NMR Shows That Nuclear Storage Degrades

eldavojohn writes to point out recent research using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imagery that shows that certain nuclear waste storage containers may not be as safe as previously thought. From the article: "[R]adiation emitted from [plutonium] waste could transform one candidate storage material into less durable glass after just 1,400 years — much more quickly than thought... The problem is that the radioactive waste damages the matrix that contains it. Many of the waste substances, including plutonium-239, emit alpha radiation, which travels for only very short distances (barely a few hundredths of a millimeter) in the ceramic, but creates havoc along the way."

Comments

Waste?

[Hatta]

A couple questions for anyone who knows more than me:

1) If this stuff is still hot, doesn't it mean there's still energy there we could use?

2) This stuff came from the ground, why can't we put it back there?

Re:So why not sink it?

[AKAImBatman]

So why not sink it?

Or better yet, why not use it? There are hundreds (perhaps thousands!) of industrial uses for nearly every nuclear material imaginable. Everything from illumination products to smoke detection to electronic level detectors to medical imaging and therapy to decade-long batteries use nuclear materals. Not to mention that the Pu-239 mentioned in the article is an excellent source of nuclear fission for power production.

If we actually put the stuff to good use, we wouldn't have to bury, sink, or launch much of anything. Instead, we sit around and worry that terrorists are going to steal plutonium to make a very complicated implosion bomb rather than stealing the supposedly "safer" Uranium we currently use. Nevermind that the Uranium could be used to make a super-simple gun-type nuclear bomb that could be constructed without massive computational resources, dozens of nuclear scientists, and actual test sites that would show up on a seismograph. No, it's much better to worry about Plutonium.

Sorry for the rant. This is something of a hot button issue for me. It's just stupid that we're not putting all this *good* material to use rather than trying to find a place to bury it. It doesn't make a lick of sense to anyone except politicians.

Re:It's an economic problem in the US.

[LehiNephi]

I don't know whether it's economical or not to reprocess the fuel, but in the US, the point is moot because the US has a ban on reprocessing.

The benefits of reprocessing aren't just limited to the physical amount of waste. Reprocessing also removes the actinides that are responsible for the oft-referenced 10,000-year storage. Without the actinides, the waste is safe after only about 300 years.

Re:It's an economic problem in the US.

[WED Fan]

Here in the US we don't reprocess our spent fuel, because it costs more to reprocess that to just make new.

Actually, we don't reprocess it because there are some very serious special interest groups that have been very vocal and have blocked almost every attempt to build updated, new reactors and processing plants. Leaving us in a much more dangerous position than if they hadn't sounded off.

There are certain political movements that end up causing more harm, in the end, than the particular topic they are protesting. The no-nuclear-power crowd is one of them.

Three Mile Island is an example of how the system actually works to protect.

Chern...churn...that Ukraine power plant is an example of how the system fails.

The U.S. has exactly 0 old-Soviet designed power plants in operation.

Question: How many modern nuclear power plants are in France and Japan?

Question: Who leads the world in modern nuclear power plants?

It ain't the U.S. The U.S. has exactly 0 modern power plants in production. The U.S. has some of the most polluting oil and coal burning plants because the vocal nut jobs won't let us build modern plants of any kind.

Question: What major, technological leading power in the world has the most at-risk power production scheme?

Re:1,400 years

[eno2001]

It's perfectly logical as you WILL be coming back genetically if you have offspring. Assuming you have a child or children, and they do the same, you will eventually have a LOT of people connected to you. It's completely logical to care for their well-being. It's completely ILLOGICAL to be oblivious to this fact. Now... if you plan on never having kids, then you are welcome to be short sighted. I think living without a care for the future while having your own children is essentially being a "deadbeat meta-parent".

'Sinking it' doesn't make it magically 'go away'

[maggard]

Because, contrary to your Grade 6 "Earth Sciences Unit" animated filmstrip, subduction zones aren't neat little escalator-like places where material goes into some sort of geological garbage disposal system like you might have attached to your sink.

Instead they're messy places where continental blocks are crashing into each other in tremendously slow motion, riding up over, breaking off, dissolving, melting, all that good stuff. Material dropped on one of these places is could just lay there for the longer then we've been a species. However there is a strong possibility this material won't always just lie there but instead break up, on it's own or under subduction-related volcanic or seismic activity, and spread into the larger ecosystem (garbage in is indeed garbage out!)

While this breakdown & distribution could be a slow process it would be a chaotic environment and 'bad things' could just as well happen 'fast', with disastrous consequences. Keep in mind that while out of sight and generally low energy places the deep ocean beds are not disconnected from the rest of the planet and are also subject to disturbances; subduction zones hugely so.

So you're talking about essentially land-mining a significant chunk of the planet, some of the most unstable parts of the planet, with the possibility that still-lethal material could suddenly, randomly, re-enter our parts of the environment, with catastrophic results.

Yeah. No. Not a good idea.

Better to minimize the amount of material. Convert it into the least reactive forms economically & technically practical. Then using reliable systems (and that pretty much rules out 'under several thousand meters of water' with our current skills) isolate it as much as practicable in long-term stable places, and hope that future generations don't fuck with it in a bad way.

Finally, regarding the majority of your posting:

While there are indeed alarmist/ignorant/self-serving 'environmentalists', as there are boobs and headline-graspers in every part of human endeavor, there are also arrogant self-righteous techno-weenies with equally poor understanding of the topics on which they opine. As much as you look down on those you deem ignorant, those who are informed can look down on your ignorance, which to a self-aware person would suggest an attitude-check would be in order. (Frankly you come off not much different then the stereotyped asshats you rail against.)

Re:1,400 years

[inviolet]

It's perfectly logical as you WILL be coming back genetically if you have offspring. Assuming you have a child or children, and they do the same, you will eventually have a LOT of people connected to you. It's completely logical to care for their well-being.

Why?

I myself am not coming back; only my genes will be, and then in a diluted form. I am not my genes; on the contrary, I am just a vehicle for my genes. They grew me in order to help them spread.

Don't worry, I agree with you about long-term planning. Indeed I have two sons and my thoughts are bent on their long-term wellbeing. All this gives me the euphoric glow of feeling virtuous. But that doesn't mean it's logical such that all parents who disagree are automatically in error.