Nuclear Waste: Handled by Robots Only

[BeFree]

From:
http://www.energyprobe.org/energyprobe/reports/ep72-4p_final.htm

"Inside every nuclear reactor, hundreds of radioactive substances are created -- substances that did not exist before nuclear technology was developed. They are among the most toxic materials known to science. No one knows how to dispose of them."

[ReaderSushi]

1. Nucleosynthesis anyone?

nt.

[NNadir]

2. Nuclear technology is 60 years old.

The chemistry of every product involved is well understood, so well understood in fact, that it can be manipulated on an atomic scale. For instance only a few atoms of Seaborgium have ever been detected. One cannot keep track of individual atoms unless one understands the chemistry of those atoms, intimately.

What is true is that many people are abysmally ignorant of nuclear technology, and, because they themselves are incapable of understanding it, in an orgy of unjustifiable self appreciation, they assume no one can understand it.

Smart people exist, however, who understand all of the actinides and previously rare fission products like technetium and promethium very, very well. Millions of research hours have been spent on the subject, which has been the subject of many scientific papers, many award winning, and many worthy of Nobel Prizes.

Here for instance is the first page of a paper written on the subject of the isolation of technetium that was written 45 years ago:

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/1960/82/i04/f-pdf/f_ja01489a013.pdf

Here is a paper on the subject of the preparation of technetium metal dating from 1948: http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/1948/70/i01/f-pdf/f_ja01181a537.pdf

Thus the suggestion that "people don't know what to do" with radioactive substances depends on people accepting the credulous statements of people who are completely unexposed to, oh, about 60 years of science. Quite a bit is known about "what to do" with nuclear materials, but basically people don't want to hear it, presumably because ignorance always has a certain, if mystifying, appeal.

Anti-nuclear crusaders appeal mostly to their own ignorance to claim that the world is vastly ignorant of what to do with nuclear materials, the vast bulk of which injure no one. They don't understand nuclear technology, of course, which is why they are anti-nuclear in the first place. In the nuclear case, the more you know, the less you worry.

However, as global climate change is a serious matter, because anti-nuclear people like to pretend that the handling of a few thousand metric tons of radioactive materials are more difficult to handle tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide, nuclear materials overwhelmingly being solid and the carbon dioxide a difficult to contain fluid gas, serious people can easily dismiss such self referential nonsense. In fact the world has dismissed such nonsense and is proceeding with a vast industrial expansion of nuclear power on an exajoule scale.

[jpak]

3. Nuclear power is indeed 60 years old

...and to build a new nucular plant in the United States of America today, the nucular industry must meet in secret with DIck Cheney and exchange millions in GOP campaign contributions in a quid pro quo for $2 billion in subsidies for each new reactor...

...and consumers must foot the bill for hundreds of billions of dollars in stranded costs for reactor projects canceled in the '70's and '80's...

...and taxpayers must spend tens of billions more to take spent fuel off the hands of reactor operators and dispose of it...

...hardly a stellar track record...

...and on edit: a big jpak yawn for the "antinukers are ignorant" bullshit.

[NNadir]

4. One of the more amusing contradictions in this whole matter is

how the yawning is accompanied by such loud whining.

I have understood that according to the anti-nuclear crowd, 1) The world is running out of uranium. 2) Nuclear energy is not economic...ad infinitum.

Now, it would seem to me that point #1 should put the whole matter to rest, no? If the anti-nuclear crowd really thinks the world is running out of uranium, shouldn't they just continue sleeping? Won't the matter resolve itself?

:eyes:

I make no secret of my contention that the anti-nuclear argument is basically an appeal to ignorance. I see no evidence whatsoever of any technical grasp of issues among my antagonists here. Most of the arguments are absurd on their face, like the founding argument of this thread, which implies that nuclear materials are mysterious and unknown. They are not. I think it is well demonstrated that the anti-nuclear argument is not just ignorant: It is also hysterical. As I often note, the anti-nuclear argument has been rejected by international consensus in the 32 countries that operate nuclear power plants, 13 of which have announced plans for new capacity on a vast, exajoule scale.

I also make no secret of my continuing opposition to fossil fuels, but of course, as I appeal to reason and operate mostly within the rules of clear thinking, I would never choose to obviate my opposition by stating that Dick Cheney met in secret with fossil fuel executives, has taken huge contributions and bribes from them, has actually been a fossil fuel executive, has started a criminal war to steal fossil fuels and so on...

I could, I suppose, assert that these associations somehow make fossil fuels worse than they already are, but then again, it is scientifically clear immediately that fossil fuels are killing the planet and must be replaced as quickly as is possible by strategies that are known to work on an exajoule scale. No one needs to magically chant "Dick Cheney" to prove that. This is why the world community has decided, wisely in my view, to expand nuclear capacity rapidly. One need not mention Dick Cheney's name at all to demonstrate that fossil fuels are exceedingly dangerous. In fact, Dick Cheney's name is a distraction in the matter.

That my antagonists continually attempt to vilify nuclear energy - a world wide industry - by repeatedly chanting "Cheney, nuclear, Cheney, nuclear," as if it were "Nam myoho renge kyo," is evidence of the vapidity of their arguments.

http://members.freezone.co.uk/sunspark/nmhrk/home.htm

I guess, for some, when logic, thinking and serious analysis fail, religion is best. In fact, such chanting is irrelevant, but the need for such chanting renders the situation with respect to its intellectual underpinnings obvious.

I don't buy any numbers, economic or otherwise, from the opponents of nuclear power, who I contend have no inkling whatsoever about the matters they are trying to discuss. I reject them intellectually. I reject them technically. I reject them scientifically. I reject them ethically. Nevertheless, I note that such claims as they make, all represent "nuclear exceptionalism." The United States burns billions of dollars worth of oil most days, and moreover it dumps the waste in the water and the atmosphere without regard to the future.

That, of course, is the problem.

Everything that can be said about nuclear energy can also be said about alternatives to nuclear energy. Every form of primary energy has strengths and drawbacks. Viewed from a perspective of combinatorial optimization however, nuclear energy is one of the best forms of primary energy we have. This is measurable.

Frequently I am compelled to repeat the following truth: There is no such thing as risk free energy. There is only risk minimized energy. That energy is nuclear energy.

[BeFree]

5. Contradictions

The intellectualism which says that Nuclear Energy is safe is a contradiction. The stuff can't be handled by human beings as it will kill you dead.

Any one who continues to proclaim that the by-products of nuclear energy is safe is not to be trusted with anything else.

[Massacure]

6. Name one person in the United States who has died as a result of a reactor

[BeFree]

7. You are kidding, right?

Besides the construction personnel who died, and the thousands of people diagnosed with cancers related to radiation poisoning coming from reactions, there are the Ukrainian bodies.

If the stuff was safe, why do we require robots to handle it? Are you saying nuclear reaction by-product materials are safe to handle? As safe, say, as a piece of coal?

What about handling the raw electricity from the reactors?

All in all, thank gawd some intellectual nuclear know-it-alls are honest. Honest enough to require the crap is kept out of the hands of us dummies.

[phantom power]

8. So what if we can't touch it? We don't have to touch it.

Here are some things we all DO have to "touch:" CO2. And Mercury. And SO4. And NOx. For that matter, even some of the uranium from the coal that gets burned.

And what do construction personel have to do with it? Construction people get killed building pretty much everything. I assure you that construction personel will get killed installing wind-farms and solar plants. If they haven't already, it's only because so few of them have been installed, compared to all the other construction that humans do.

[BeFree]

10. Straw argument

No one here is saying that the excess levels of pollutants are safe. Except, of course, for the nuclear intellectuals.

But, I answered the question as asked. Sorry if your intellectualism couldn't allow you to see that.

[phantom power]

13. Nobody is saying nuclear materials are safe, either.

The argument is they are manageable. And far more manageable than the waste that comes from fossil fuels.

[Massacure]

14. You didn't answer my question.

People die from steam explosions at generators, whether they are powered by coal or nuclear, people die during construction of both, people die from mining both coal and uranium; people die for lots of reasons. My question was to name one person that died as a result of the operation of a reactor in the United States. I didn't say other equipment besides the reactor because the reactor is the only thing unique to nuclear power plants.

On edit: Actually I should mention waste storage too. Tell me one person who has died as a result of the operation of the actual reactor vessel or the storage of waste.

[NNadir]

9. Yeah right.

There are thousands upon thousands of papers in the literature with people handling radioactive materials.

Not one person has ever died in the US from the storage of spent fuel. Not one. Thus an evocation of death under the circumstances is absurd fantasy, not reality.

If anyone really wants to talk about energy related death, they are absolutely free to comment in this thread, where I can't buy a comment from the "I fear what I can't understand" squad (or anyone else):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x43122

I suppose that the same people who can't understand doodly squat about nuclear technology, and thus quiver in fear of it while the world sinks under the waves, do understand how a coal mine explosion works. And since they can understand this, it registers as a piece of moral indifference: They simply don't give a shit.

Our little fear mongerers seem not to realize that these 65 dead in Mexico, just last week, are more than died at Chernobyl in 1986. More. Than. Chernobyl.

Whether or not this constitutes despised "intellectualism" is pretty clear.

But the difficulty that some people have with the issue of risk comparison is not merely a matter of intellect, but also a matter of ethics. Nuclear energy saves lives.

Again, the appeal to fear of nuclear materials is an appeal to ignorance.

:eyes:

[BeFree]

11. So...

....we shouldn't fear nuclear materials? They're safe, right? How come all you intellectuals can't agree? Because, they're are some intellectuals who don't think it's 'safe'...

So, you are in contradiction with intellectuals, eh? You don't agree with those who work with the stuff day in and day out? Maybe you aren't much of a nuclear intellectual?

[NNadir]

12. A wise person does not fear nuclear materials as much as global climate

change.

In my long life time I have noted that many people, though certainly not all, who wish to discuss a generic group referred to as "intellectuals" are basically clueless. Usually they are kids in their early twenties (or younger) or else they are simply people who have never grown up and remain emotionally at that level.

I only state this: In my lifetime I have reviewed many tens of thousands of technical documents relating to nuclear technology. I have worked with radioactive materials myself, although not, unfortunately, in the context of nuclear power, although if I were a younger man, I would certainly consider nuclear chemistry or nuclear engineering as a career, since it is highly interesting, challenging, noble, and exciting work. What's more I would be qualified to do that, since I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

In any case, I don't get my information on the subject by googling my way to the www.ratical.org website. I read primary technical literature. I can easily discern, by the way, those who don't.