# Explain the Nuclear Power waste storage problem to me. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 18, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472 "2009-07-18T20:46:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472/61 "2009-07-23T01:32:11Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Which of course means that seven kilos of plutonium could kill the entire human race, provided you could arrange for everyone to breath in one microgram. :rolleyes: That’s a shame because we dumped about 3.5 tons of it into the atmosphere through atomic bomb testing. France and other European countries make extensive use of nuclear energy. They must put the waste somewhere and they don’t have vast deserts like we do. ---
**Author:** ![BaneSidhe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c5a1d2/32.png) [@BaneSidhe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaneSidhe)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472/62 "2009-07-23T02:45:05Z")
People howl about nuclear waste, but at the same time don’t realize that coal-fired power plants emit a bit of radioactive stuff too. Not much, but enough. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472/63 "2009-07-23T05:40:22Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Glass is one of the most stable substances known. Glass was recovered from a Bronze Age shipwreck off Turkey (ca. 800 BC) , and the glass showed no evidence of deterioration. So, if we really felt the need, we could mix the dried waste with glass and melt it into small bricks. place these in a deep stone vault, and we have nothing to worry about. > And, for comparison, buring coal releases lots of radioctive waste into the environment-far more than nuclear power generaion. Glass is stable, but radioactive components present a unique issue for materials. As I understand it, the radioactive particle itself doesn’t do a whole lot of damage to the structure, but the recoil from the resulting nucleous bashes through the neighboring structures. This causes a major problem for the long term stability of these materials. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472/64 "2009-07-23T09:03:13Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Glass is stable, but radioactive components present a unique issue for materials. As I understand it, the radioactive particle itself doesn’t do a whole lot of damage to the structure, but the recoil from the resulting nucleous bashes through the neighboring structures. This causes a major problem for the long term stability of these materials. It doesn’t really matter. First, because the material rapidly becomes less radioactive. and second, because it doesn’t have to stay all that stable; it just has to avoid decaying so far that it turns into something that can just ooze away. If it collapses into a pile of glass chips in ten thousand years, the radioactive material is still going to stay in the same place unless you stuck it in a river. ---
**Author:** ![Yossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/9de0a6/32.png) [@Yossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yossarian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472/65 "2009-07-23T12:59:42Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I lived in New Mexico and was all for sticking the waste there. Your wish has been granted: [http://www.wipp.energy.gov/](http://www.wipp.energy.gov/) ETA: Dang it! Didn’t see post #56. (And I even searched for “Carlsbad” and “New Mexico”… but not “WIPP”.) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472/66 "2009-07-23T18:05:32Z")
Again, I need to mention that reprocessing fuel dramatically lowers the dangerous lifespan of the waste. You can reprocess the waste to remove the dangerous actinides like Pu-239 and some isotopes of iodine, and reduce the period of real danger of the waste from tens of thousands of years to around 1200 years. This is far more manageable, and the reprocessing produces new fuel, reducing the amount of uranium mining required. You can also transmute waste by burning it in reactors that operate on a different fuel cycle. For example, I believe Canada’s CANDU reactor can burn high-level waste from U.S. nuclear reactors, and the waste from CANDU is not as dangerous. I should also point out that for the price of Obama’s 800 billion dollar ‘stimulus’ package, the U.S. could have built about 200 nuclear reactors, which would have been enough to cut US CO2 emissions by something like 30-40%. Had the U.S. government done that and absorbed the cost of construction, the resulting electricity would be cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels, meaning the U.S. could achieve what it will take ‘cap and trade’ several decades to achieve, and without the kind of economic dislocations and damage that a rapidly increasing cost of carbon would impose on the economy. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472/67 "2009-07-23T19:19:09Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > The biggest problem isn’t what’s going to happen to us, but rather what’s going to happen a hundred thousand years from now. Will the human race still exist? If it does, will it be technologically advanced? The human race has suffered many setbacks, and it’s entirely possible that our great-great-great-grandchildren may live in a new paleolithic. Since these materials will remain toxic for _millions_ of years, they will outlive any kind of containment we devise. Of course, over the _really_ long haul, it will be subducted under the continental plates and cease to be a problem, but before that happens we may be condemning millions upon millions of our descendants to a horrible death in order to pay for our SUV and air conditioner lifestyle. If we regress to a “new paleolithic”, the billions of deaths that would entail far outweigh the danger from nuclear dumps. Not to mention the survivors’ day-to-day struggle just to stay alive. Otherwise, we’ll continue to monitor the stuff and do whatever it takes to keep it contained. We’ll surely improve our technology. We may find safer ways to store it or we may learn how to neutralize the stuff. And even though it’s waste at the moment, we may find ways to use it productively. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-nuclear-power-waste-storage-problem-to-me/503472.md?page=3)