Techno Ignorance

Just saw this spewing.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/30/europe/g ... index.html

How can a society have the technology to build nuclear reactors and still have a populace that is so profoundly stupid that they believe that the nuclear wastes will remain highly radioactive for more than a few centuries?

Before posting, look up the equation for radioactive decay.

BTW, I always assumed that it was only Americans who had been gullible enough to believe this BS.

I'm rather curious as to how you think the equation for radioactive decay explains that nuclear waste will become safe in a matter of centuries.

noblehunter wrote:I'm rather curious as to how you think the equation for radioactive decay explains that nuclear waste will become safe in a matter of centuries.

All you have to do is understand the equation for radioactive decay to answer that question.

Hint: nuclear wastes are dangerous because they are radioactive. The less radioactive the isotope, the less dangerous it is. Caveat, one must consider the energy of the radiation emitted as well as details of biological absorbtion and retention.

You are aware that some Nuclear Waste has a half-life measured in orders of magnitude greater than a million years?
For U-236, commonly found in spent fuel rods, its 23.48 Million years.

edgeworthy wrote:You are aware that some Nuclear Waste has a half-life measured in orders of magnitude greater than a million years?
For U-236, commonly found in spent fuel rods, its 23.48 Million years.

Agreed.

How radioactive is that U-236?
How radioactive is U-238 which is also found in spent fuel rods?
Which of the two isotopes is most radioactive?
How much of that U-236 isotope must you inhale or ingest to receive a dose of radiation over your life time that is likely to injure you or be lethal?

Here is a hint
The US uses depleted Uranium-238 for projectiles for tank guns (the metallurgy and mechanical properties are fascinating) as well as for tank armor. You can barely detect the Uranium with an extremely sensitive Geiger counter. Primary safety concerns is that Uranium oxidizes explosively (machining or casting it is a bitch but the behind armor incendiary effects are spectacular!) and chemical toxicity just like Mercury.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Before posting, look up the equation for radioactive decay.

Before posting about how stupid you think people are for not wanting nuclear waste near them, how about you actually read and understand the article you're posting about?

The article isn't about people being in a panic because of nuclear waste. It's about people being in a bit of a hurry because we need a final resting place for nuclear waste, we don't yet have one, and we're looking at having to invest a couple billion Euros into recovering waste from some of the supposedly secure sites we chose for medium term storage and putting it somewhere safe.

But hey, if this medium- and low-level irradiated waste is as harmless as you're implying, you wouldn't mind us burying it in your back yard, would you?

In other words: If your claim is that this waste is less harmful than the people in charge of securing it think it is, please do show some evidence. You know, actual numbers and such that show that these items are not emitting harmful levels of radiation. I'm sure that you, smart and knowledgable as you are, will have no issue providing the relevant documentation.
I mean, sure, you can work out the decay curve for these isotopes, but without knowing what exactly was stored, it's all a bit pointless, isn't it.

Just like your entire thought exercise about a superconducting sphere the size of earth, come to think of it....

The E wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Before posting, look up the equation for radioactive decay.

Before posting about how stupid you think people are for not wanting nuclear waste near them, how about you actually read and understand the article you're posting about?

The article isn't about people being in a panic because of nuclear waste. It's about people being in a bit of a hurry because we need a final resting place for nuclear waste, we don't yet have one, and we're looking at having to invest a couple billion Euros into recovering waste from some of the supposedly secure sites we chose for medium term storage and putting it somewhere safe.

But hey, if this medium- and low-level irradiated waste is as harmless as you're implying, you wouldn't mind us burying it in your back yard, would you?

In other words: If your claim is that this waste is less harmful than the people in charge of securing it think it is, please do show some evidence. You know, actual numbers and such that show that these items are not emitting harmful levels of radiation. I'm sure that you, smart and knowledgable as you are, will have no issue providing the relevant documentation.
I mean, sure, you can work out the decay curve for these isotopes, but without knowing what exactly was stored, it's all a bit pointless, isn't it.

Just like your entire thought exercise about a superconducting sphere the size of earth, come to think of it....

https://issuu.com/johna.shanahan/docs/7 ... _lwr_waste

You remain to stupid and bigoted to handle the math about the superconducting sphere as well as the nuclear wastes. Almost all of the long lived isotopes are Actinides which should be recycled into reactor fuel.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:https://issuu.com/johna.shanahan/docs/7 ... _lwr_waste

Hang on, let me try and work out your reasoning here. Let's go step by step.
First, you read this CNN article about the difficulties, past and present, that german authorities had in finding and securing safe storage sites for nuclear waste. Somehow, and I am not entirely sure how, you post about this as a "Ha, look at these stupid people who think nuclear waste is more dangerous than it actually is" kind of thing.

I then ask you to show the data underlying your statement.

As a response, you post ... an article about securely storing nuclear waste in geologically stable underground facilities?

You remain to stupid and bigoted to handle the math about the superconducting sphere as well as the nuclear wastes. Almost all of the long lived isotopes are Actinides which should be recycled into reactor fuel.

Oh, and you post that as well. Which... isn't an argument, as far as I can work out? Whether or not spent fuel rods should be reconditioned or not is an entirely separate discussion from how to deal with the waste products of nuclear energy generation; No matter how efficient your fuel regeneration process is, there are still going to be waste products that will be too dangerous or too uneconomical to recycle in some form, which is where long-term storage comes in.

Which, as your article there points out, is best done in geologically stable, underground facilities.

Which require specific geological conditions.

Which, in Germany, are hard to find.

Which is what the original article was about.

So what part were people being stupid about here? I still don't get it.

Hell, the article you posted showed (on pages 6-7) an impressive graph that implied that you need about 400 years before nuclear waste can be deemed harmless; there are very few things humans have built that have remained safe and secure for that long. It makes very good points that letting radioactive waste into the water supply or the air needs to be avoided at all costs.... given that existing medium-term storage facilities in germany were found to be flawed and thus it could not be guaranteed that they can perform their intended function, I fail to see where the stupidity is.

So you're calling me bigoted and stupid, you're calling the people worried about the consequences of storing nuclear waste in unsecure sites stupid, and yet the one source you bother to cite validates everything these people fear and work hard to avoid?

The E wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:https://issuu.com/johna.shanahan/docs/7 ... _lwr_waste

Hang on, let me try and work out your reasoning here. Let's go step by step.
First, you read this CNN article about the difficulties, past and present, that german authorities had in finding and securing safe storage sites for nuclear waste. Somehow, and I am not entirely sure how, you post about this as a "Ha, look at these stupid people who think nuclear waste is more dangerous than it actually is" kind of thing.

I then ask you to show the data underlying your statement.

As a response, you post ... an article about securely storing nuclear waste in geologically stable underground facilities?

You remain to stupid and bigoted to handle the math about the superconducting sphere as well as the nuclear wastes. Almost all of the long lived isotopes are Actinides which should be recycled into reactor fuel.

Oh, and you post that as well. Which... isn't an argument, as far as I can work out? Whether or not spent fuel rods should be reconditioned or not is an entirely separate discussion from how to deal with the waste products of nuclear energy generation; No matter how efficient your fuel regeneration process is, there are still going to be waste products that will be too dangerous or too uneconomical to recycle in some form, which is where long-term storage comes in.

Which, as your article there points out, is best done in geologically stable, underground facilities.

Which require specific geological conditions.

Which, in Germany, are hard to find.

Which is what the original article was about.

So what part were people being stupid about here? I still don't get it.

Hell, the article you posted showed (on pages 6-7) an impressive graph that implied that you need about 400 years before nuclear waste can be deemed harmless; there are very few things humans have built that have remained safe and secure for that long. It makes very good points that letting radioactive waste into the water supply or the air needs to be avoided at all costs.... given that existing medium-term storage facilities in germany were found to be flawed and thus it could not be guaranteed that they can perform their intended function, I fail to see where the stupidity is.

So you're calling me bigoted and stupid, you're calling the people worried about the consequences of storing nuclear waste in unsecure sites stupid, and yet the one source you bother to cite validates everything these people fear and work hard to avoid?

Well excuse the Hell out of me!
(That is a quote from John Wayne)

I was presuming that you could actually read with reasonably accurate comprehension and also put the information in context.

The Cohen article is written in context of a political decision by US President Carter to NOT reprocess spent nuclear fuel rods to extract Uranium, Plutonium and other Actenides so that they could be recycled into reactor fuel. This abject stupidity was then exasperated by an insane judicial "finding of fact" that because nuclear wastes contain Plutonium-239, they remain highly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and therefore must be isolated for One Million years.

Unlike you I did some Googling to confirm my understanding of the context of the consternation in Germany. Unlike the US, Germany reprocesses spent nuclear fuel (outsourced to France and England) to extract the Uranium, Plutonium and other Actenides that are then recycled into new fuel rods. The fission products are then virtrified (turned to glass) and returned to the German utilities. Germany need concern itself only with storing fission products.

Now go back and look at the graphs of decay energy and estimated toxicity over time. Almost all of the long lived radiactivity and hence Cohen's estimates of toxicity are the result of the Actenides including Uranium and Plutonium that remain in the wastes that the US does not reprocess.

It seems that you were perceptive enough to recognize that these graphs are logarithmic and that even with the presence of Actenides, the radioactivity and hence potential danger of the wastes has decayed to nearly nothing after a few centuries.

Because of the wet climate, Germany is a lousy location for "long term" (1,000 years) waste storage. Outsource it.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Because of the wet climate, Germany is a lousy location for "long term" (1,000 years) waste storage. Outsource it.

Okay, so noone you were calling stupid in the first post of this thread was actually being stupid then, good to know.