Radioactive waste, I had no idea as to the scope of this problem

[madokie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_waste

These numbers blows me away to say the least. dm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Nuclear waste)

Radioactive wastes are waste types containing radioactive chemical elements that do not have a practical purpose. They are sometimes the products of nuclear processes, such as nuclear fission. However, industries not directly connected to the nuclear industry can produce large quantities of radioactive waste. It has been estimated, for instance, that the past 20 years the oil-producing endeavors of the United States have accumulated eight million tons of radioactive wastes.<1> The majority of radioactive waste is "low-level waste", meaning it contains low levels of radioactivity per mass or volume. This type of waste often consists of used protective clothing, which is only slightly contaminated but still dangerous in case of radioactive contamination of a human body through ingestion, inhalation, absorption, or injection.

In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states that there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water".<2> Despite these copious quantities of waste, the DOE has a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025.<2> The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards".<2> The United States currently has at least 108 sites it currently designates as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres<3><2> The DOE wishes to try and clean or mitigate many or all by 2025, however the task can be difficult and it acknowledges that some will never be completely remediated, and just in one of these 108 larger designations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there were for example at least "167 known contaminant release sites" in one of the three subdivisions of the 37,000-acre (150 km²) site.<2> Some of the U.S. sites were smaller in nature, however, and cleanup issues were simpler to address, and the DOE has successfully completed cleanup, or at least closure, of several sites.<2>

The issue of disposal methods for nuclear waste was one of the most pressing current problems the international nuclear industry faced when trying to establish a long term energy production plan, yet there was hope it could be safely solved. In the United States, the DOE acknowledges much progress in addressing the waste problems of the industry, and successful remediation of some contaminated sites, yet also major uncertainties and sometimes complications and setbacks in handling the issue properly, cost effectively, and in the projected time frame.<2> In other countries with lower ability or will to maintain environmental integrity the issue would be more problematic.
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[LiberalEsto]

1. Read about Hanford

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/355924_hanford21.html

Complete disaster area.

[madokie]

2. No doubt, A complete disaster area.

and who is saddled with the cost of this cleanup alone. Us and future generations are who. All of a sudden my .08 cent kwh electric doesn't seem like such a bargan any more. We can not afford nuclear energy, its as simple as that.

What is going on in Hanford today is a perfect example of how the nuclear energy consortium has done business from day one. I think we are going to have to give up on most if not all of our frills, especially the ability to be anywhere at anytime.

[zalinda]

3. And, your guy supports nuclear energy n/t

[Dogmudgeon]

8. I thought Hanford was military, not civilian

:shrug:

--p!

[LiberalEsto]

9. A nuclear waste dump

is a nuclear waste dump, regardless of who made the mess.

The point I was making is that this stuff is extraordinarily hazardous and extremely difficult to clean up.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. Hanford was a Weapons Facility not power

Not really fair to compare Hanford to Commercial nukes. The Manhattan Project and Plutonium based weapons manufacture operated outside of the rules used by the commercial sector. And initially before anyone fully recognized the risks associated with it and it's wastes.

Yes we must learn from the mistakes made at places such as Hanford. But conciderations should be based on disposal of what wastes would be generated by a potential new plant. Not on what mistakes were made years ago.

[LiberalEsto]

10. Nuclear material is extremely hazardous

no matter who dumped it.

I think the original poster was making the point that there is a lot of nuclear waste lying around, that it's extremely hazardous (and will be for perhaps centuries if not thousands of years), and that it's going to cost U.S. taxpayers a fortune to clean up.

I didn't see anything in the OP or in my post comparing military and commercial nuclear waste dumps.

I feel like we're not permitted to write the glaring, obvious fact that nuclear waste is hazardous, and that there's a heck of a lot of it, without being jumped on by the people here who want more nuclear plants and nuclear waste.

What are your plans for cleaning these disaster sites up?

[One_Life_To_Give]

18. Yes it is Hazardous

10,000 years IIRC although after the first thousand it is scarcely more radiactive than naturally occuring ore. And since the vast majority of the mess in this country was created by Uncle Sam himself and the wreckless way these products were handled, I guess Uncle Sam will have to pay to clean up his own mess.

The original post linked together all wastes from weapons development, medical use, research and commercial operations. I am mearly pointing out the the vast majority of the current waste was created in the pursuit of bigger and better ways to blow the commies to hell and back. And if anyone is to make inferences of the relative benefits of any technology/product versus the cost of the radioactive waste. They should have some understanding of the relative weights of the wastes involved. Banning radioactive medicine because DOD made a shitload of Nuclear waste is foolish.

[madokie]

21. Seems to be dangerous for much longer than a thousand years don't you think

No one knows what to do with it for only that thousand years you speak of let alone thousands and thousands of years, more like what it will require. Inhabitants of this earth will have to deal with this radioactive crap forever, if not forever at least for a long long time and only a fool would think otherwise, methinks. I'm not calling anyone a fool mind you I'm just bringing attention to a very troubling aspect of nuclear energy production. At the rate that the waste is being produced we can't just continue on as it is being done today.



High level waste (HLW) is produced by nuclear reactors. It contains fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core. It is highly radioactive and often thermally hot. LLW and ILW accounts for over 95% of the total radioactivity produced in the process of nuclear electricity generation. The amount of HLW worldwide is currently increasing by about 12,000 metric tons every year, which is the equival to about 100 double-decker busses or a two-story structure built on top of a basketball court.<9>

( )

The radioactivity of all nuclear waste diminishes with time. All radioisotopes contained in the waste have a half-life - the time it takes for any radionuclide to lose half of its radioactivity and eventually all radioactive waste decays into non-radioactive elements. Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in “spent” fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes will remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for hundreds of millennia.<4> Some elements, such as Iodine-131, have a short half-life (around 8 days in this case) and thus they will cease to be a problem much more quickly than other, longer-lived, decay products but their activity is much greater initially. The two tables show some of the major radioisotopes, their half-lives, and their radiation yield as a proportion of the yield of fission of Uranium-235.

The faster a radioisotope decays, the more radioactive it will be. The energy and the type of the ionizing radiation emitted by a pure radioactive substance are important factors in deciding how dangerous it will be. The chemical properties of the radioactive element will determine how mobile the substance is and how likely it is to spread into the environment and contaminate human bodies. This is further complicated by the fact that many radioisotopes do not decay immediately to a stable state but rather to a radioactive decay product leading to decay chains.

[One_Life_To_Give]

28. Didn't say we should make kids toys with it

It will be conciderably less radioactive after the first thousnad years of decay. Hence the protective measures required will be conciderably less than what is needed during the first century.

12,000 tons per year sounds like a lot. But how much do we currently have to deal with? What is our real incremental cost of dealing with this additional waste vs. alternatives? We have 106? currently functioning reactors in the US. The entire containment building and grounds were a write off from the first day fuel was loaded into them. If the plant is allowed to finish out it's life rather than shut it down today. Are we adding the equivalent of a trash can to a dumpster or a trash can to a landfill?

[NickB79]

42. 12,000 tons of nuclear waste per year, vs. 20 billion tons of CO2 per year

Nuclear waste, which is not the reason the ice caps are melting, or that farmlands are turning into desert, or that the coral reefs are dying, or that forests are burning, or that the methane clathrates are melting, or that all the moose here in Minnesota are dropping dead. Waste that is in solid or liquid forms, rather than gaseous like CO2, so it could at least be stored if we so chose, unlike the joke that is carbon-capture/sequestration.

Now, before I am accused of carrying water for Dick Cheney (again), let me clarify that I am not saying nuclear waste is safe, or wholesome, or in any way good. What I am saying is merely that nuclear waste is pretty far down on my list of things to be terrified of at this moment in time. The die-off of several billion humans in the next 50 years won't be due to nuclear waste (unless we see a nuclear resource war break out). It will be due entirely to CO2 and resource depletion.

[losthills]

43. More ridiculous propaganda.

The nuclear engine is powered by fossil fuels. Just like ethanol, it's just another way of turning oil into energy. Every stage of the nuclear cycle, including waste containment produces CO2. Nuclear energy does not represent a solution to global warming. Anyone with any common sense can see that nuclear waste is something to be very afraid of.

Disinformation and propaganda like this is choking the life out of this group.

[Dead_Parrot]

44. It has been pointed out to you before...

that the same is true of all forms of energy production. It has also been pointed out to you that there are a number of life-cycle emission analyses for different energy technologies, freely available to anyone with access to the internet, although it's clear you haven't felt to need to sully your mind with anything as mundane as data.

Pop Quiz:

West Virginia's coal mines supply hundreds of tons of fuel a day to feed the power plant is a quote referring to:
a) a steel smelter,
b) a silicon smelter,
c) a uranium smelter, or
d) It could actually refer to any of them, and we need to fix that.

Take your time.

Incidentally, It has also been pointed out to you that that you cannot actually change reality just by repeating stuff you really want to be true.

Ah well, rinse and repeat.

[losthills]

46. Not worth responding to....

[Dead_Parrot]

49. "Not worth responding to"...

...he responded.

Proof #4534 that Americans do not do irony. :)

Whatever. When you do come with something intelligent to to say, we're all ears...

[Dogmudgeon]

50. I do irony, and I live in America ...

... but then again, I'm an alien.

With all your pollution, do you have any idea how much Visine we bug-eyed bastards go through in a week?

--p!
Don't call me a "Gray" -- I'm an "Ashen-American," damn it!

[Dead_Parrot]

51. Last time I was an alien...

...was a 2hr stop-over at LAX (going London to Auckland). Even though we weren't allowed into the terminal, we still got photographed and fingerprinted.

Old news I know, but: Your country is fucked up, dude. Sort it out, will ya?

[losthills]

4. It's a crime against humanity.

[Javaman]

5. And the champions for nuke energy seem to be very quiet on this thread...

funny how that works.

[hunter]

7. How's this different from all the other toxic waste we live in?

Look at lead and mercury -- it's everywhere and it poisons the nervous systems of our children. We'd all be a little smarter and a little more agile if we hadn't been exposed to this crap from the moment we were conceived.

Nuclear waste is bad, but it's just another damned assault against our human nature and the environment of the planet, one of many, and not an exceptionally vile one in comparison to others.

[LiberalEsto]

11. But some of it will be dangerous for thousands of years

I think that makes a difference,

[NickB79]

13. Lead and mercury don't have a half-life

They are toxic forever.

[losthills]

14. Actually, yeah it is exceptionally vile.

None of the other stuff you named, bad as it may be, even comes close.

[JohnWxy]

12. when you consider the number of nukes some want to build, the additions to this toxic stockpile

is truly mind-blowing, especially when you consider they really haven't figured out how to reliably and safely, store this material even over the relatively near term (say for a couple hundred years). Keep in mind some of this waste (e.g. spent fuel rods) will require sequestration for tens of thousands of years!

some experiment.

[kristopher]

15. Nuclear proponents suggest waste can be handled like this

We have the technology to vitrify the waste into large solid glass blocks and dump it in the deep ocean.

This 1) keeps it from contaminating the surroundings as the glass is stable over long periods of time, 2) puts in a place safe from theft (it's hard to find and recover something from 20,000 feet of water) and 3) locates the waste in an area where it doesn't affect a local ecology. Life there is extremely dispersed.


The obstacle to this is the UN conventions on disposing of waste (any kind) at sea.

Should we seek change in this policy?

It should be noted that another post linked to a blog yesterday pointed out that if we make nuclear a 15-20% part of the solution to climate change, we would need the equivalent of 10 Yucca Mountains for storage of the wastes. I don't know if that is accurate, but it seems a good point to have in the discussion.

[losthills]

16. We don't even have one Yucca Mountain

and we're not likely to.

And anyone who wants to dump this stuff in the sea needs to have their head examined.

[kristopher]

17. Could you be more specific as to why?

What's wrong with turning it into glass and dumping it in the most remote, inaccessable area of the planet?

We wouldn't have to do it forever, just until we get the climate change situation under control. You do agree there is urgency regarding climate change, don't you? Some of those ocean trenches are extremely deep and not affected by currents.

[One_Life_To_Give]

19. Nuclear won't play a significant part in fighting

Nuclear won't play a significant part in fighting climate change. Your essentially limited to the current group of functioning reactors. There is only one foundry in the world that can currently cast the the reactor containment vessel. And all of the engineers with any experience at designing/building Nukes were laid off long ago and have retrained themselves in other areas of engineering. And lastly you couldn't complete the permitting process to build on an existing reactor site in less than 10-15 years. By that time we will either be on our way to having significant power from alternatives or be bending over to kiss our collective asses goodbye.

[kristopher]

20. Finally some rationality.

Thank you. By the time they ramp up, the need would be declining. In a best case for the industry scenario, the externalities limit the use to a single new generation of reactors. When you add in the obstacles you mentioned, nuclear's role reveals itself to be limited, as you say.

[NNadir]

25. I would do the calculation showing that nuclear energy has already eliminated two years worth of

carbon dioxide - more than any other form of energy - but the effort would be lost.

In general, I would end up expressing my contempt and it would have no bearing on the property of people making arbitrary assumptions that only nuclear energy need be risk free and that all other forms of energy can kill at will with no attention to their risks.

If you have some toy that has prevented the release of two years of the entire earth's output of carbon dioxide since coming into use that would be interesting.

But you cannot produce any such thing. What you don't understand at all is the magnitude of the fossil fuel waste problem. In fact, since you oppose - for rote irrationality and laziness - the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free primary energy.

I note that wind and solar power - for all the talk - have yet to prevent two month's worth of dangerous fossil fuel waste accumulation.

It is interesting that you think that people like my children should die because you engage in wishful thinking.

And note, that neither you nor any other fundamentalist anti-nuke can produce a single case of a person who has been injured by used nuclear fuel in this country, never mind a number of persons on the scale who die each week from dangerous fossil fuel waste and your studied indifference.

[One_Life_To_Give]

27. And who will build them

The big engineering firms that designed/built our current crop of reactors have largely gone bankrupt. The engineers with any experience designing nuclear plants and all the associated structures, long ago retrained themselves in other disciplines. Our universities that once taught Nuclear Engineering long ago discontinued those programs. And one lone foundry in Japan, with a significant backlog, can cast the containment vessel.

Combined with the public perception problems surrounding this issue. I think it very optimistic to believe that more than 20,000MW of new nuclear generated elecricity in the US could be brought on line by 2030.

[LiberalEsto]

29. A few questions

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during the processes of mining, transportation and refining nuclear materials into fuel?

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during the removal, transportation and disposal of these materials?

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during the construction of nuclear facilities? How much carbon dioxide is emitted during construction of storage for these materials?

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during construction of mining and transportation vehicles for these purposes?

How much carbon dioxide is expended during cleanup of radioactive areas?

[Dead_Parrot]

39. A few more:

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during the mining, transportation, refining, construction, removal and disposal of PV panels?

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during the mining, transportation, refining, construction, removal and disposal of wind farms?

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during the mining, transportation, refining, construction, removal and disposal of energy storage?

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during the mining, transportation, refining, construction, removal and disposal of geothermal plants?

How much carbon dioxide is emitted during construction of mining and transportation vehicles for all these purposes?

What's the definition of "Straw-man"?

Why do some people insist on asking fairly easy questions on DU rather than using google to find the answers themselves?

:shrug:

[TheWraith]

36. I'm afraid you're mistaken on a bunch of points.

"There is only one foundry in the world that can currently cast the the reactor containment vessel."

That's completely untrue.

"And all of the engineers with any experience at designing/building Nukes were laid off long ago and have retrained themselves in other areas of engineering."

This is also not true. There are tons of nuclear physicists and engineers available.

"And lastly you couldn't complete the permitting process to build on an existing reactor site in less than 10-15 years."

Again, not so. You can in fact go from bare dirt to functional facility in 5 years, including permits.

"By that time we will either be on our way to having significant power from alternatives or be bending over to kiss our collective asses goodbye."

That's the same thing they said in the 1970s.

[One_Life_To_Give]

37. Technically, maybe

"There is only one foundry in the world that can currently cast the the reactor containment vessel."
That's completely untrue.
Ok Japan Steel is the only place that can cast it in One Piece.

There are tons of nuclear physicists and engineers available.
With any real experience designing and building a commercial nuclear reactor to US and NRC standards? guess I forgot about all those brand spanking new light water reactors that came online in the last two decades.

You can in fact go from bare dirt to functional facility in 5 years, including permits.
If nobody so much a sneezes along the way, probably could. But face it we can't permit an offshore wind farm in 5 years let alone something with such a poor public image as a nuke.


Although I can't say I would be disappointed to be proven wrong. I do not see a big nuclear rennaissance coming to the US anytime soon.

[losthills]

23. The ocean is the last place a sensible person

would dump nuclear waste. The repercussions would be enormous and unfixable.

In fact, so called vitrification is neither safe, nor stable, and the real world effects of deep ocean pressures on these concoctions cannot be tested or modelled. It's just more pie in the sky nonsense from NEI charlatans.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v295/n5845/abs/295130a0.html

And why? Because we need nuclear power to combat global warming? That bull shit has been debunked so many times it's not worth responding to....

[DCKit]

26. Sea Monsters. n/t

[struggle4progress]

47. Last I looked, "vitrification" was not turning wastes into completely inert glassy logs

but was producing an uneven crack-prone product that deteriorated under unfavorable circumstances

Vitrification may be a useful technology, used properly with certain wastes, if the glassy materials are handled properly thereafter. But in and of itself, it is not guaranteed to isolate or contain the wastes. If the vitrified deteriorates, the resulting materials might be rather mobile

[losthills]

48. It's a bill of goods....

No one with any common sense would dump that stuff in the ocean.

[pscot]

24. For forty years Hanford management

has been holding out the prospect of vitrification as the ultimate solution. The are going to turn the most toxic stuff into glass logs; compact, stable and easily transported and stored. In that forty years, thev haven't produced a single glass log. They have managed to burn through several billions of federal dollars in the form of cost-plus contracts. Their promises aren't worth shit.

[Firethorn]

45. We could already eliminate about 90% of the HL nuclear 'waste'

If we were willing to reprocess or run breeder reactors; we could reduce our high level nuclear waste by 90-95%. As a bonus, the remaining 'useless' waste has a shorter halflife, meaning it would become safe from a radiation standpoint faster than the current waste. It'll still be dangerous as a collection of heavy metals, of course.

[NNadir]

22. I'll say. You know nothing about the subject at all.

[Javaman]

30. You're statement makes no sense.

They person clearly states that they had no idea and are quoting from Wikipedia.

[hunter]

31. "... they had no idea and are quoting from Wikipedia."

That pretty much sums up so much of the drivel on the internet, doesn't it?

:rofl:

[madokie]

32. Have you noticed how when the words waste and nuclear are on the same page

how some act as if you had just kicked them in the balls. whys that :-)
The plans for dealing with nuclear waste is the same as the bushco plan to leave Iraq is, obfuscate, lie and then in the end we find out there isn't one. So transparent they are.

[hunter]

33. Big brass balls!

It's the climate change and declining oil and gas production that'll kill us. Nuclear waste is mostly a distraction at this point.

We're probably going to run existing nuclear plants well past their design life, and we won't build many more because we won't have the economic resources to do it. We won't build a lot of "alternative energy" capacity for the same reason.

If a person keeps gaining weight and not exercising eventually they reach a point where they can't get out of bed. That's pretty much where the U.S. is now. The hole where the World Trade Center stood is likely to fill up with water while we as a nation madly ring our little bell for service, scratch our butt, and wonder what the hell happened to us.

Are we not a superpower? Bring us our dinner!

[madokie]

35. You have to remember that this has been going on for a long time for some of us

Years ago we were led to believe that a solution would be found for the waste problem, blab, blab, blab, but here it is 40 some odd years later and still no solutions. That leads me to believe that if there weas a viable process it would have been found by now. Reading about the amount of waste that is to be dealt with right now if we don't add anymore is staggering, I don't remember the exact figure as I've been reading so many figures lately trying to understand it all but its a bunch I can tell you that. If we were to put the effort into finding or developing another source, whichever the case may be, of energy we would be getting a much bigger bang for our buck. You have to remember we're pretty sure now after all these years and no solutions yet that there isn't any to be found. So why keep kicking a dead horse, lets move on to developing something else. Very little of what we know today was known just back to 1900 so I'm inclined to believe there is answers to our energy problems to be found and what better way to do that than to make a serious effort wouldn't you think. Rather than set around and advocate the use of nuclear energy when the opposition is to that is so great. Opposition for the most part well founded on fear and lies, the real fear of radiation poisoning and the many lies we've been told. Don't get me wrong here I know what we're doing now is killing us and we're going to have to do better. I wish I could warm up to the idea of nuclear energy but I just can't do it and the more I read on the subject the more thats true.

peace

[hunter]

40. I've been down the road once or twice...

...and around the bend too.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hunter/34

[madokie]

41. thats cool

[TheWraith]

34. Most of our nuclear waste actually comes not from plants, but from weapons manufacturing.

The defense industry didn't have the heavy safety strictures on it that the nuclear power industry does, and in the early days they didn't fully understand the importance of containment.

Hanford is a perfect example of this--that one plant, over a few years released 30,000 to 50,000 times the radioactive iodine of the Three Mile Island incident.

[madokie]

38. I'm sure thats true for a lot of countries too

we don't want to get sidetracked into worrying about who done what at this juncture though do we. I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around to all involved. Like I said at the beginning I didn't know to what extent as to how much waste we had right this minute. I'm appalled at learning of that