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Amec Working on Long-Term Nuclear Waste Solution
Ckwop writes "The Daily Telegraph is reporting that Amec, the company that cleaned up Ground Zero, have developed a new process for storing nuclear waste that lasts two hundred thousand years - far longer than any radioactivity will last. The process works by mixing eighty percent soil with twenty percent waste and then heating the mixture to three thousand degrees centigrade. When the mixture cools it forms into a glass harder than concrete. While this is not the first waste process of this type it is the first to be cost effective and produces a glass much harder than previous methods. " We'll see if we still need a ten mile field of spikes I guess. A pilot facility is being built in Washington State.
While it's good to see another neat/good idea, the problem is having a place to put it. Until such a site exists AND IS ALLOWED TO OPERATE, we're left twiddling our thumbs. Since nothing is 100% safe and secure, I'm not optimistic such a site will be operational.
To head off some flames, I'm sure people are fully secure living near dams, powerplants, coal mines and transmission wires. Oh, and I assume they're suitably slathered with SPF 30+ outside in the sun...
lasts two hundred thousand years - far longer than any radioactivity will last
There will be some residual radioactivity in any nuclear waste forever - I presume that they meant far longer than the half-life...
The article stated that the current processes uses concrete and lasts 200 years. I would say that the "incremental change" to 200,000 years IS significant. Now, I would have doubts that it actually lasted that long. And I would be interested in seeing how they determined that deterioration rate. Is 200K years a conservative estimate or a best case scenario one?
Well, "far longer than any radioactivity will last" is obviously wrong, because it depends on which kind of radioactive isotopes we're talking about. It's far longer than *most* radioactivity will last, because the most abundant isotopes in this kind of waste have half times of a few hundred years, but some radioactivity will last for millions of years.
The real question is, how can we apply this technology to finally seal up the leakage from around Chernobyl permanently? The last time I read anything about it, the sarcophagus that was built around the plant was leaking terribly and radiation is permiating the area. This sounds like a great application of the new process, but I wonder what sort of hurdles will have to be overcome to actually implement the design in that part of the world.
60 percent of the time, my comments are right everytime.
341 years of safe storage to 200,000 years of safe storage, done at 75% of the cost... that's a pretty big increment! Not to mention that this appears to be the first truly viable long-LONG-term solution to preventing the waste from leaking out of where it's stored. Still have to agree on a spot to put it, but once it's there you don't have to worry about it. That's half the battle won, and that's what makes it news.
=Smidge=
The problem is factoring in the cost of running a nuclear waste compound for 200,000 years, into the price of the electricity generated today by nuclear power.
You do realize that the longer the half life, the slower it's breaking down, so the less radioactive the object is, right?
Right?
Ah.
--Dan
They've increased the performance of this technology by a factor of 80 - 100. That's impressive.
You are comparing apples and oranges, and I believe that the fact that you've been "tricked" into making this comparison makes my point that the article isn't exactly without bias.
The 200-500 year figure is for CONCRETE ENTOMBMENT, which is NOT vitrification.
Vitrification is not new. And I would doubt anyone who claimed even 20,000 years of containment. There are a lot of factors that can come into play on those kind of timescales, and these numbers have nothing to back them up. Of course I haven't backed up my doubts of these numbers, but hey, I'm not the one saying "problem solved"...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
.... really, it boils down to a matter of "perceived" vs. "average" risk.
.
The technologies available to dispose nuclear waste, imperfect as they are, render the risk comparable, in terms of damages, to alternatives ways to obtain the same amount of usable energy in comparable quantities.
the point is that the human being is incapable to assess low probability events
As you said, you see the same psychology at work in air transport: people that habitually use a car (and drive recklessly, BTW) regard air travel as "dangerous", while statistically just the opposite is true.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
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Rubidium 87 has a half-life of 47 billion (10^9) years
Do you know how much of that stuff you'd need before you would even notice the difference from background levels? Remember that the longer the half life, the more atoms you need to produce the same amount of radioactivity. Doubling the half life halves the amount of danger posed by the radiation emitted. Its as simple as that.
the answer, without going into a lot of phyics is that between proven sources and the regenerative capacity of so-called breeder reactors, we could could go [at present power consumption levels] for centuries. This was the original "power too cheap to meter" argument made for nukes back in the [naive, optimistic] '50s. It would outlast oil by several generations. Politics always trumps science and acute accidents like Chernobl always change peoples minds more effectively than diffuse accidents like our overheated bioshpere slipping by with little alarm despite wiping out entire species. If one percent of what our nation spends to secure an oil supply [you may even leave out the cost of the Iraq misadventure] were spent on building nuke plants that were idiot proof and safe disposal methods, we would not be worried about another three mile island, and we would be able to afford to turn on our air conditioners.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Can't help but wonder if that's "200,000 years under ideal, laboratory conditions" and this is projected (unless they've been working on it for a really long time.
Nothing that a human hand has made has lasted much past 10,000 years, much less 10,000 years with no maintenance. It's safe to say that 200,000 years is a guess at best.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
So, this new way of processing nuclear waste will benefit all other Western nations besides the USA.
The USA is a great nation, and it is built by kind-hearted people with good values even though they have only an average intellect in areas of science. This average intellect is being manipulated by science frauds who claim that nuclear enery is a disaster waiting to happen. Most of Japan's electricity is generate by nuclear power plants.