Nuclear Waste and the Public

The public will accept anything, if it's properly spun and not in their back yard.

A more relevant discussion, about which I know almost nothing, would be the emerging technologies that are coming about, in which nuclear waste is being reused to provide even more power.

I think public acceptance on that would approach 100%.

Just to play the devil's advocate here, when is it NOT in someone's backyard?

Yucca Mountain (Nevada) is not exactly residential property, and public opposition to that was pretty intense. It seems that just the word 'nuclear' is enough to send people into a tailspin.

I'd venture to say that if you demonstrated a new mini-nuclear reactor, proved its inherent safety beyond a shadow of a doubt, and verified that no radwaste was produced, there would still be opposition.

I was being slightly tongue in cheek, it is always in someone's back yard and there will always be opposition, which led to the second part of my comment. The reuse of spent rods to produce energy that we previously thought we couldn't extract.

If someone could build a safe reactor in "my" back yard the size of an average garbage can, I'd be all over it.

That would work for me; I'd install one. It would at least keep a few knuckleheads of my acquaintance off my lawn.

Just make sure you say, "nukular", that will scare the hell out of them.

The only reason we are not able to reuse spent fuel is because of Pres. Carter's efforts and success in outlawing breeder reactor technology because of could be used to product weapons grade material.

Well...that's just a damn shame. People were killing people way before nukes came along. We will all end up suffocating under the umbrella of political correctness.

But, on a good note........at least no ones feelings will be hurt.

What we need to modify is the corporate control of our legislative processes. People, as noted, can be lied into a state of fear, confusion, and outright rejection of scientific thought. First the Churches, and now the energy corporations, have lied to the People about what is true. Until you fix that, you'll just see anti-science attacks on whatever you say.

The truth is the truth. It ain't always pretty.

Since the blogger asked what amounted to a yes or no question, and wanted some feedback (I assume), I figured I'd start the ball rolling.

The trick is, not to allow ourselves to be lied to by anyone.

Agreed but the green fringe such as sierra club, union of concerned scientists and others have managed to spin the waste topic plus the concerns of radiation dangers where 90% of the population hides under the couch when it is mentioned on TV as happening half way around the world.

I'm still waiting to hear about the reuse of spent fuel rods.

Personally, I think that at some time, we will have come up with the technology to extract so much energy from from nuclear fuel, that whatever is left will be almost inert.

A decade ago no one thought it was possible to get more fuel out of spent rods.

not true! a semi-closed nuclear cycle was the intent from the beginning. but reprocessing nuclear waste could be used to separate out plutonium and the anti-war crowd had a conniption and Jimmy Carter banned it.

It always seemed to me that most of these radioactive materials were dug up out of the ground in the first place (yeah, ok, plutonium was made rather than dug up) so why not bury the waste back where the original stuff came from? The surrounding rock has already been irradiated for billions of years -- so how much additional damage can the waste do, especially if it is carefully sealed?

If you've already got a uranium mine in your backyard, it's a bit pointless to complain about storing the waste there.

Here is a map I got off Wikipedia, just for Uranium mines. This would not necessarily include sites where radium, thorium and other radioactive materials are naturally found. And of course, radon can be found almost anywhere.

Hmmm, why not bury it along the US-Mexico border?

Right - let the producing state accept the waste!

The entire waste thing is a bad joke.

I remember reading about the regional waste compacts years ago but haven't run across anything about them recently. Just looked it up as a refresher, found this. As you can see, there are only three active disposal sites in the U.S. (Utah, Washington, South Carolina), and that's just for low-level waste.

Why bury it? Just pile it up.

If you want the public to get more involved you need to publicize the fact that they already have it in their back yard. Start a campaign showing just how much spent fuel there is at each and every plant location in the US and how it's being controlled and managed and what that cost is. Transportation through other states is another aspect of NIMBY and has serious issues in itself. (and it's NOT a security issue to publicize it...the bad guys already know where the stuff is )

Try showing the public THEIR problem not a solution.

The nuclear culture in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick in Canada is different. The nuclear industry is welcomed, and the nuclear waste is considered a problem that can be dealt with. The local communities support the refurbishment of the existing reactors and building of a new reactor(s) in Ontario.

The industry developed a long-term management of low and intermediate level waste. OPG, with the support of the local community in Bruce County (3 hours northwest of Toronto), proposed the construction and operation of a Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for the long-term storage of low and intermediate level nuclear waste.

The DGR would be located 680 meters or 2230 feet below the surface, beneath very thick layers of limestone and shale rock which have remained stable – in spite of geologic upheavals, major climate change and glacial cycles – for more than 450 million years. These formations will safely isolate nuclear waste for many thousands of years to come.

http://www.opg.com/power/nuclear/waste/dgr/

It seems to me there is much too much technology involved in these discussions

The first law of Physics states nothing is created or destroyed- it only changes form- therefore if energy is taken from nuclear power the resulting residue or waste is less radioactive or toxic than before- the simple solution is to mix it with sand- or other neutral waste and replace it is the original mine from which it came- it was not considered dangerous before it was mined and with less activity would be even less dangerous- the critical factor here would be the dilution factor to lower levels below the original mined grades-it is also important to note that in the worlds prehistory (20-30 million years ago)it is known some radioactive deposits went critical and exploded spontaneously-so nature tends to look after itself

As long as the discussion is one sided with the sierra club/greenpeace types controlling the direction and the volume nothing positive will happen.

There are a few blogging and publicizing the benefits and safety side but they tend to be more honest about it - not ranting and raving like the ultra greens do- so their voices tend to blotted out with the frantic screaming of the no bunch.

there is no such thing as "social science". they may study people and societies but they haven't a clue what science is or how to use the scientific method.