smokinliver comments on 24 years of nuclear waste from the Maine Yankee powerplant

24 years of nuclear waste from the Maine Yankee powerplant (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 year ago by Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net to c/justpost@lemmy.world

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Operated from 1972 to 1996 and produced 119 billion kilowatt hours of energy

Dry cask storage is a method for safely storing spent nuclear fuel after it has cooled for several years in water pools. Once the fuel rods are no longer producing extreme heat, they are sealed inside massive steel and concrete casks that provide both radiation shielding and passive cooling through natural air circulation—no water is needed. Each cask can weigh over 100 tons and is engineered to resist earthquakes, floods, fire, and even missile strikes. This makes it a robust interim solution until permanent deep geological repositories are available. The casks are expected to last 50–100 years, though the fuel inside remains radioactive for thousands. Dry cask storage reduces reliance on crowded spent fuel pools, provides a secure above-ground option, and buys time for nations to develop long-term disposal strategies. In essence, it’s a durable, self-contained “vault” for nuclear waste

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[–] smokinliver@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 year ago (15 children)

until permanent deep geological repositories are available

I have been growing up with the outlook that one day we might find these yet somehow this promise/hope still sounds exactly the same many many years later

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think the main reasoning why permanent solutions haven't been "found" yet is because we still closetedly believe that we will find a better use for the waste if we just wait a few more decades.

it would be a shame to bury all that waste under 1000 meters of concrete now only to find out you can re-use these spent fuel rods for another round in the reactor in 2050.

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[–] Liz@midwest.social 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

You can reprocess then and run them through breeder reactors, but no one has proven you can make money doing it.

That biggest reason no one has permanent storage sites is political. There will always be loud protests at any proposed site.

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

I think the nice thing about breeder reactors isn't so much that they produce additional energy or are economically profitable on their own, but that they have the potential to eliminate nuclear waste that has accumulated in the last few decades, therefore effectively eliminating the storage problem.

Consider this: Storing nuclear waste costs something. A country might pay $1bn to store its nuclear waste for a hundred years. Instead, it could give that money to breeder reactors so they get rid of the nuclear waste permanently.

Breeder reactors don't have to be profitable only by producing electricity. They have another selling-point, and that is that they eliminate the nuclear waste for good. That's also worth something, and politics might be willing to pay for it at some point.

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[–] Liz@midwest.social 1 point 1 year ago

The current situation in the US is that private industry builds and runs the reactors, but the federal government has promised to take care of the waste. So either the breeder reactor needs to be commercially viable, or the government needs to run the reactor and push in on private sector businesses. I'm not sure which would be more difficult to achieve, honestly.

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[–] Jumi@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

In Germany we already found suitable places but lobby work and local governments worked against it and now it's in moist mines in leaky barrels.

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[–] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

The problem with DGRs is the resistance from uninformed locals and environmental groups, on a technical level we know how to build them and how to make them safe.

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[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago*

I thought the problem was SEP fields. Because as soon as you've found an ideal location for a facility all the locals come out (probably in part funded by oil companies) and are like "this sounds great but not here".

Americans also know how sloppy US contractors get.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 point 1 year ago

Research takes time, and it's not like there's a ticking clock or anything, the uranium is just going to sit there until we do something with it. It's not as if the uranium is going to get bored and suddenly explode or something.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip -2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Why not just mix it to trace amounts with sand and deposit in a biologically dead zone?

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Outside the environment you mean?

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I mean, we dig it out of the earth, concentrate and refine it. So the problem is the concentration, no? Geologically dead and whatnot are requirements for a final depot, because the high concentrated radioactive and poisonous stuff is a disaster waiting to happen.

But mixing it with gravel/dirt for a final depot might be safer too.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

I'm just confused by what you think a biologically dead zone is?

Why would we want to store it out in the open when we can just store it in a giant underground chasm somewhere. How does mixing it with sand make it less radioactive.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 point 1 year ago*

I thought more of marine dead zones, because slightly poisonous and radioactive gravel/sand could still be a problem. But maybe forget that.

But still, instead of one hole with high risk, 5 holes with medium risk might be better.

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[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Well, it's usually planned deep underground (and in rock that's unlikely to have water or earthquakes running through) in hopes of it remaining undeterred for as long as possible. If you were to dump it in the desert, then winds or the occasional rain might still carry it all over the place.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 point 1 year ago

Ok, but mixing it with gravel for the final depot would still make it saver.

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