The waste doesn’t pose any danger as long as it’s stored securely and doesn’t cost that much space. The only downside of the waste is that it needs to be stored forever, but that’s a very, very, small price to pay for not destroying the planet…
Comment on We can do all three things at once
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
People who want nuclear plants should also vote for having a nuclear waste storage in your area if that is possible. In germany we still dont have a solution for the waste we already have and the states who want Nuclear Plants are already said no to havin a storage in their state. You cant make this shit up
DraughtGlobe@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
But its also possible without nuclear waste. You are just pushing the problems with the waste to the future generations.
atro_city@fedia.io 6 months ago
There needs to be a future generation to push it onto first...
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Agreed, the future generations already have enough problems. Thats why we should invest into stuff that brings solutions and does not create problems.
Star@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Nuclear fuel came from the ground, it can go back in the ground. Future generations aren’t going to be impacted by nuclear waste storage.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No one who makes decisions so far has cared about future generations.
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well renewables are better for future generations. Maye you shuld push for that instead of an overly expensive water cooking maschine
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 6 months ago
What problem? If they’re stupid enough to dig it back up, they get what’s coming to em
Lumisal@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Weird how y’all haven’t figured it out yet considering Finland had and Germany has had nuclear power plants for longer.
But I suspect it’s more of a lack of wanting to do what’s needed for storage because ‘politics’ and boomers than it is because it’s not possible.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Nobody has. Nuclear casks need maintenance for their life time. We haven’t invented any kind of nuclear proof forever material that’s immune to entropy. Everything in life slowly degrades overtime and the longer the life span of something the more it degrades. We are expecting a private company to continue a maintenance cycle that brings in zero profit and all costs for a few thousand years without cutting corners. I don’t like the idea of the elon musks of his world being the smaug of nuclear waste
Lumisal@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I know there’s the joke that Finland doesn’t exist, but didn’t know people like you who took it seriously.
From 2019. Yes, we’ve figured out how to store it permanently. The country of 5 million somehow figured out what the hundreds of millions in Germany, USA, and others couldn’t.
Or more accurately, actually did it. The solution has been known for awhile.
Also, never said a private company had to do anything - that’s just a strawman you brought up.
Forester@yiffit.net 6 months ago
its actually easier if you just use a borehole.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 6 months ago
So government then. Give the Responsibility to fund this all cost and zero profit social good endeavor to politicians like Trump or a Bolsonaro.
Finland and a few other countries are testing this out. But unfortunately like every other solution, there ends up being some unforeseen problem. Time will tell. Which is part of why a lot of people are hesitant and not wanting to rush into these things.
We also are finding other solutions in the meantime. Its not a bad thing if at the end of the day we don’t need nuclear.
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Could be that Finland is a big country with only 5,5 million people living there compared to 83million in germany. Easier to find a place.
Lumisal@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, and like most of Europe, that German population lives in cities, not random forests and mountains in the middle of nowhere where you could also do underground storage like Finland has done.
Not to mention Germany has more land.
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Don’t you think it sounds crazy to build a underground storage just to have it closed for a million years. I just can’t understand why anybody would want that.
capital@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The US has a fuckton of space not being occupied by anyone or anything.
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Then why dont you have 100 nuclear plants on that space
Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Because it’s not profitable for the oil companies
Sniatch@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I tell you a secret, It’s not profitable for anyone.
JigglySackles@lemmy.world 6 months ago
One of many reasons is the issue of distribution at a distance. It’s terribly inefficient to deliver power to distant locations because you get drops the further you go. Another reason would be strategic. You don’t want to have too much infrastructure centralized on a single location in case of war.
capital@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Unfortunately I do not make these decisions for our country.
Forester@yiffit.net 6 months ago
It just needs to be buried deep enough. Problem solved. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Even better: reprocess the fuel. The linear fuel life time decommissions nuclear fuel as useless while it still has 90-something percent of energy potential left. Having a more cyclical life cycle allows for the spent fuel to be reconstituted into new fuel, and to be used anew. All the waste that does end up being produced is only a fraction of the waste produced in a linear process, and only dangerous on a societal timescale instead of a geological one.
HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
The places where that is done don’t have a great track record.
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m pretty sure France is one of those places and they have an amazing track record.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Start digging then
Bashnagdul@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They often put it in the mine it came from. It was there long before and can stay there long after
woelkchen@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They often put it in the mine it came from.
Good luck trying to convince Uranium mining countries to take it back.
HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
It wasn’t in the same form when it came out.
HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
And uranium mines. Nuclear is an energy transport medium rather than a source. You have large dirty dangerous destructive mining.
Sorgan71@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Nuclear waste is stored in water tanks. Its quite safe there.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 6 months ago
As someone who has actually looked into nuclear waste and the current storage techniques instead of relying on knee-jerk fear mongering, yes. Store it in my area. Hell, store the casks underneath my house for all I care. If you are surprised by this answer, it’s because you don’t know shit about nuclear waste and how little of a problem it is.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 6 months ago
(Below is my opinion, I respect you have yours, and I’m not having a go at you. I just want to take part in the discourse friendo!)
To me, if they wanted to store it in my area by encasing it now (or, any time in like the last 40 years), I wouldn’t mind either.
The issue that isn’t fear-mongering that people continually overlook because of all the knee-jerking people lamenting that it’s “unsafe”, is that we then have to maintain containment for thousands upon thousands of years.
That’s the issue, permanent storage, not all the temporary storage that is happening now.
Nuclear is not a great solution to immediately reducing emissions, in my opinion. Takes way too much capital and way too much time to get operational. Don’t close still operating plants, but damn, we need to be building the fastest shit possible, right now. Not something that takes a decade to build. We have solutions ready, governments just aren’t getting their act together and build it. Even if the business-case doesn’t make complete sense; we don’t have time.
Sand batteries, liquid air energy storage, lithium ion batteries, flow batteries, (plus a bunch of other contenders) they’re all immature technologies but they do work right now, anywhere, no terrain for pumped-hydro required. Sure they’re not very efficient, or have crap lifespan in the case of Li-ion, but solar plants literally aren’t being built in some places because prices go negative during the day, and plants are being curtailed.
We need to build storage, now, even if it’s not a silver bullet. And we can’t wait for expensive-as-fuck nuclear.
Someone should call me when we decide re-enriching spent nuclear fuel is fine and we can do nuclear waste recycling, actually getting our money’s worth. Or when thorium gets good.
My personal opinion conclusion:
Thanks for reading, looking forward to hearing people’s thoughts.