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What Fire and Leakage At WIPP Means For Nuclear Waste Disposal
Lasrick (2629253) writes "An underground fire and a separate plutonium leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has left the US with no repository for transuranic (TRU) waste--that is, radioactive elements heavier than uranium on the periodic chart, such as plutonium, americium, curium and neptunium. WIPP is a bedded salt formation in New Mexico, chosen because of its presumed long-term stability and self-sealing properties, and it currently holds, among other things, 4.9 metric tons of plutonium. Despite assurances from the DOE that the plant would soon reopen, New Mexico has cancelled WIPP's disposal permit indefinitely. Robert Alvarez, who has served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department's secretary and as deputy assistant secretary for national security, explores what happened at WIPP, and what it means for defense nuclear waste storage."
[sigh] Yet another contractor who seems to have been doing the minimum required to get paid. Fire suppression turned off, flammable materieals stored after repeated inspections required that they be removed. Outsource responsibility and this seems to be the result. Words cannot express how disappointed I am that "business" seems to be going on "as usual" even when managing something as hazardous as nuclear waste.
Because it's not unlikely to have a rocket explode in the atmosphere, scattering plutonium all over the place. Not only that, but what you propose is **really** expensive.
Too bad it's impossible* to reuse nuclear waste.
*Impossible because the rules in the US are as such that you are not allowed to do anything that could result in threatening the revenue stream to current nuclear energy giants. Guess who helped write them?
Technological solutions exists but China will have a solution within 10-20years and we will buy from them because of these "Super Important" laws.
When that happens, the US will rightfully become the banana republic it so desperately want to become.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
How about dropping it into an active volcano?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
It's New Mexico. You don't need a bedded salt formation. Just throw that shit anywhere, the whole state is a scrap heap (based on driving around the strech of wasteland between El Paso, White Sands Missile Range, and Carlsbad Cavern).
On a more serious note, why are we burying highly radioactive material instead of using it to generate electricity? If it's too hot to throw away, surely it's hot enough to spin turbines.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
transuranic (TRU) waste--that is, radioactive elements heavier than uranium on the periodic chart, such as plutonium, americium, curium and neptunium.
Also known, in every country with a halfway-sensible nuclear policy, as "reactor fuel."
Desert? yes. Worthless? No.
Deserts are usually less exploitable by humans, but they are extremely valuable to the planet. Through sorry experience we have learned that desert ecosystems are easily damaged. Vehicles driving across the surface can crack and break the crust of micro-organisms ("desert pavement") where the damage can last for centuries.
The thought process of "Humans cannot immediately exploit the resources, therefore it is worthless" is extremely foolish.
Just look at what humans have done to resources we consider valuable. Deforestation of entire contents, fishing out oceans to possibly the point of exhaustion. Desert regions are one of the few resources left mostly intact from human destruction.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Just what we need... airborne radioactive ash!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Can someone explain to me why a reactor can overheat and meltdown like in Japan ... but not have the energy to spin the turbines to power cooling?
How can it get so hot that it boils the water way even under ridiculous pressures ... but that heat can't be used to power turbines?
Am I to believe that reactors actually generate more power when shutdown than when powered up?
I just can't fathom why a plant can SCRAM and then overheat ... but be unable to cool itself. Someones design is WAY fucked up me thinks. Its generating too much steam ... USE IT ...
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
We already had that discussion...
1) Chose a subduction zone,
2) bury $Stuff_we_don't_want right next to it, a few km below the local ground surface.
3) wait for mother nature to push it down and dilute it in billions of tons of molten rock.
4) profit? nah, it's expensive... but at least don't worry about it.
Depends on what you consider damage. I submit that the tank and vehicle tracks left in desert areas during WW II exercises 70 bloody years ago might still be visible .. but I hardly consider them damage. You'll have to prove the value of "desert pavement" to me first. And your claim that deserts are "extremely valuable to the planet" is questionable too. I submit that the Gobi Desert was a lot more useful to the dinosaurs fossilized there when it was green and lovely than it's been for the past dozens of millions of years.
How about we blend it with DU and 'burn' it in a reactor?
Cost to get to the sun isn't too bad; you don't need the fuel to create a stable orbit, and you're "falling" into the biggest gravity well around. Still, you have a point about the cost of launching something with so much mass.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
How about we blend it with DU and 'burn' it in a reactor?
Heretic!
How dare you propose a solution which is both workable by examples in France and Japan, and fails to support the idea that wind and solar can provide all the power we need (ignore the Solyndra behind the curtain)?!?!?!
I'm pretty sure we burned Joan of Arc at the stake for less than that!
Cost to get to the Sun is worse than escaping the solar system. It would be cheaper to send the stuff to Alpha Centauri.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
There is plenty of desert, and deserts are growing. Set aside a few million hectares, and use the rest.
Besides, if you want to conserve the deserts, putting nuclear storage facilities there would be just the thing. Otherwise a good portion is getting covered with solar panels within a decade.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Seriously, we need small reactors that use thorium like we had a couple of decades ago. We can get this going again in less than 5 years. With these, we can either augment current sites, or even replace current reactors and then burn up the waste, while getting energy.
Considering that the west is dealing with issues from Russia because of reliance on Russian energy, AND we have AGW occuring AND we have 'waste' disposal issues, I would think that the west would be smart enough to burn up all of that energy, and then bury only 5% of what they were going to. Heck, WIPP would handle EVERYTHING that we had left, and everything would be safe within 200 years.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why not just finish the integral fast reactor programme and use the spent fuel? Iirc, the project was almost finished when it was abruptly terminated back in the early 90's due to political interference.
Fine with me as long as we can ship our nuclear waste to DC & let it pile up there instead of our neighborhoods.
Chose a subduction zone
That is the infeed for volcanoes. We need a giant catapult to launch it into the Sun without fear of exploding rockets.
You might want to double-check your math... lol
Feel free to do so for me. I am right.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Hint: Earth orbit is ~100km/s. Solar escape velocity when starting at Earth is ~50km/s. So it is twice as expensive to hit the Sun rather than Alpha Centauri.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
1) mantle convection simplified
2) The word "dilute" in step 3. If you have a thousand tons of U235 surrounded by 5km of rock and melt it all, how much U235 can find an updraft toward a volcano, since you were dumb enough to drill next to an active volcano?
Hint: Earth orbit is ~100km/s. Solar escape velocity when starting at Earth is ~50km/s. So it is twice as expensive to hit the Sun rather than Alpha Centauri.
LOLOLOL! No, really man. You DO need to check your math. Or just, do your math instead of guessing.
See where you say Earth's orbit is 100km/s? No. It is ~30 km/s. You probably got confused by somebody writing 100k km/h and remembered it is per second, or forgot to convert units. You got the ~50km/s because you remembered the ratio of energy from the classwork and made a crude guess that would be wrong in either case. The needed escape velocity is only 42km/s.
But worse, you're mistaking a standard physics course lesson with the theoretical limits of the problem space. Totally different. It is true it takes twice as much energy to do a direct delta V to the Sun as to make the cheapest escape. But you're confusing that with the cheapest way to get there. You can shave it down a lot just by realizing you don't have to hit the center, anything inside the radius works. But then you might realize that a direct path isn't the cheapest path. Starting from Earth's orbit, you only need to adjust your orbit so that you hit the Sun.
Furthermore, by your numbers anything in Earth's orbit would get flung out of the whole Solar System unless it was doing a constant burn. Not gonna happen. Because that would mean the Earth itself would not even be in orbit.
And even on a fairly direct route you only need to get to Venus, because you can gravity-brake there all the way down to the needed speed. And further, (since the escape velocity of the Solar System from Earth is thankfully higher than the speed of Earth's orbit) if you were going to leave the Solar System, and changed your mind, you could just use something like Jupiter to turn around and come back. With a long enough wait, you could even do a tiny burn near Earth to change velocity relative to Earth, and then use Earth on later passes to slingshot. The longer you're willing to wait, the less energy you'll need. Remember the goal is just to crash the waste into the Sun, the goal is NOT to land on the surface of the Sun.
The whole "diving into the Sun vs escaping" thing is just a thought experiment. The reality is that if you don't care about the arrival date or path traveled, then they both cost about the same amount; the cost of flying to the nearest slingshot. Given a choice between a random long flight through space, or a long flight into the Sun, the Sun remains a better choice.
Encapsulation of high grade nuclear waste (sealing it in glass) has been done for decades, and a much better chemically stable approach, incorporation, has been worked on for decades and is now in use (Synroc).
Shoving things in drums and hoping they stay dry is a shortcut that is going to fail eventually.
Yes my numbers were wrong. The conclusion, however, was not. See Shooting for the Sun
If you do gravity assist, you can do that for escape velocity as well.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Orbits do not spontaneously decay. They stay pretty much forever. Otherwise the planets would have long ago fallen into the Sun.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
The reprocessing canard has gone on long after plenty of information about it's future pitfalls has been in public record. See Here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energ... "MOX is also three times as hot as spent uranium fuel, thanks to an accumulation of transuranic isotopes such as americium and curium, making it less fit for underground storage. Therefore, according to a 2000 consensus report on reprocessing prepared for France’s prime minister, spent MOX must cool for 150 years( in a water pool) before it can go into an underground waste repository... " A newer report : http://fissilematerials.org/li... says"Reprocessing has not led to a simplification or expedition of radioactive waste disposal;"..."France, which has the most extensive reprocessing and recycling program, does not attempt to recover the plutonium from the spent MOX fuel. In effect, it has exchanged the problem of managing spent fuel for the problem of managing spent MOX fuel, high level waste from reprocessing, plutonium waste from plutonium recycle, and eventually the waste from decommissioning its reprocessing and plutonium fuel fabrication facilities." As we are thinking about these issues and what the fire at WIPP means, we have no flip, easy answers. That doesn't mean the problems are insurrmountable, but we need to acknowledge their scope and work from reality.
Thank you, I've always wondered why these types of waste were not reprocessable. A friend of mine went to ASU in the '70s/'80s and they had an Indian physicist called Dr. Roy (no idea what the last name was) who claimed to have a method for safely disposing of nuclear waste, never heard of the program going live.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
You found a link, but you did not take the time to THINK about the IDEAS that I expressed. That link does NOT address what I said; it does the math for LANDING on/in the Sun, not for driving to the nearest slingshot and using that to alter course and crash into the Sun. So you replied without having even attempted to understand what I said. Tsk tsk.
I already address that part of your wordgasm. You can gravity assist to escape velocity, and it is easier since the delta-V is smaller.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
This is a very old argument.
You're wrong ; amoreson is right. Live with it.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
It isn't "easier" at all, you DO NOT NEED THE DELTA V FOR A SUN LANDING IN ORDER TO CRASH INTO IT WHY DO YOU SKIP THE ONLY IMPORTANT WORDS?
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You also remembered your coursework, good job! Now go back, re-read the problem, re-read his link, understand the formula used. It is the formula for LANDING on the Sun. Not for crashing into it. And using a gravity well, even landing on the Sun only requires fuel to get to the nearest object you can use to slingshot (the Earth, presumably on the next orbit). It is the SAME fuel cost for both; less than the link describes. Not only can you crash into the Sun on less fuel than they describe, you can also leave the solar system with less. It is a valuable thought experiment but only if you understand the thought!
Because are wrong. I am not talking about landing on the Sun. You need to get rid of the "horizontal" delta-V of the Earth. "Vertical" delta-V is a non-issue; the Sun's gravity can provide plenty of that, but that only helps you once you get rid of your horizontal delta-V. Otherwise you keep missing.
And yes you only need to get rid of enough horizontal delta-V to strike the outer parts of the Sun. The difference is negligible.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Why are you still skipping over the part about redirecting without using fuel you carried with you? Are you really that frightened by understanding what I said?
That is pathetic.
"Redirecting without using fuel" is known as "gravity assist". I mention gravity assist in every single post.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Keeping in mind you're claiming to have been mentioning it, I suggest you go back and re-read your posts, and stop replying to me. I don't need an apology, but you clearly missed the point, argued against something different than what I said, and are now claiming you didn't. LOL
Or, now that you're on the right subject, it should be OBVIOUS to you that the minimum amount of fuel required is the SAME. Not double. And the thought experiments for DIVING into the Sun, aka Landing on it, is totally not relevant. And real life solar probes use LESS energy than that thought experiment (duh).
Get a clue.
I think it is amply clear to anyone who happens upon this thread who should do the apologizing and who is missing the point. I do not think that I can add more clarity to the matter.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
And yet you're still pathologically unable to admit that you can redirect into the Sun using a tiny amount of fuel, and that it costs the same amount of fuel for the cheapest trip anywhere away from Earth, because of how gravity assist works.
The existing Sun probe uses LESS fuel than the thought experiment. Yes, that will be obvious to anybody who checks the thread and looks it up.
Reminds of Feynman talking about the difference between being able to do the math, and understanding what it means. A dive into the Sun is just a thought experiment. An actual craft going there would never use that simplified formula unless it had really, really cheap fuel.
Thank you, I've always wondered why these types of waste were not reprocessable. A friend of mine went to ASU in the '70s/'80s and they had an Indian physicist called Dr. Roy (no idea what the last name was) who claimed to have a method for safely disposing of nuclear waste, never heard of the program going live.
France doesn't have a use for the plutonium because they do not run a sufficient ratio of Pu reactors or breeders to produce the Pu to fuel those reactors.
This was France's answer to the "nonproliferation problem" which Jimmy Carter dealt with by disallowing reprocesseing in the U.S. altogether; this ban has been lifted, reinstated, and lifted again, but in general, it's not worth building something over the period of a decade if it will potentially end up banned again. So we have a plant, we only have a couple DOE operated breeder facilities for weapons grade materials, and the commercial reprocessing plant that was recently just mothballed.
Most of the problems at this point are political, and most of the costs are either protest-driven or redesign-the-plant-while-building-it-driven rather than actually technical.