What to do with radioactive waste ?

[YT2095]

I think you`ve Totaly misunderstood my post

 

my point is that the vast majority of waste isn`t the extremely dangerous types of pure chemical isotopes, but that the large majority of the Volume is of the type I mentioned.

 

and thus, the practical usage of such things (should one be found for any radioactive waste) is highly unlikely!

 

no-one said that they were not capable of contamination (it wouldn`t be waste else!).

 

NOW do you understand?

[vrus]

I think you`ve Totaly misunderstood my post

 

my point is that the vast majority of waste isn`t the extremely dangerous types of pure chemical isotopes' date=' but that the large majority of the Volume is of the type I mentioned.

 

and thus, the practical usage of such things (should one be found for any radioactive waste) is highly unlikely!

 

no-one said that they were not capable of contamination (it wouldn`t be waste else!).

 

NOW do you understand?[/quote']

 

Now I get yo point !!!

[jdurg]

The major reason why the waste isn't just shot off into outerspace is because of the risk. As we've seen many times, rockets designed to go into outerspace have had 'failures' which result in the rocket exploding, or plummetting down to Earth. If this rocket is filled with highly radioactive cargo, if it explodes it would be just as damaging as if a nuclear bomb detonated and flung radioactive material everywhere. What if it didn't explode and just fell down to the earth? Well, chances are the container would not survive the impact and the highly radioactive waste would contaminate everything in the area.

[Kylonicus]

I talked to a specialist in the field, that deals with this kind of stuff, and I asked him about a hypothesis I had concerning heat and increased rates of radiation release from atoms, he said that lasers at specific frequencies can stimulate the release of radiation at faster rates.

 

So hypothetically we could increase the rate of radiation release through specific EM stimulation, and hypothetically, we could use it as a power source.

[swansont]

I talked to a specialist in the field' date=' that deals with this kind of stuff, and I asked him about a hypothesis I had concerning heat and increased rates of radiation release from atoms, he said that lasers at specific frequencies can stimulate the release of radiation at faster rates.

 

So hypothetically we could increase the rate of radiation release through specific EM stimulation, and hypothetically, we could use it as a power source.[/quote']

 

That's been observed in a few nuclides that have isomeric transitions (i.e. they are in a metastable state and normally decay by emitting a gamma), but the bombardment was with x-rays of the appropriate energy, not lasers.

 

Generally, lasers aren't of sufficient energy per photon to stimulate nuclear transitions. The statement "lasers at specific frequencies can stimulate the release of radiation at faster rates" doesn't actually specify that it's a nuclear transition, so while the statement is true, I don't think it's true as applied to unstable nuclei. If you could ask your specialist friend for some citations, it would be helpful.