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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.
well.... maybe they will build the permanent location inside yucca mountain if this pans out.
I'll take cleaner storage of nuclear waste any day, but this might also have other uses - AKA, building materials, hulls, etc. Depening on how much it weighs per cubic foot versus concrete, this might bring about safer and lighter structures, allowing for taller buildings without compromising safety.
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
Couple this story with the recent pronouncement by James Lovelock and others that nuclear power may in fact be the only way to save the world after all, how does this square?
Nuclear energy seems to boil down to two things: cost and danger. If we sort out the first one, will we learn to live with the second? After all, in terms of simple loss of life, cars kill about the same number of people every year as a jumbo jet going down with all hands, and we accept that as necessary.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
No offense intended to the people of the article, but some of that waste (if we are talking used fuel elements) still contains Uranium and Plutonium which has a half life of 10^8 years. While I am pretty sure I won't live to see that, It still is a pretty messy thing to deal with.
One thing that this sort of storage technology is good for is for the short lived stuff with half lives in the hundreds of years.
My humble opinion is that this technology is used after the really long lived nasty stuff is separated and destroyed (neutron bombardment looks promising). There was an Argone National Labs Experimental Sodium reactor that in "proof of concept" separated all the uranium from spent fuel (electro refining)but the program was cancelled due to budget cuts.
Believe it or not, there is technology being researched to destroy radioactive waste products with accelerators that actually looks like it may work.
I'm not saying it is an incremental improvement on concrete entombment (which is -not- vitrification), I am saying that it is just a new technique for vitrification. My main point is that this all seems like a suspiciously cheery and glowing (pun intended) slant on an incremental improvement to an existing method.
I seriously doubt the 200,000 year figure.
Nothing to see here, move along...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
If we are able to develop means to 'safely' store radioactive waste (and we are just taking them on their word at the moment) then surely nuclear power will become a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Now we just have to develop decent security to keep terrorists out...
If at first you DON'T succeed, Skydiving is NOT for YOU!!
OK, launching rockets filled with nuclear waste from the earth is expensive and way too dangerous. But I am just thinking of this at this moment, if it would make make sense when you'd have a selfsufficient nuclear plant on the moon and need to get rid of the waste in an effective way.
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
Since they mix the material with soil to form the glass, maybe they should use soil from a place where it's been contaminated by lead? (Safe storage and toxic cleanup, bonus!)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Slighty offtopic question, but how much plutonium/uranium etc is there on earth? Is it sustainable to become dependent on this type of fuel? And of course, where is it all? Do we have to demolish pristine wilderness to get it?
The problem is not how hard glass is, but how brittle it is. Normal glass is harder than most metals (steel, for example) but it is very brittle, and chips/breaks easily. Concrete isn't exactly immune to this either, while we are on the subject. So hurray! It's hard enough to survive a journey though the ass of an RIAA lawyer, but will it shatter into a trillion radioactive pieces if some bozo drop's it?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
After all, my Uncle says that is what they do with the radio active mining equipment, and he has been down the largest uranium mine in Australia - Olympic Dam.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
And since the mantle's already highly radioactive --- radioactive heating is one of the things that drives Earth's geology --- the fact that the waste is radioactive is hardly going to be a problem.
Provided you make sure that the initial hole is deep enough to be well under the water table, this form of disposal should be both cheap and entirely safe.
It seems pretty sensible to at least try and warn future generations about an area such as a geologic waste depository but what if the warning signs get misconstrued?
Yeah, it makes you wonder what the pyramids in Egypt are really about...
If we ever wipe our selves out, which is more than likely in my opinion, then would the next round of intelligent life understand what we ment?
Oh, come on. If we wipe ourselves out, there will be plenty of radioactive fallout quite widely spread. And the successor species should be thanking us for creating the conditions that caused them to evolve.
Vitrification is nice (better be multi-layer), but there'll have to be one hell of a vapor recovery system.
...and the lead would shield against alpha and beta (and some gamma) emitted by the waste!!!
In the past, reinforced concrete pressure vessels holding the reactor core and boilers used lead shot as an aggregate to enhance the shielding capability of the RC.
Fusion will indeed be the solution, but how long have we got before we can use it, always assuming that we actually get it working in the first place!
If we run out of power before we get fusion working how are we going to get the simply huge amounts of power we need to continue to experiment?
We need something that can (reliably) take over from fossil fuels, and whilst sun/wind/wave/thermal might be able to supply our needs only thermal can be guarenteed as it might not be sunny/windy/wavy!
We need some technology that can generate power, and at the moment the only one, that is at least tried if not trusted, is fission. On top of that is the thought that if we don't start building some power stations to replace the fossil fuels soon, we might just be too late!
Sun/Wind/Wave/Thermal might power our radios and cars but I'm not sure they will be able to power the continued research into fusion.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Mister Scalesinger, you are young and naive, in which case I ask you to forgive me for being so harsh, or you are apparently an idiot and deserve a public thrashing. The lame ass article repeating a dumb idea that has been brought forth a thousand times in a manner not unlike the infamous water torture technique simply stated that this vitrified material was "harder than concrete" which is so vague it is fucking meaningless. The strength of concrete varies vastly according to its ingredients and handling.
Secondly, the assumption that this would be cheaper than conventional concrete or even metals is absurd simply based on the temperatures required. High quality cement can be made at 1500C and solid steel, even stainless steel in an oxygen furnace is made at a mere 1700C. These materials are also made from ores that come from, as the article puts it "the soil". How in the hell is a process that requires 3000C going to compete? This is not even to mention the issue of tensile strength in vitreous materials.
This is a stupid idea that has been brought up a million times and simply shows you that part of the Slashdot editorial staff has a hard-on for nukes. I wonder if that editor is somehow closely associated with the editor who recently posted an article on the bright side of immigrant bashing.
Sometimes you don't get immobilization. We had a prototype of this years ago here in Oak Ridge, TN, developed by Martin Marietta Molten Metals (M4) where they tried in situ vitrification by sticking these huge carbon electrodes into a prepared testbed in an open field. What little water was trapped inside caused a massive steam explosion that blew hot dirt for a radius of hundreds of feet.
I'm now the technical support for the financial servers for the federal bankruptcy court for M4.
... this stuff has been proved to last millions of years.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
There's glass, and then there's glass. "Normal" doesn't tell us much. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL, US has (had, anyway) a room full of glass springs, etc. and a glass block which has had a large iron ball dropped on it many times daily over *years* so people can see the effect on polarized light passing through it as it is stressed.
Well-made glass is not just hard, it is *tough*. Proper formulation and annealing yields a very durable material. Not much at all like that cheap stuff they use to make jars for spaghetti sauce.
- People don't want to live near nuclear waste disposal sites.
- We want to preserve large tracts of land in an undeveloped state for a variety of reasons including biodiversity and aesthetics.
So put the storage facilities in the middle of national parks you want to protect. No one wants to build house there, and the stream of tourists is reduced to those who can overcome irrational fears enough to be within a few hundred miles of some rocks that are slightly more radioactive than the rocks they are hiking on.This is an interesting application of the basic premise of the plasma torch. A company called Startech Environmental has been working on the technology for quite some time. The basic gist is that if you heat just about anything hot enough, molecular bonds will break down, and you'll be left with a uniform mixture of all of the elements found in whatever you were trying to destroy. When cooled, you get a black glass and a flammable gas that can be used to power turbines that provide the power necessary to run the torch itself.
This is the first I've heard of it being used for radioactive disposal, but Startech uses it for disposing of toxic waste, biohazardous materials... all kinds of dangerous stuff.
With enough research and development, it may be possible to "skim" individual elements from the melted slag based on their density. Perfect recycling!
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
The head of the ultrasonics research group at Battelle Institute told me about the plans for "glassification" in 1975.
Is it really true this time?
--
Bush: Borrowing money to give to the rich.
Radioactive compounds and their isotopes are dangerous for two reasons.
1. They are radioactive and emit energy in dangerous quantities/frequencies. This energy destroys DNA and tissue causing burns and genetic mutations.
2. The elements are inherently toxic in the same way that lead and mercury vapor is toxic. Uranium is a toxic heavy metal separate from its potential radioactivity. This is why depleted uranium bullets and shells are such a bad idea.
Radioactive waste that is dangerous for reason #1 is low volume, high level and short-lived.
Radioactive waste that is dangerous for reason #2 is high volume, low level (radioactive intensity) and is long lived. In fact is is always toxic just like lead is always toxic.
#1 Radioactive waste turns into #2 radioactive waste pretty quickly. The half lives are between years and decades (maybe centuries).
Long-term storage requires a combination of "burning out" the high level stuff with breeders or keeping it safe for a few decades and then burning the resulting low level waste with all the other low level waste somewhere relatively safe. This low level waste is not going to kill anyone anytime soon. In fact diluting it is probably better than keeping it in the same place. These elements of low level waste are found in nature as a matter of course but at lower concentrations. A few thousand year round trip under the earth's crust would elminate the risk.
The bigger risks come from transporting the waste to the waste disposal site. Glass beads/bricks that can take the impact of a train wreck may be more important than beads that can take 5000 years of pressure sitting under a mountain.
Let's also not discount the fact that we will have amazing technologies in the next few centuries. If we blow ourselves up instead then the disaster of that outcome will probably sterilize the earth for eons. But if we do last a few more centuries than we will be burning this "waste" as fuel anyhow. It's not that big of a problem.
"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 is true, however: as you noted in the title: POLITICS is the problem. And it's not the kind of politics of Republicrats vs Demoblicans - it's the politics of CRAZY insane and desperately poor nations getting their mitts on fissile material for ugly bomb making. Breeder reactors make plutonium, and the last thing I want to do is let people like North Korea, Sudan, Chechnya, Congo, Burma, etc. get any of it.
Proliferation of breeder reactors will permit theft and sale of Pu - even if the reactor isn't in the troubled country. All it has to do is be in a Ally's land and that ally may not be on the up and up. Example: Pakistan.
I agree - in the Best OF Worlds, we should be able to do breeders, but due to political realities, we can't and shouldn't bother "going down that road".
I think a much more fruitful direction would be to
1. make present fission plants safer and more efficient,
2. increase research and development of other sources of power (geothermal used to crack water for hydrogen - I trust Iceland a lot more than Saudi Arabia...) such as geothermal, hydrogen, tidal, wind and solar.
3. improve efficiency of consumption, so as to reduce load
4. Reduce the population. A lot.
point 4 is probably the most important and oddly, the most obvious, but will be the most difficult policy to implement, and would tend to obviate a lot of the power problems.
cheers,
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
What if those big radioactive blocks of glass could be used to decontaminate polluted water supplies in poor nations. If they're as stable as it sounds then there wouldn't be the risk of waste getting into the water and it'd kill a lot of the germs that lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths. I've seen UV light used to decontaminate water, why not use something that doesn't need to be plugged in?
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
"So put the storage facilities in the middle of national parks you want to protect. No one wants to build house there, and the stream of tourists is reduced to those who can overcome irrational fears enough to be within a few hundred miles of some rocks that are slightly more radioactive than the rocks they are hiking on.
This is slighly OT, but that's what happens in military training areas. No one wants to risk being run over by a tank, and Voilà! wildlife has a place to call home.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
OK, exhibit A, an anti-nuke above.
Exhibit B, some evidence.
1) Nobody has ever successfully managed to create a weapon from reactor grade plutonium. Commercial reactors (that don't get shutdown every month or two) create reactor grade, not weapons grade plutonium. This is useless for weapons. Weapons grade plutonium is upwards of 95% Pu-239, the stuff that comes out of commercial reactors is about 60% Pu-239, and is useless for weapons.
2) Dirty bombs. Plutonium is a fairly sucky material for dirty bombs. Much more effective would be something like Cs-137, Co-60, or a REALLY strong alpha emitter like one of the 240+ elements.
Basically, the truth is this. Breeders don't make anything of significant value as a weapon. The claim that they do has been repeated so many times by the ignorant anti-nukes that everyone accepts it as reality now.
In any case, nobody proposes allowing Pakistan to build breeder reactors. Reactors constructed in the US pose zero proliferation risk, or weren't you aware that the US is already a nuclear power?
The thing I like about vitrification is that it meets my criterion for protecting future generations beyond our current civilization. If todays civilization collapses (as it has several times throughout history), and some future people discover our caves full of vitrified radwaste, it won't be any more dangerous to them than a uranium cave. Cancer sufferers might start going there for the occasional cure (as with uranium caves). If some enterprising future scientists tries grinding up some of those rocks, they will discover the hard way the danger they pose - just as the Curies did with Radium. But as least it will be a small sample, and not a disaster.
It would be interesting to read their theories about how these rocks formed. :-)
Spent nuclear fuel contains the intensely radioactive fission products, as well as less radioactive (but enormous half lives) heavy actinide elements (uranium, plutonium, americium, etc.)
The vast majority of the fission products have short or medium duration half-lives.
The actinide elements are fissile (given a fast neutron source), and can therefore be burned for energy in a suitable reactor (potential designs include the liquid sodium cooled, liquid lead cooled, gas cooled reactors and molten salt reactors).
The very few long-lived fission products (e.g. Tc99) could be added to the actinide mixture, where they could be transmuted into shorter lived isotopes by the neutron flux in the reactor.
An advanced reprocessing scheme could take spent fuel, extract only the fission products, and prepare these for disposal. The remaining highly radioactive mixture of plutonium, uranium and other elements, could be returned to the reactor for further burning.
The mixture of fission products would have short-lived radioactiviy, decaying to less than natural uranium ore within 300 years.
The impure uranium/plutonium mix would be self protecting against theft due to the intense radioactivity of the contaminants.
Chemically, Plutonium is a heavy metal and perhaps toxic like other heavy metals.
The problem with Plutonium is its radioactivity. A tiny, tiny amount can still kill slowly because Plutonium emits very energetic particles, for which the human immune system is not full prepared, and which can cause cancer.
I know the Wikipedia says that the toxicity of Plutonium has been exaggerated in the past. However, there are hundreds of millions of compounds, and if there are 1,000 or 10,000 equally as poisonous as Plutonium, it is still "one of the most poisonous substances on earth".
All of the organic compounds which the Wikipedia article on Plutonium says are very toxic break down chemically. Plutonium, however, loses 1/2 of its strength in 24,300 years. It can be difficult or impossible to remove from the environment. The toxicity of Plutonium includes the toxicity it has today, plus the toxicity it will have for a thousand generations to come.
I saw this article referenced by Wikipedia: The Myth of Plutonium Toxicity. Remember, the toxicity of Plutonium is not a "myth". What is a "myth" is that Plutonium is uniquely toxic when dispersed by other means than exploding as a bomb.
The author, Bernard L. Cohen, offers to eat Plutonium, although he must be aware that he will never be asked to do so because giving it to him to eat would be illegal.
Probably the biggest area of confusion between what the news media say about Plutonium and what Bernard L. Cohen says is that they are talking about different expected means of dispersal. The news media often discusses the possibility of someone exploding a bomb made of Plutonium in a populated area, or an explosion in a Plutonium manufacturing plant or storage facility. The toxicity of the explosion would include all the products of the explosion, of course, many of which are quicker killers than Plutonium itself. The news media are using the shorthand of saying that the people killed in a Plutonium explosion are killed by Plutonium. That is true in the sense that people understand it. People would not say the cause of death was building collapse when an explosion of a Plutonium bomb destroyed a building. They would correctly say that the risk came from the availability of Plutonium.
It is legitimate to say that the burning of coal kills more people than the use of Plutonium, but that's because billions of tons of coal pollutants enter the atmosphere. A small amount of Plutonium is safer than a huge amount of coal, except when Plutonium is used in a bomb.
It's really difficult to cover all the issues about most subjects in a Slashdot comment or even a news article. It's easy to find fault with something in most articles.
--
24 wars since WW2: Creating fear so rich people can profit.