What to do with radioactive waste ?

[vrus]

This question has been hard to answer. What do all you ppl. think ? Do what is presently done, i.e bury underground ? Or other means ?

 

I personally think, that they should be packed into capsules and sent into space. Since there is no known life for a few hundred light years, the capsule can float through space and time, until the radiation is very weak and not harmful. Then the capsules can return and with some re-entry problems fixed, the element can be put back in the reactor ! i.e- U-235. The cycle repeats !

[Lance]

Are you paying?

[atinymonkey]

A giant trebuchet.

 

Fffwhooommmff

 

Surprise's the French all the time.

[J.C.MacSwell]

This question has been hard to answer. What do all you ppl. think ? Do what is presently done' date=' i.e bury underground ? Or other means ?

 

I personally think, that they should be packed into capsules and sent into space. Since there is no known life for a few hundred light years, the capsule can float through space and time, until the radiation is very weak and not harmful. Then the capsules can return and with some re-entry problems fixed, the element can be put back in the reactor ! i.e- U-235. The cycle repeats ! [/quote']

 

I think there might be safer alternatives.

[Lance]

I think there might be safer alternatives.

 

Indeed. Putting a load of radioactive waste on top of a bomb and popping it off into space doesn't seem all that safe does it.

[vrus]

Indeed. Putting a load of radioactive waste on top of a bomb and popping it off into space doesn't seem all that safe does it.

 

I didn't say that !.

Why don't you suggest an alternative ? HOW ABOUT BLOWING IT UP WITH A BOMB ???

[swansont]

I didn't say that !.

Why don't you suggest an alternative ? HOW ABOUT BLOWING IT UP WITH A BOMB ???

 

You implied it. How would you get it into outer space without putting it atop a bomb, aka a rocket?

 

Blowing it up with conventional explosives won't reduce the activity.

[5614]

Blowing up a radioactive sample will not stop it from being radioactive.

 

Shooting it into space would cost too much.

 

Burrying it deep undergound is safe and cheap.... unless there are people living in the middle of the Earth in that bubble thing (just ignore that unless you know what thread I'm talking about!)

 

[edit] slight overlap, Swanson't post wasn't there 2 mins ago when I loaded the page.

[Ophiolite]

The problem with underground storage is potential contamination of the water table. Additionally anyone who thinks there are 'stable' regions in the Earth's crust doesn't understand the geology. [This includes many geologists!]

[Flareon]

The problem with underground storage is potential contamination of the water table. Additionally anyone who thinks there are 'stable' regions in the Earth's crust doesn't understand the geology. [This includes many geologists!]

 

If the thoughts of earth stability were true, we'd all be living in Pangaea.

 

I have a question regarding the main topic: I am not well read in nuclear physics, but would there be a possible way to recycle and reuse some if not all of that radioactive waste? Or do reactors produce an absolutely unusable byproduct?

[swansont]

I have a question regarding the main topic: I am not well read in nuclear physics, but would there be a possible way to recycle and reuse some if not all of that radioactive waste? Or do reactors produce an absolutely unusable byproduct?

 

There are problems with it.

 

If the waste is short-lived, it will decay while it's still in the reactor. If the reactor is operating, this adds to the power from fission. So this is not a problem. If the waste is long-lived, it isn't very radioactive, so this isn't much of a problem. It's the stuff that has an intermediate half-life (tens of years out to seveal thousands of years) that is the real issue. It doesn't produce an appreciable amount of power, so it's not economical to try and use it for power. Some of it is used for medical purposes.

[RedAlert]

Hmm......couldn't we use the radioactive material for other purposes after it's use? Maybe we could use it's radioactive properties to create energy....

[quick silver]

i read some where that the goverment buries the waste in barrels and stores it under the yucca mountains. this was abourt 3 years ago

[swansont]

i read some where that the goverment buries the waste in barrels and stores it under the yucca mountains. this was abourt 3 years ago

 

That's a proposed plan, but hasn't happened. The twelve people that live near Yucca mountain don't want it there, but neither does anybody else. The NIMBY (= Not In My BackYard) syndrome in action.

[quick silver]

oh, ok. thank you for clairiffiying it for me.

[ydoaPs]

you could feed it to spiders then anger them.

[rakuenso]

Blowing up a radioactive sample will not stop it from being radioactive.

 

Shooting it into space would cost too much.

 

Burrying it deep undergound is safe and cheap.... unless there are people living in the middle of the Earth in that bubble thing (just ignore that unless you know what thread I'm talking about!)

 

[edit] slight overlap' date=' Swanson't post wasn't there 2 mins ago when I loaded the page.[/i']

 

Earthquake anyone?

[vrus]

If the thoughts of earth stability were true' date=' we'd all be living in Pangaea.

 

I have a question regarding the main topic: I am not well read in nuclear physics, but would there be a possible way to recycle and reuse some if not all of that radioactive waste? Or do reactors produce an absolutely unusable byproduct?[/quote']

 

There is a huge amount of radioactive waste created by nuclear fission in a nuclear reactor, but there is a lot of unused Uranium-235 left over, that hasn't been fissioned, even after about 2 years of FISSIONING !!!This Uranium is put in reprocessing plants in big pools of water. After a long time, the Uranium can be removed and re-used. It is said that a good reprocessing procedure should yield 80 % Uranium. This means if you put 100 kg uranium for reprocessing, you SHOULD ge 80 kg of U-235 back !

[mmalluck]

Do what the U.S. government does.

 

Bury the highly radioactive stuff and fasion the rest into depleted Uranium slugs, that you can scatter all over the Middle East in the name of freedom.

[swansont]

...stop using nuclear and use our giant electric/gas bill money we saved to install home by home solar, wind, hydrogen or hemp/ethanol power sources.

 

How is hydrogen a power source? Where do I dig it up?

[Sayonara]

you could feed it to spiders then anger them.

I second the motion.

[vrus]

How is hydrogen a power source? Where do I dig it up?

 

Hydrogen can br used in fuel cells to create electricity. The product is water.

Scramjets, or supersonic combustion ramjets also use hydrogen for their fuel, but they combust it and it is much cleaner as there are no carbon compounds formed ! Hydrogen also release loads of energy when burnt !!!

[swansont]

Hydrogen can br used in fuel cells to create electricity. The product is water.

Scramjets' date=' or supersonic combustion ramjets also use hydrogen for their fuel, but they combust it and it is much cleaner as there are no carbon compounds formed ! Hydrogen also release loads of energy when burnt !!![/quote']

 

Hydrogen must be separated from water, which requires energy. You can't get more back than it took to separate it. That's the first law of thermodynamics in action.

 

Neither the separation process nor the recombination will be 100% efficient, so it will actually take more energy to make the hydrogen than you will ever get out of it. That's the second law of thermodynamics in action.

 

Hydrogen is not a power source, nor is it necessarily clean. Hydrogen is a storage medium. The energy used to make the hydrogen will most likely come from fossil fuels, absent some other new source, which means the process taken as a whole is not "green." When someone says, "Hydrogen," you have to think "battery."

[YT2095]

unless of course we`re talking Fussion reactors

 

seriously tho` much of the "radioactive wastes" are stupid things like Gloves or garments that have been exposed and possibly contaminated and/or structural material(s) surrounding these high enrgy fuels, there`s actualy very Little by comparison of the "good Stuff" as waste

[vrus]

unless of course we`re talking Fussion reactors

 

seriously tho` much of the "radioactive wastes" are stupid things like Gloves or garments that have been exposed and possibly contaminated and/or structural material(s) surrounding these high enrgy fuels' date=' there`s actualy very Little by comparison of the "good Stuff" as waste [/quote']

 

Yes but then, the people who handle these wastes can get contaminated.

 

Also, it takes ages for the radiation to die down. And what about the elements itself that are produced in the reactor like Barium-139 and Krypton-94 ? They are radiocative too !!! What r u gonna do about that ?