Posted on 05/27/2023 7:27:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I have a brother-in-law who worked at Idaho national labs. That lab was tasked with figuring out how to deal with nuclear waste. He said that they knew how to deal with the waste by putting it in Glass somehow. But they wouldn’t tell anybody because it would do away with their jobs. I think there are something like 8000 people working there in Idaho Falls. These people needed their jobs to sustain the local economy and far beyond. Why would they want to find a solution? It wouldn’t be good for the budget.
Fair enough, though I must tell you, they weren’t my profs. They were my best friend’s parents, so naturally, our conversations would be a bit different than those you had with your professors (yes, these two both taught college). I respect them immensely, and in some regard, I consider my friend’s Mom as one of my earliest mentors. She was super smart, had a really cool career, and had all these kids (7). She balanced her life and her responsibilities like no other woman I’ve ever known personally. She is a delightful, faith-filled person as well.
Put the waste in salt domes that are many thousands of feet thick. Salt has one wonderful property. At deep burial depth and pressure it is plastic, it flows but incrementally slow over time. Once buried in the dome if an earth quake occurs it heals itself. Even high level waste can be disposed of with safety.
I could process all of the stored fuel in Yucca Mountain in my garage!
It is called “vitrification” and the plant is being built at the Hanford Site in Washington State. It has been years since I’ve followed anything about it, but it always seemed to be having delays and huge cost over-runs.
This!
Nothing direct, but
A molten salt reactor (MSR) is a type of reactor where the primary coolant or the fuel itself is a molten salt mixture. It operates at high temperature and low pressure.[23] MCSFR does away with the graphite moderator. They achieve criticality using a sufficient volume of salt and fissile material. They can consume much more of the fuel and leave only short-lived waste. .. Another notable feature of the MSR is the possibility of a thermal spectrum nuclear waste-burner. Conventionally only fast spectrum reactors have been considered viable for utilization or reduction of the spent nuclear fuel. Thermal waste-burning was achieved by replacing a fraction of the uranium in the spent nuclear fuel with thorium. The net production rate of transuranic elements (e.g. plutonium and americium) is below the consumption rate, thus reducing the nuclear storage problem, without the nuclear proliferation concerns and other technical issues associated with a fast reactor. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
Fast reactors A fast reactor directly uses fission neutrons without moderation. Fast reactors can be configured to "burn", or fission, all actinides, and given enough time, therefore drastically reduce the actinides fraction in spent nuclear fuel produced by the present world fleet of thermal neutron light water reactors, thus closing the fuel cycle. Alternatively, if configured differently, they can breed more actinide fuel than they consume. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
And from https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel itself:
Nuclear energy is one of the largest sources of emissions-free power in the world. It generates nearly a fifth of America’s electricity and half of its clean energy. During this process, it creates spent or used fuel (sometimes incorrectly referred to as nuclear waste) but it’s not the green oozy liquid you might be thinking of when watching "The Simpsons." In fact, some in the industry actually consider it a valuable resource.
1. Commercial spent nuclear fuel is a solid Spent fuel refers to the nuclear fuel that has been used in a reactor. The fuel used in today’s commercial reactors is made up of small ceramic pellets of low-enriched uranium oxide. The fuel pellets are stacked vertically and encased in a metallic cladding to form a fuel rod. These fuel rods are bundled together into tall fuel assemblies that are then placed into the reactor. The fuel is a solid when it goes into the reactor and a solid when it comes out.
2. The U.S. generates about 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel each year This number may sound like a lot, but the volume of the spent fuel assemblies is actually quite small considering the amount of energy they produce. The amount is roughly equivalent to less than half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. And, the clean energy generated from this fuel would be enough to power more than 70 million homes—avoiding more than 400 million metrics tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
If we take that a step further, U.S. commercial reactors have generated about 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel since the 1950s. If all of it were able to be stacked together, it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards. The nation’s spent nuclear fuel is initially stored in steel-lined concrete pools surrounded by water. It’s later removed from the pools and placed into dry storage casks that are made of steel and concrete or other materials used for protective shielding.
5. Spent fuel can be recycled That’s right! Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts. More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after five years of operation in a reactor. The United States does not currently recycle spent nuclear fuel but foreign countries, such as France, do.
There are also some advanced reactor designs in development that could consume or run on spent nuclear fuel in the future. Learn more about our work with spent nuclear fuel.Finally,
Nuclear power is the only large-scale energy-producing technology that takes full responsibility for all its waste and fully costs this into the product.
1 - Pay foreign debts with an ICBM.
2 - Prevents collectors from going above critical mass.
3 - Bank robbers would need lead suits, slowing them down during the subsequent chase
We do not even need to wait for “Gen IV” reactors.
We have a solution for all the current nuclear waste we have and could yet produce. That solution is deep underground storage area in Nevada. Presidents have allowed the courts to over rule the elected government to keep the site unused to this day.
The final argument from the environmentalists that won the court decision keeping the site unused? Well, it - the site - “may” ONLY keep the material safe for 1,000 years.
We need a President who tells the courts we are going ahead with the use of the site and give science 1,000 years to come up with alternatives.
Thanks, glad I could help:)
We did a tour of a nuclear facility & 3 Mile Island was brought up. The operator stated that when the incident started, the system was in the process of shutting down but the operators couldn’t believe what they were seeing so they interrupted the shutdown process creating the disaster. If they had allowed the process to complete, we’d have never heard about it.
I’m pretty sure I heard that from my friend’s parents, too. They were (and are) some of the truly most intelligent people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I respect them very much.
We were in the training facility which mirrored the actual control room of the plant. The trainer initiated the 3 Mile Island event and after about 3-5 minutes of clicking and clacking of switches and circuits, the test reactor was safely submersed in borax (I believe). The trainer said it’s a scenario that is often taught to trainees.
That’s neat.
Such a shame that 3 Mile Island happened. Shouldn’t have been that way, and we may not be where we are right now if it had been handled correctly.
I’m not going to bother to watch the video, but my question is will they recommend adding the nuclear waste to city water systems as a health additive much as they did fluoride?
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