Hello Lee!
02 Jan 24 08:07, you wrote to me:
High level waste is the only thing that we really need to
seriously worry about, as it takes 1000-10000 years to decay.
The good news is such waste is an incredibly small portion of the
radioactive waste produced over the life of a reactor. Most ILW
and LLW is stored until it is no longer radioactive and then it
safely disposed of on site.
How long was Chernobyl able to keep its radioactive waste safe?
Chernobyl was a mismanagement of epic proportions. IIRC the types of reactors used there are no longer in service.
70 years of nuclear power in the world , has given us a total of
29,000 cubic meters of HLW. That's a NFL football field,
end-zone to end-zone, and about 6 feet high.
Chernobyl was a disaster. And that was before the Russians stormed
the place. Now there are radioactive Russians, most of them dead by
now.
Fun fact: you can walk around Pripyat and the radiation level is very close to normal background radiation. At worst, it's about what you'd experience on a transatlantic flight. Even inside the sarcophagus, radiation levels are safe to work around for extended periods of time (weeks, months, etc).
occasionally a small bit of tile or graphite will be found outside of the plant, and that's dangerous. But these bits are so tiny that staying mere inches away from them reduces their radioactivity to regular background levels. you could step on one while walking and it'd make no difference. Now, if you put one under your pillow as you slept, or picked it up and ate it. then you'd be in a world of trouble.
That's why people who work there change clothes when entering/exiting the sarcophagus, and often when entering/exiting the exclusion zone.
Most HLW is stored on site at the nuclear plants. Some of it gets
recycled and used for smaller reactors.
Chernobyl is a ghost town. It can never be repopulated. And yet,
even after Russians invaded the area, the plant remains open.
The "official" count of deaths from the Chernobyl disaster is 31. the UN says it's likely closer to 50.
However, over 800,000 "liquidators" were sent in to help with the cleanup. The IAEA claims health studies on the liquidators "Failed to show any direct correlation between their radiation exposure" and cancer or other diseases. (
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190725-will-we-ever-know-chernobyls-true-death-toll)
A cask containing HLW is safe to be around. An buddy of mine
actually walked up to a cask, and kissed it (with permission).
Despite the number of safeguards, nuclear power plants can never be
made safe enough from what can become real disasters. Chernobyl is
only one example, showing the world how dangerous it can be.
Chernobyl and Fukushima are the two places where full meltdowns happened. The first was due to incompetence, the second due to a natural disaster of epic proportions.
no fatalities came about from the second.
You know what does explode and kill people quite often, comparatively?
Natural Gas, Coal Dust, and oil processing.
Oh, and people die working on wind turbines all the time, too.
The casks, when properly stored are indestructible. We've been
trying to get the Yucca mountain storage facility built for over
45 years now. But people have bought into the "nuclear waste is
dangerous no matter what" BS.
With nowhere to safely put nuclear waste, why continue to build
nuclear power plants? Wouldn't the wiser course of action be to shut
down nuclear power plants and use alternate sources of producing
energy? Wind and solar energy come to mind ...
Wind and solar aren't going to cut it. The energy density isn't there, and they can only really produce power about 50% of the time.
nuclear is clean. safe. and something we could use to boost our struggling electric grids within a decade.
You know what's dangerous? The mercury, lead, antimony, arsenic,
and the radioactive isotopes of thorium and strontium that are in
coal ash. (this stuff also gets pumped into the air)
Coal is finite. Once that stuff is all used up, that's it.
But air is forever. We can recycle that stuff forever. And
also breathe it in ...
It is. But there's still a LOT left.
Mike
... Mulder: Open your mind to extreme possibility.
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