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Warning Future Generations About Nuclear Waste
Smivs writes "How do we warn people 10,000 years in the future about our nuclear waste dumps? There is a thought-provoking essay in the The Guardian newspaper (UK) by Ulrich Beck concerning this problem. Professor Beck also questions whether green issues are overly influencing politicians and clouding our judgement regarding the dangers of nuclear power."
Simple: we don't. Future generations of 10.000 years will probably have the means to detect radioactive sites from the other end of the galaxy. And mabye they'll even have the means to dispose of them quickly and safely. So why warn them? We should be more concerned about how to warn people in the more near future, like 200-500 years...
Which we could then encase in leak proof containers and dump them in a subduction zone.
Plenty of those around, so just dump it back in the Earth without having to guard it against earthquakes - in fact we'd like those to happen.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Rather than bury them, why not use them to make more energy in a fission reactor?
Hell, they are going to be actively seeking out these uber rich pockets of energy, that we have the gall (or stupidity) to call waste.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
What would you think if you stumbled across a warning from humans that existed 10,000 years ago? Think about it, 10,000 years ...
...
Wow, my ancestors are trying to warn me of danger, I must be careful.
Or more likely
Those silly ancestors, thinking that I wouldn't know anything that they don't.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Notice the use of a period in 10.000? Look at his homepage, he's not American.
Fixed that for you.
Here's the deal. Assuming that nuclear fusion doesn't hit it off anytime soon, or fission just ends up being cheaper in many cases, it'll be far less than 10k years before we're digging the stuff up to run in breeder reactors. After all, current high level 'waste' is still 90-95% uranium.
I'd say less than 500, actually. Given active storage sites, language/skill drift won't be enough to really matter for the hazards - they'll probably want to re-assay the stuff again anyways. So, we're spending a massive amount of effort on something where it, honestly enough, won't matter. The remaining isotopes after reprocessing have shorter half-lifes, so again, much less hazardous in a shorter time.
To the point that if they're digging as deep as we're burying it, they already have substantial enviromental concerns anyways. So yes, they should be knowledgable.
I don't read AC A human right
Uh No.
It's "Don't waste The People's tax money on something that private industry will find a profitable use for". Like using the nuclear waste for nuclear power generation in more modern reactors, thus turning what was once hazardous and incredibly long lasting nuclear waste into less hazardous and very short-lived nuclear fuel AND large amounts of clean energy to power our economy and green the planet.
Or we could waste BILLIONS of tax-payer money on some hair-brained far-leftist scheme that won't work and will actually make the problem worse. I mean, why do the SMART thing and let The People fix the problem through ingenuity and enlightened self-interest? Let's let the Ivory-tower intellectuals have a go at it first so that the proper solution ends up even MORE expensive that it otherwise would be. Look how well that's worked out for our Energy Policy!
*rolleyes*
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Its actually the right thing to do in this case.
Any monument that they could build that would stand the test of time would only attract attention to the site. People are inquisitive and have no respect for the past. Its not like we believed any of the curses when we raided the tombs of Egypt. Why would it be any different for our future citizens? The scarier that the site is made to look the more people will be interested in it.
The site itself is hundreds of feet underground and in the middle of nowhere. The chances it being found if left unmarked are very very very small.
Personally I believe that we are going to be digging up our trash and other waste in the next few hundred years as a fuel source. In that case it would be nice to know where at that radioactive waste went.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
You'd think a species advanced enough to master interstellar travel would have invented the geiger counter.
We need THESE kind of technologies, NOW. Not 20 years from now.
I would also note to damburger that the petty despots and terrorists only have power because of state sponsored nuclear terror was practiced live and in action on civilians by the USA (viz Nagasaki and Hiroshima) and held the world hostage in the fear mongering practice of the Cold War by the USA and CCCP. I agree with damburger that it is sad that a small group of asshats is making life exceptionally difficult for the rest of humanity. Remember when you could go to Mexico or Canada and use your Driver's License as ID? Remember a time before the DHS? I do.
This is all a problem of risk assessment which humans largely suck at. 3000 people died on 9/11, and suddenly a multi-billion dollar dept is thrown together making everyone's travelling life difficult and illegal to take cosmetics or liquids on board and all manner of other over-reactive legal nonsense. Every year 50,000 people die on the highways, but I don't see them making cars illegal. How many people died at 3 mile island? Oh that's right - none. Did it shorten some people's lives? Yes. However, the proper response would have been to build IFRs and subcrits, not ban them altogether. Chernyobl is a different deal - that was people being stupid and destructive, so many people died there. IFRs and subcrits and pebblebeds - these are all VASTLY safer technologies, and Mister and Missus John Q Smith from Anytown USA need to pull their heads out of their asses NOW, and get with the program if they have ANY hope of keeping the lights on in 20 years.
I don't fancy freezing in the dark, as it would result in the disappearance of the forests, and THAT would suck...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
breeder reactors use 10x the amount of fuel of regular reactors, produce 10x the amount of power, produce 1/10th the amount of waste, and what waste that is has a half life of only a century or two
so how come we don't use breeder reactors?
because they can be used to make plutonium
however, given the choice between dramatic fuel and power reduction, dramatic waste increase and massive half life increase, i'd rather just deal with a little extra plutonium
somebody in power ha sdecided otherwise
i don't agree with them
plus, we can thorium as a fuwel source in addition to uranium, like the indians do
its not like this isn't being done outside the united states
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Buried radioactive toxic waste is pretty tame compared to the various hazards of space and exploring unknown planets.
Those silly ancestors, thinking that I wouldn't know anything that they don't.
For much of human history in Europe (roughly the thousand years from 500CE to 1500CE) it was accepted as fact that the ancients (i.e the Romans) knew far more than was known at the present time. There was a grain of truth to this.
You assume that a dismissive attitude to the knowledge of the ancients is a given. It isn't. Superstitious awe of a fallen civilisation can last a long time.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Funny, but I would think the threat of death to those poisoning others with nuclear waste would be a pretty simple mechanism.
Gov't doesn't have to tell use what to do with nuclear waste. Gov't just has to tell us what gov't is supposed to tell us: Don't fuck up someone else's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Law should severely punish those who do - but right now we've allowed corporations to buy their way out of all kinds of trouble... and THAT is your "massive externality".
The article that sparked this Slashdot post is by some know-nothing Ivory tower far leftist. Full of 10 dollar words, long on speculation and short on facts.
Thank you! We have, of course, uranium and other naturally radioactive minerals in the earth right now. And yet we've mostly avoided exposure (except by early scientists who worked with them.) This author could have just summed his article into one sentence: I hate nuclear power.
If we end up back in the stone age it will be BECAUSE of people like Ulrich Beck who jump up and down about climate change, but then complain that no solution is good enough. THOSE are the people who would have us living back in time with no electric, no cars and eating berries and twigs because cows pass too much methane!
Mr. Beck might be interested to know there is ALREADY a universal warning sign denoting radioactivity.
Perhaps if we add a "Mr. Yuck" symbol....
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
1. They might be 'hard' but France has been operating one for years. I'd argue that we've made more progress with them than we have for economic solar.
2a. The amount of water needed can be varied. In any case, the 'huge' amounts water used is generally put right back into the source, just maybe downstream less than a mile, and the only difference is that it's slightly warmer. A larger flow allows more cooling, increasing efficiency, while putting the water back at even less of a difference. It becomes a matter of - as long as we have the water, might as well use it.
2b. Coal power suffers from the same problem, normally using loads of water as well.
3. No research necessary, the steam techniques for nuclear and coal power are identical - just more expensive than having a convienent river or lake. Even ocean, though the salt presents it's own problems.
4. Newer plant designs, possibly prototyped in India or China are much cheaper, and at least the current administration is working on streamlining/reducing the regulatory costs. As for the plebes - well, most don't actively remember Chernobyl, much less TMI. With the environmental concerns, I see resistance to nuclear power weakening. If they get smart and use the nuclear plant in a cogeneration/trigeneration fashion to support some industry(such as ethanol, depolymerization, oil sand/shale processing or hydrogen), you can get your load balancing and increase the efficiency of the plant by a great deal.
5. I don't see how Wind&Solar can cover our needs economically - and safety wise nuclear power is so safe that I wouldn't be surprised if the extra miles workers end up driving to perform maintenance leads to enough accidents to make it less safe than nuclear.
6. The price point to beat isn't 20 cents/KWh, it's more like 5 cents/KWh.
7. Variable rate billing already exists, I'm having it installed for this winter. Living in the boonies, I'm currently on propane heat. With oil prices - propane is now more expensive than electric, so I'm switching to an off-peak electrical heating system. If I _really_ need heat during a peak period(or the electric just can't keep up), then the propane furnace will kick on.
8. I'd love to see a battery that stores twice the electricity at half the price, but I haven't seen anything that's convinced me that it's not vapor at this point. We do have high efficiency alternative methods that are cheaper at utility levels, and if electric cars ever become major there's a lot of tricks you could play with them, but I'm not holding my breath.
I don't read AC A human right