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Halving Half Lives

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the quarterlife-the-new-standard dept.

An anonymous reader writes "PhysicsWeb is reporting that German scientists may have found a way to significantly reduce the radioactive decay time of nuclear waste. This could render the waste harmless in just tens of years and make disposal much less difficult as opposed to current standards. From the article: 'Their proposed technique - which involves slashing the half-life of an alpha emitter by embedding it in a metal and cooling the metal to a few degrees kelvin - could therefore avoid the need to bury nuclear waste in deep repositories, a hugely expensive and politically difficult process. But other researchers are skeptical and believe that the technique contradicts well-established theory as well as experiment.'"

6 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. Re:why bury it all? by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    One word: Challenger.

    On the bright side, it would seriously reduce the lobbying strength of the AARP.

    --
    "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
    /)
  2. We cool it to a few degrees Kelvin... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

    "How do you power your cooling process?"

    "With that nulcear power plant in the next town over."

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  3. Re:why bury it all? by grcumb · · Score: 4, Funny
    "They could just send it down to the Mariennes trench. Naturally people with no knowledge of radiation, or the trench would complain about it."

    The Marianas Trench? Are you insane, man? Don't you remember what happened last time we dumped nukes in the Pacific?

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  4. Re:Um by QuantumFTL · · Score: 4, Funny

    In order to get the radiation down to safe levels, you have to out-radiate everything up to that level. Same radiation, doesn't matter if it takes the normal amount of time or less.

    Actually it matters quite a bit. There are plenty of places where all that radiation would be hardly noticed, and if the timescale is lessened to something managable by today's governments, we will be able to avoid the monumental task of warning future generations.

    I'd say that's quite a big win, if this pans out.

  5. Re:Kerning by Babbster · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't think it has anything to do with genetics. I think it's just that the guy who chose Germany as his civilization is changing entertainers to scientists...

  6. Re:There's way too much waste by ozmanjusri · · Score: 3, Funny
    Getting even small amounts of matter within a few degrees of absolute zero takes a lot of energy.

    You could build a nuclear reactor to power the waste disposal facility.

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."