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Warning Future Generations About Nuclear Waste
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jul 18, 2008 08:02 AM
from the opportunists-we-will-have-always-with-us dept.
from the opportunists-we-will-have-always-with-us dept.
Smivs writes "How do we warn people 10,000 years in the future about our nuclear waste dumps? There is a thought-provoking essay in the The Guardian newspaper (UK) by Ulrich Beck concerning this problem. Professor Beck also questions whether green issues are overly influencing politicians and clouding our judgement regarding the dangers of nuclear power."
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self-solving? (Score:5, Funny)
I would think the increasing number of skeletal remains as one approaches the dump would be sufficient.
Re:self-solving? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, that would probably work - instead of putting a sign up with a skull and crossbones you could manufacture non-biodegradable human remains and use those as your "sign". (thus avoiding the confusion mentioned in TFA)
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Re:self-solving? (Score:5, Funny)
They'd probably just figure it was some sort of ancient burial ground and build a Pet Sematary next to it.
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We don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Try answering the question without assuming that we managed to avoid having to go back to the stone age due to war, plague, famine, etc.
Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
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Re:We don't (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:We don't (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't agree more. People don't realize that we already have technology which can utilize 95% of what we consider nuclear waste to produce more electricity. Even better is what is left won't be dangerous after a few decades. The mentality behind this effort is simple FUD to keep us from creating more nuclear power. It's shameful neo-Ludditism.
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Re:We don't (Score:5, Insightful)
In that case, who cares?
They won't have the ability to get 500ft underground, to penetrate 10ft thick steel/concrete walls, or to open the individual containment vessels (designed to withstand a cargo aircraft crash).
You don't need to worry about both ends of the question. Either future people will know what they've found, or won't have the ability to find or access it.
And even if they could - If we end up reverting to a stone age culture, we really don't deserve to share this planet, so let 'em all die of radiation poisoning from playing with the pretty glowy powder.
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Re:If we've gone back to the stone age (Score:5, Insightful)
The article that sparked this Slashdot post is by some know-nothing Ivory tower far leftist. Full of 10 dollar words, long on speculation and short on facts.
Thank you! We have, of course, uranium and other naturally radioactive minerals in the earth right now. And yet we've mostly avoided exposure (except by early scientists who worked with them.) This author could have just summed his article into one sentence: I hate nuclear power.
If we end up back in the stone age it will be BECAUSE of people like Ulrich Beck who jump up and down about climate change, but then complain that no solution is good enough. THOSE are the people who would have us living back in time with no electric, no cars and eating berries and twigs because cows pass too much methane [latimes.com]!
Mr. Beck might be interested to know there is ALREADY a universal warning sign denoting radioactivity [wikipedia.org].
Perhaps if we add a "Mr. Yuck" symbol [wikipedia.org]....
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Re:We don't (Score:5, Insightful)
You're assuming that progress continues and that we somehow don't blow ourselves up and have to start over.
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Re:We don't (Score:5, Interesting)
I was thinking something similar, though I suspect it's about slightly more sophisticated logic. Something like this...
If our ancestors are sufficiently technologically advanced, they are overwhelmingly likely to have technology to detect and/or dispose of nuclear waste far more efficiently than we are. In this case, we don't need to warn them.
On the other hand, if our ancestors aren't sufficiently technologically advanced (to do the steps above) then they are also overwhelmingly likely not to have survived 10,000 years on a planet with global warming and 10,050 years of nuclear waste. In that case, we don't need to warn then.
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, my ancestors are trying to warn me of danger, I must be careful.
Or more likely
Those silly ancestors, thinking that I wouldn't know anything that they don't.
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, if we are anything to judge by it will be:
Hey, the ancients wanted to keep people away from here. There must be buried treasure!
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Insightful)
Those silly ancestors, thinking that I wouldn't know anything that they don't.
For much of human history in Europe (roughly the thousand years from 500CE [wikipedia.org] to 1500CE [wikipedia.org]) it was accepted as fact that the ancients (i.e the Romans) knew far more than was known at the present time. There was a grain of truth to this.
You assume that a dismissive attitude to the knowledge of the ancients is a given. It isn't. Superstitious awe of a fallen civilisation can last a long time.
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice the use of a period in 10.000? Look at his homepage, he's not American.
Fixed that for you.
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My view as to why it won't matter in 1k years (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the deal. Assuming that nuclear fusion doesn't hit it off anytime soon, or fission just ends up being cheaper in many cases, it'll be far less than 10k years before we're digging the stuff up to run in breeder reactors. After all, current high level 'waste' is still 90-95% uranium.
I'd say less than 500, actually. Given active storage sites, language/skill drift won't be enough to really matter for the hazards - they'll probably want to re-assay the stuff again anyways. So, we're spending a massive amount of effort on something where it, honestly enough, won't matter. The remaining isotopes after reprocessing have shorter half-lifes, so again, much less hazardous in a shorter time.
To the point that if they're digging as deep as we're burying it, they already have substantial enviromental concerns anyways. So yes, they should be knowledgable.
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh No.
It's "Don't waste The People's tax money on something that private industry will find a profitable use for". Like using the nuclear waste for nuclear power generation in more modern reactors, thus turning what was once hazardous and incredibly long lasting nuclear waste into less hazardous and very short-lived nuclear fuel AND large amounts of clean energy to power our economy and green the planet.
Or we could waste BILLIONS of tax-payer money on some hair-brained far-leftist scheme that won't work and will actually make the problem worse. I mean, why do the SMART thing and let The People fix the problem through ingenuity and enlightened self-interest? Let's let the Ivory-tower intellectuals have a go at it first so that the proper solution ends up even MORE expensive that it otherwise would be. Look how well that's worked out for our Energy Policy!
*rolleyes*
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, but I would think the threat of death to those poisoning others with nuclear waste would be a pretty simple mechanism.
Gov't doesn't have to tell use what to do with nuclear waste. Gov't just has to tell us what gov't is supposed to tell us: Don't fuck up someone else's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Law should severely punish those who do - but right now we've allowed corporations to buy their way out of all kinds of trouble... and THAT is your "massive externality".
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its actually the right thing to do in this case.
Any monument that they could build that would stand the test of time would only attract attention to the site. People are inquisitive and have no respect for the past. Its not like we believed any of the curses when we raided the tombs of Egypt. Why would it be any different for our future citizens? The scarier that the site is made to look the more people will be interested in it.
The site itself is hundreds of feet underground and in the middle of nowhere. The chances it being found if left unmarked are very very very small.
Personally I believe that we are going to be digging up our trash and other waste in the next few hundred years as a fuel source. In that case it would be nice to know where at that radioactive waste went.
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Re:typically american. (Score:5, Funny)
This didn't work very well with the dinosaurs. Having discovered the dangers of global warming, they hid their precious oil and coal reserves deep below the surface of the earth. We managed to dig them up long before discovering their dangers!
I kid, I kid.
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Re:We don't (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, there is little reason to worry about the long term if we use an intelegent reactor design.
The Integral Fast Reactor design's only waste products have a half life of 90 years or less, or 211,100 years or more. The latter components clearly give off very little radiation per unit time, so they can basically be ignored. It is the other components that give off significant radiation. However, within 200 years the waste radiation levels are no greater than that of natural ores. This means that it is reasonably safe to just bury it.
The design has other advantages too:
Of course, there are a few downsides, the most notable is the fact that the plant would have higher construction costs than most, and would have higher cost per kilowatt than most.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor [wikipedia.org] for more information on this reactor design.
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Orr we could (Score:5, Informative)
Reprocess the waste, and then "burn" the long term waste off in breeder type reactors.
We can get 10,000 year hazardous waste to 100 year hazardous waste....
Re:Orr we could (Score:5, Insightful)
Which we could then encase in leak proof containers and dump them in a subduction zone.
Plenty of those around, so just dump it back in the Earth without having to guard it against earthquakes - in fact we'd like those to happen.
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Abissal plains are better (Score:5, Informative)
In subduction zones part of the material keeps getting pushed around the edge for a long time before being dragged under. In 10000 years a lot of the material would still be sitting there.
But there are some parts of the ocean bottom that have remained stable for at least a billion years. We could enclose the material in glass or ceramic cylinders and bury them in the bottom of the sea. If anyone has the technology and the motive to dig 100 meters in mud that's under 5000 meters of water, one can assume they will have knowledge of the dangers of radioactive material.
Besides, that's a good way to keep it away from terrorists, too. Even if they could locate the exact spots where to dig, they wouldn't want to go to so much effort, there are easier ways to accomplish their ends.
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Yeah, don't use them for energy or anything ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Orr we could (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Orr we could (Score:5, Interesting)
The IFR is not actually a proliferation risk. The Wiki notes that it is easier to enrich natural uranium than to create weapons-grade material from the fuel. And the waste has no actinides at all, making it worthless for nuclear weapons. The only reason it was killed was because keeping it around would give the appearance of not doing enough to prevent proliferation, rather than it being a real risk. In other words, it was killed for political reasons, not technical.
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Re:Orr we could (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Orr we could (mod up both) (Score:5, Insightful)
We need THESE kind of technologies, NOW. Not 20 years from now.
I would also note to damburger that the petty despots and terrorists only have power because of state sponsored nuclear terror was practiced live and in action on civilians by the USA (viz Nagasaki and Hiroshima) and held the world hostage in the fear mongering practice of the Cold War by the USA and CCCP. I agree with damburger that it is sad that a small group of asshats is making life exceptionally difficult for the rest of humanity. Remember when you could go to Mexico or Canada and use your Driver's License as ID? Remember a time before the DHS? I do.
This is all a problem of risk assessment which humans largely suck at. 3000 people died on 9/11, and suddenly a multi-billion dollar dept is thrown together making everyone's travelling life difficult and illegal to take cosmetics or liquids on board and all manner of other over-reactive legal nonsense. Every year 50,000 people die on the highways, but I don't see them making cars illegal. How many people died at 3 mile island? Oh that's right - none. Did it shorten some people's lives? Yes. However, the proper response would have been to build IFRs and subcrits, not ban them altogether. Chernyobl is a different deal - that was people being stupid and destructive, so many people died there. IFRs and subcrits and pebblebeds - these are all VASTLY safer technologies, and Mister and Missus John Q Smith from Anytown USA need to pull their heads out of their asses NOW, and get with the program if they have ANY hope of keeping the lights on in 20 years.
I don't fancy freezing in the dark, as it would result in the disappearance of the forests, and THAT would suck...
RS
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The Strategic National Plutonium Reserve (Score:5, Interesting)
The parent is right. I don't know a whole lot about Nuclear Physics, but it's something I've been trying to read up on lately. The thing about 'spent' nuclear fuel, is that it still does have, as the parent points out, the potential to be reprocessed and burned again. I'm not entirely clear on this, but from what I've read, I think they can reprocess it quite a few times, until it's eventually at a fairly low energy and stable state to where, like the parent said, it's only dangerous for a short time.
What people don't realize is back in the 70's, the US was looking into the possibility of setting up breeder reactors to reprocess fuel. The Carter administration made the decision to, for the time being, defer re-processing the fuel, with the given reason that they were concerned about the ability to secure the Plutonium which is produced in the re-processing. That is, breeder reactors process 'spent' Uranium into a mixture of Uranium and Plutonium, I think (which can then be used as a fuel for a plutonium power reactor). The problem is, if someone diverted even *very small* amounts of the plutonium, which might be hard to detect because of how small an amount is missing, they could over time possibly accumulate enough material to build a small but powerful bomb, or at least a dirty bomb. Steal a few grams here, a few grams there, eventually you have a few kilograms.
Plus, there was an economic argument against it at the time - Uranium was cheap and abundant, so it was simply cheaper to keep burning 'new' Uranium, than to reprocess the spent Uranium. My understanding is that, at least currently, some of the processing and enrichment necessary to turn it into Plutonium fuel, hasn't been figured out how to do very econically effectively. There have been various Breeder reactor's put up in other countries, I think I read there are some in Europe and Asia, but so far the current designs, I guess, haven't turned out to be very economically competitive against other energy sources.
Personally, as I indicate in my subject for this post, I view Yucca Mountain not as a waste site, a dumping ground, but more like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We are saving the spent Uranium until the time we need it and and have figured out the technologies necessary to efficiently and cheaply reproccess it, and how to secure it better. Because it stays 'hot' for 10000 years, it means we have plenty of time in which to figure out how to reprocess it and make an economically viable energy source out of it. In that regard, the extremely long time spans might be quite to our advantage, as it means we aren't, really, losing significant potential energy each year it's sitting in storage. In the meantime, we just keep buying 'new' Uranium and building up our strategic reserve.
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Re:Orr we could (Score:5, Funny)
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Easy, we don't (Score:5, Funny)
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome our new sociologist overlords
From the article:
I can't think of a better person to solve our energy crisis than a sociologist. They have insights that we scientists and engineers simply lack. They understand how to guide policies based on feelings and such, whilst we are just stuck with our equations and physical laws.
I disagree with him, but that is probably due to my dogmatic, close minded acceptance of the laws of thermodynamics. Clearly, his subjective interpretation of mass human behaviour gives a much better insight into future energy policy.
Re:I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Really, don't you think that sums it up nicely?
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WARN them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, they are going to be actively seeking out these uber rich pockets of energy, that we have the gall (or stupidity) to call waste.
we don't, we burn it in breeder reactors (Score:5, Insightful)
breeder reactors use 10x the amount of fuel of regular reactors, produce 10x the amount of power, produce 1/10th the amount of waste, and what waste that is has a half life of only a century or two
so how come we don't use breeder reactors?
because they can be used to make plutonium
however, given the choice between dramatic fuel and power reduction, dramatic waste increase and massive half life increase, i'd rather just deal with a little extra plutonium
somebody in power ha sdecided otherwise
i don't agree with them
plus, we can thorium as a fuwel source in addition to uranium, like the indians do
its not like this isn't being done outside the united states
the real problem (Score:5, Funny)
A friend of mine said recently, "The real problem with Yucca Mountain is figuring out how to make a sign that will, hundreds of thousands of years in the future, no matter what language or symbols will be in use by the cultures that come after ours, still be able to clearly and unambiguously convey the concept: 'WARNING: In twenty years there's going to be nuclear waste here.'"
Re:Dupe right out of 2006 (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Funny)
Two words: Indiana Jones. That prick will take your shit and bring it back into a museum or something.
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Funny)
(A pile of dead bodies is universal code for, "Danger!, stay away from here!").
except for a bunch of wierdo kids, whose parents have defaulted on their mortgage and are looking for pirate treasure.
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not a huge granite sculture of a human skull with thee eye sockets?
One of the official goals of the Yucca Mountain warning project is to prevent extra-terrestrials from accidental exposure (seriously). I don't think three eye sockets would necessarily mean much in that case.
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think a species advanced enough to master interstellar travel would have invented the geiger counter.
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Buried radioactive toxic waste is pretty tame compared to the various hazards of space and exploring unknown planets.
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Put a picture of Zeus on them. (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to say the best sign is:
"FREE FUEL. WE COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE IT."
"HELP YOURSELF"
And, since too many caps are considered offensive by /.'s filter, let me add:
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
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Re:Ancient Egyptian medicine containers... (Score:5, Funny)
the solution was to have the area covered with black marble and have lots of sharp points triangles sticking up out of the ground.
Terrible idea. Such an environment would just attract the goth kids from 12008. They would loiter around reciting bad poetry and drinking absynthe until the radioactivity conferred unto them superhuman powers, which they would then use to conquer the world and enslave us all.
Fuck people, try to think about the long term consequences of your actions!
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