Ikabot Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I'd like to know what do you think about sending our nuclear waste to the Sun? Nuclear waste are vey radioactive and dangerous for people and for the enviroment, so, let's take them out of Earth, and let's send them to the Sun. And there, they will be disintegrated because of the high temperature of the sun. What do yo think about that? Y want to listen your opinion! Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrRocket Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I'd like to know what do you think about sending our nuclear waste to the Sun? Nuclear waste are vey radioactive and dangerous for people and for the enviroment, so, let's take them out of Earth, and let's send them to the Sun. And there, they will be disintegrated because of the high temperature of the sun. What do yo think about that? Y want to listen your opinion! Thank you! On a good day, 15 years or so ago, it cost a minimum of $3000/ lb to put a payload into low earth orbit. Double that to get away from the immediate gravity well of the earth. It has not gotten one bit cheaper since then. Now, how many million tons of waste do you wish to send to the sun ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 First thing to do is a cost-benefit analysis. It's pretty expensive to get a rocket off-planet, especially one filled with heavy materials. Edit: Ooops. Cross-posted with DrRocket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I'd like to know what do you think about sending our nuclear waste to the Sun? Nuclear waste are vey radioactive and dangerous for people and for the enviroment, so, let's take them out of Earth, and let's send them to the Sun. And there, they will be disintegrated because of the high temperature of the sun. What do yo think about that? Y want to listen your opinion! Thank you! Since what we now call waste is actually a potential source of immense energy and that fact that new reactor designs can use this waste to produce energy and at the same time reduce both it's volume and half life to more manageable numbers by a couple orders of magnitude at least it would seem to be very short sighted to dump this "waste" someplace where we cannot access it at some point in the future... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D H Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I'd like to know what do you think about sending our nuclear waste to the Sun? Nuclear waste are vey radioactive and dangerous for people and for the enviroment, so, let's take them out of Earth, and let's send them to the Sun. And there, they will be disintegrated because of the high temperature of the sun. What do yo think about that? Y want to listen your opinion! Thank you! It doesn't make sense, for a number of reasons. As others have already mentioned, just getting something into orbit is extremely expensive. Getting that something into orbit and on a collision course with the sun is beyond extremely expensive. It would be much, much cheaper to send the stuff out of the solar system than it would be to send it into the Sun. So why not send it out of the solar system? First off, that would still be ridiculously expensive. Expense aside, our launch capabilities do not have anything close to the reliability needed to undertake such a venture. We have at most two nines of reliability About one percent of launches fail -- and even seeing that level of reliability requires one to look squinty-eyed at the process, and wearing rose-colored glasses. Getting rid of the accumulated wastes would require thousands of launches. A good number would fail, some catastrophically. Do you really want the waste from those failures dispersed into the atmosphere? Why send the waste into space at all? A lot of the detritus that we deemed as useless garbage just a few decades ago turns out to be quite valuable thanks to recycling. Some future generation will almost certainly find a use for our radioactive waste as well. It makes much more sense to safely stash it away for future generations. Even if it isn't valuable, that safe stash means that the nasty portions of the waste will naturally decay into a much less hazardous substance. So, here's a much better proposal: Store that nuclear waste underground in a manmade cave in a formation that is geologically stable and that is in a very dry climate. Or has someone already thought of this? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Waste that is "very radioactive" isn't necessarily the problem. If "very radioactive" means it has a short half-life, it decays away quickly. If it has a long half-life, it's not particularly troublesome. The problem is waste with decay chains that have atoms with half-lives that are several tens to thousands of years, and the fact that there is a reasonably large mass or volume of such material. Also: what if the launch fails? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Besides the cost, that last point really struck home for me. Imagining a Challenger-scale disaster on a ship whose entire payload is nuclear waste is mind numbingly disturbing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajb Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Send it to the Moon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airbrush Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Bury it in a subduction zone. Then it will eventually get returned to the mantle and destroyed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D H Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 (edited) Bury it in a subduction zone. Then it will eventually get returned to the mantle and destroyed. Eek, for several reasons. Those subduction zones are deep, deep, deep in the ocean. The canisters that contain that radioactive material will be subjected to extreme pressure. They will be subjected to extreme pressure in salt water or rock that is saturated with salt water. Salt water is a rather corrosive substance. They will be subjected to extreme pressure and salt water corrosion for years on end. Subduction is kinda slow: 2 to 8 centimeters per year, on average. They will be subjected to extreme pressure and salt water corrosion for years on end, with intermittent jolts from nearby strong earthquakes. Subduction is not a smooth, continuous process. Nothing happens for a few years, and then kaboom! The plate slips and dives a bit. Those kabooms are some of the strongest earthquakes on the planet, and those canisters will be right at the epicenter. They will be subjected to salt water and extreme pressure for years on end, with intermittent jolts from nearby earthquakes, followed by increasing temperatures, steam, and molten rock. The plate heats up as it dives into the Earth, eventually reaching to temperatures hot enough to eject that salt water burden, and then reaching temperatures hot enough to melt rock. This steam and molten rock often escapes back to the surface. Many of the worlds most explosive volcanos result from this process. Do you really want to subject our children's children's children to radioactive volcanic eruptions? Eek! Edited February 20, 2012 by D H 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doG Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 So, here's a much better proposal: Store that nuclear waste underground in a manmade cave in a formation that is geologically stable and that is in a very dry climate. Or has someone already thought of this? Like somewhere in a desert maybe? Once budgeted and now dead? someplace like............Yucca Mountain perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D H Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 someplace like............Yucca Mountain perhaps? Someplace just like that. It was killed for political reasons, not technical ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doG Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Someplace just like that. It was killed for political reasons, not technical ones. Yeah, I know. We can print fiat money for programs we can't afford while we ignore the programs we actually need. I feel sorry for the mess we will leave our descendants with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rktpro Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I'd like to know what do you think about sending our nuclear waste to the Sun? Nuclear waste are vey radioactive and dangerous for people and for the enviroment, so, let's take them out of Earth, and let's send them to the Sun. And there, they will be disintegrated because of the high temperature of the sun. What do yo think about that? Y want to listen your opinion! Thank you! Not dangerous than getting bankrupt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airbrush Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I like the idea above that in the distant future these waste may become useful or even valuable. There are many good caverns or mines that are geologically stable, and a safe place for long-term storage. It is just a matter of time before one is chosen, out of necessity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS1950 Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Sending nuclear waste anywhere is a total waste. The parts that are the longest lived can be removed and recycled to use for power production and the lower level that decays faster can be used in medicine and many other places that are safe and provide benefit. If we keep throwing it into "long term storage" we are going to run out of usable nuclear fuel. Recycle it and get the real benefit from "cheap" nuclear power. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airbrush Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Sending nuclear waste anywhere is a total waste. The parts that are the longest lived can be removed and recycled to use for power production and the lower level that decays faster can be used in medicine and many other places that are safe and provide benefit. If we keep throwing it into "long term storage" we are going to run out of usable nuclear fuel. Recycle it and get the real benefit from "cheap" nuclear power. Paul Please explain how the massive amounts of long-lived radioactive waste can be recycled and used for power production. If that was possible, don't you think they would be doing it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Please explain how the massive amounts of long-lived radioactive waste can be recycled and used for power production. If that was possible, don't you think they would be doing it? He may be referring to the US practice of not reprocessing fuel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airbrush Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 He may be referring to the US practice of not reprocessing fuel. Does anyone know why the US does not reprocess fuel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Please explain how the massive amounts of long-lived radioactive waste can be recycled and used for power production. If that was possible, don't you think they would be doing it? What we call waste can be "burned" to make power and result in much less waste that is very short lived compared to what we do now. See post #4 in this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Does anyone know why the US does not reprocess fuel? I believe the argument is that it helps reduce proliferation of weapons-grade material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Does anyone know why the US does not reprocess fuel? At least part of the answer is that uranium is cheap and reprocessing is difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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