a nuclear power plant.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/index.html
Let’s not even talk about those scary bananas and Brazil nuts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
Gosh I hope our President stayed away from those dangerously radioactive Brazil nuts while he was on holiday in Brazil.
Nuclear waste is a very serious problem. If it gets in the water table it can make large areas uninhabitable.
I’m down with that. But there has to be a way to isolate/insulate the waste. BTW, what are your thoughts on the plans at Yucca Mountain – I guess we have decided not to use that facility. Was it a viable/good idea?
Yucca Mountain was one of the better ideas because it is dry, the water table is deep, and because it is already heavily contaminated from nuclear testing. They key thing is to contain the waste in glass, but that is expensive.
can make large areas uninhabitable…..
Ahhh, don’t think about that because, as I’ve been told repeatedly since Fukushima happened, nuclear is safe.
it is by far the safest way to contain the waste…..
I known even better way: don’t make any in the first place.
Drop it down a subduction zone, a one-way trip to hell!
Fuel Thorium reactors with it. Make a virture out of necessity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
Or we could fire it into the sun at horrendous expense (and dire risk if the rocket blows up in our atmosphere).
i have been critically thinking how to tackel the airborn contamanation emiting over the pacific ocean,and ive concluded the lowest teck/cheapest way to dramatically reduce(or totally elemiate almost all airborn nuke contamanation allready exzist in using 2 10 gallon pods strapped to each side of the multitude of cross pacific commercial flights with aerosol nozzels that can be airvented to spray simple water/baking soda solution(a weak mix)cost only pennies and can cover a very large erea(overlaping ereas containing nukulear airborn wast will bind with the vapor making it heavy anough to fall to the ocean floor.providing us time to deal with the disaster.
nothing adheres better with nukulear contamantion than cheap baking soda(the mil. uses it to clean up nuke site wast.
i cant urge all to help transpire this(possable effort)
bless you sir.
please think about putting the word out.
there has to be a way that nuclear waste can be safly disposed off, and idea i half stole off a movie, is to incinerate it, i know that sounds impossible but i doubt it would be, we all know that mirrors reflect heat as well as light, well if you had a couple hundred thousand, solar mirrors all aimed at the sun and reflecting at a solar towar which could amplify the rays into a super heated beam, and at a cetain high temp it would incinerate the waste, wouldn’t? also if the actual incinerater room was a kilometer underground wouldn’t that make it safer from leaks?
i know i’m not an expert on these things, hell i’m still in high school but i think it makes sense though would cost heaps it would be effective and say if australia, housed the facility in the outback where we have the hole in the ozone, the suns rays are most concentrated, to me it’d make sense as the australian government could accept money to incinerate the waste.
just an idea from a dumb high school student