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

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.

[b0s0z0ku]

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

Only because the government is subsidizing the eventual building of a storage facility. Also, have we considered the risks of the current state of things - which is that the highly-radioactive spent fuel elements are lying around (under guard, but still...) in dry casks or reactor water pools.

Besides, environmental costs also have to be considered. It's not just the storage of a large mass of fuel. The environmental toll also includes damage due to uranium mining and extraction, enrichment of the uranium - both of which involve some pretty evil chemicals (UF6, yummmmmmm).

-b.

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?