One detail left out is that after only 10.000 years, the waste’s radioactivity is back to that of the original ore that was extracted. Which then raises the question of whether it is fair to require isolation for a million years. Especially when unbeknownst to most, there already are (hundreds of) thousands of tons of uranium and other unstable isotopes beneath our feet in as small a radius as 10 kilometers down to the several 100s of meters of depth that we want our deep geological respository to be. But considering the negligible cost per kilowatt-hour, the price of buying just a feeling of safety for the general public to gain their acceptance for the technology is a fair trade-off.
The argument is based on the bombardment products of uranium. Having made a mixture of neutron-absorbing transuranics, and a much greater amount of neutron emitting fission products, Spent fuel will continue to self-bombard. It will self-generate transuranics with biological impacts at much higher levels than the original ore. Hence the recommendation for 100s of thousands of years, but remember, this is for simple, unreprocessed spent fuel. The majority of spent nuclear fuel, globally, is still unprocessed. This could be avoided if nuclear nations had a real commitment to reprocessing spent fuel and separating the different components. The bulk of fission products are short lived: the Iodine has a half life of two weeks, the caesium has a half life of thirty years. This requires disposal facilities that lasted a thousand years or so, preferably ten to accommodate some of the decay daughters. The reprocessing is expensive, but shortens the period in which the facility has to be secure. The transuranics like Americium are a small fraction, and while their disposal facility needs to last an awesomely long time, it can be relatively small. Deep boreholes might conceivably suffice, or selected deeper or hardened regions within a larger disposal site. We are not worried about natural uranium because it doesn't radiate much. You could keep it under your bed. Reactor waste contains unnaturally high levels isotopes and elements that do not exist in nature because they are produced incredibly slowly in natural ore. Reprocessing for disposal, or just simple disposal is a real cost. Sadly, the nuclear industry does not want to pay it, nor do national governments. Until that cost is met, and until good faith is won by disposing of the present waste stockpile There will be little trust.
Which is probably why the requirement in Germany is to store safely for 10'000 years. (In salt mines I believe.) However, you are not going to have some insane nuclear disaster if storage fails in a couple of hundred years. It's not yet down to the original level, but it's not hugely dangerous to living things. Considering there are lots of churches, bridges - not to mention pyramids -that are surface constructions, and are still in use after +1'000 years, it actually seems pretty unlikely that we wouldn't be able to construct a simple underground storage, that will last some thousand years. That's assuming you really want to burry such actually valuable material. In any case, waiting another hundred years to decide what to do, isn't a big thing. I't would be rather annoying if people had to start excavating the material as a mining operation, because using the remaining 97% of the energy in the material has become technically simple. In Sweden, where I live, the requirement is safe storage for 100'000 years, which is obviously a politically motivated thing. For one, Swedish used fuel is obviously not 10 times more dangerous than German. Secondly, it has nothing to do with hazards to living creatures or plants.
@@peteyflynnAnyone who thinks of a breeder reactor as a problem for proliferation is an idiot, remember that there are countries that are not in the non-proliferation treaty, and if a country wants to build an atomic bomb it doesn't even need a breeder reactor, if a country wants atomic bomb he builds and no one can stop it, see North Korea.
please make a video about the forgotten soviet nuclear project. 1. the Soviet Union's plan to produce 50% of nuclear energy by the year 2000 2.such as a special nuclear reactor for water distillation (BN-350) 3.rectangular nuclear reactor (RBMKP-2400) 4. construction of nuclear reactors in remote, and dangerous areas (Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant EGP-6) 5.floating nuclear power plant (Academic Lomonosov) 6.construction plan AST-500 nuclear reactor.which aims to produce hot water for housing and industry. Soviet plant to built in 35 cities to replacing coal-fired central water heaters 7.the world's only active nuclear powered cargo ship (Sevmorput)
Great video, thanks from France ! I recognised some of the nuclear plants used in this video, as I worked in those. I'll share this with my colleagues to raise awareness among the public.
@@kairomon4344 what you mean planning, you guys already nuked yourself with shutting them down. Can i ask why my eastern neighbours are so scared of nuclear power? 3 mile? Chernobyl? Fukushima? Like from all 3 there are things to learn. 1 thing at most: don't use water cooling. In reactor. 2 don't go the cheap way, Chernobyl and 3mile are the products of going cheap, 3 mile could've been a bigger problem of there wasn't an whistleblower. There where more, but those where offed. 3 make sure you always have brains at the plant. To take control IF it goes wrong. When politics are in play, stupid decisions are being made. Like i know i don't have to tell you this. But this is what I've found. Because when this gets together it's going to be a mess. That's why I'm happy with the move forward to suspend the fuel in salt, or lead. But truly what made you guys cancel nuclear? I'm really curious 🧐
@@RedRingOfDead Here in Germany there is a very strong lobby that works against nuclear power, the fake studies then appear on television and present the fake studies in the media, we are told that wind and sun are the cheapest and nuclear power costs 42 cents per kilowatt hour it's amazing how they do it. They even call you a Nazi if you say you support nuclear energy.😮💨
@@RedRingOfDead The word "nuclear" is immediately equitable to nuclear weapons. And some dipshit people are so scared of nuclear weapons that they want anything and everything that has any resemblance or anything to do with nuclear things that is must be banned.
@@RedRingOfDead Hang on. French reactors were shut down due to heat pollution of the natural bodies of cooling water. These are totally reasonable environmental precautions that would apply equally to any industry. If cooling water will be limited in the future, then nuclear reactors will reasonably have to make provision or be prepared to shut down. How do you propose to avoid using water for cooling? "brains at the plant"? so if the cooling water was getting too warm, how would your "brains" propose to keep the reactor running? Heat dissipation is a limitation for almost any engineered device, from a train bearing to a CPU to a reactor.
Great video with good joke at the beginning, he almost got me :) My country used to export high level waste to Russia until politicians decided doing nothing is better than paying very low Russian prices in 90's. I would add Russia did reprocess spent fuel at Mayak years before BN-800 went critical, finding exact timelines in texts saturated with reports about accidents turned to be impossible for me. If USA is really, really serious about building fast reactor this time (we know the story about Gates's promises for msr, then "cigarette with digitally aided reshuffling", two name changes for what is 50 years old fast breeder tech, etc), we should stop burying precious spent fuel because 97% reduction in waste due to reprocessing in this type of reactors would pretty much make problem go away. Low and mid level waste can be stored in my garden, they are welcome.
Thanks! Reprocessing seems to come and go in various places, and the Russians really are good technically. In my humble opinion, better efforts at fast reactors are a better option. The US still seems somewhat stuck on making more substantial advancements policy-wise and they're going to get left behind if there are no changes.
@@atomicblender Finding good information about Russian civilian nuclear program has always been very hard for some reason, despite being good example. I know a lot more about very impressive Chinese program because they are working in several directions like developing MSR run on thorium cycle. I believe their work ethics, a lot more newly educated engineers each years and other factors will help them succeed within given time frame. Problem in the US seems to be lack of government funding for this technology. I don't know how French do it but China and Russia have it backed by the government for reasons you explained very well. I'm really happy for finding your channel because lack of real action bothers me a lot, thank you for making videos.
@@atomicblender " by political reason" tell me about . Americans and Europeans are buying nuclear fuel right now from Russia by a political reason too?
Great video but a couple things to point out. About those advanced reactors or Fast reactors, it's not the coolant but the lack of a moderator that distinguishes them. The reason a water cooled reactor can't be a fast reactor is water is also a moderator. So you could have a lead or salt cooled reactor moderated with graphite or heavy water. It's also not exactly correct that fast reactors are more efficient. They consume their fuel more quickly but they use up the fuel more completly to the point they don't leave long lived high level waste. There is still some waste but it's much shorter lived. That's why Deep Isolation is working with Oklo. Oklo has a fast microreactor & is also handling the DoE's current recycling project. The idea being any leftovers can be buried in Deep Isolation borehole repositories. Thankfully it's no longer illegal to recycle used fuel but due to expense & politics it hasn't been done in the US. Recycled fuel like MOX does cost more & natural uranium is cheap so some kind of incentive to use recycled fuel would be helpful. Russia's BN-800 was loaded with recycled fuel last year which is huge although the war in Ukraine has made it harder to get info on.
Fair points and thanks for the clarifications. I couldn't find anything concrete for the Russian reactor being loaded with spent fuel so I left it as is. I'm not optimistic about Aurora and Oklo. It seems to me to be a case of having some VC money but not a lot of technical experience. I hope they can figure it out, it's a nice concept.
@@atomicblender I think Oklo can get it done but the NRC is more difficult than needed imo but there are other non-water reactors I'm more interested in like Westinghouse's LFR, Natrium & Terrestrial's MSR. TBH, I'm a bit of a liquid metal reactor fan over MSRs & especially HTGRs
@@YourCapyPal_3DPipes1999 They're all uranium fueled & tbh I prefer uranium. Most of the advantages people attribute to thorium are advantages of MSRs which of course can be fueled with uranium as well but of course there are differences. Uranium based reactors are just as safe as thorium but the uranium supply chain is well established while thorium's is pretty much in it's infancy. I really like Westinghouse's LFR because it's basically a better Natrium due to power output & being lead cooled, it's neutron economy will be better than a fast MSR's. Natrium uses sodium which reacts with water. They both have their own integrated thermal storage which improves their economics & flexibity. There is also Leadcold, a Swedish company whose lead cooled SMR is fueled for the life of the reactor which is swapped out like a giant light bulb. Terrestrial's MSR is the most developed & closest to being ready while not trying to do too much. It's a thermal, not fast, reactor that has a graphite moderator. Still has high fuel utilization though.
Canada's heavy water moderated CANDU can use natural U, Pu, and Th as well as spent fuel. On top of that, it can REFUEL WHILE RUNNING. China actually purchased a CANDU to take waste from their other reactors, without worry of further nuclear proliferation concerns. CANDU reactor designs have been around since 1974. They provide 50% all the electrical power of Canada's largest province (Ontario) which is where 40% of Canada's GDP is generated.
I vaguely recall some suggestions once in a while that the decay heat of spent fuel be used for low-power power applications. I think as soon as it's clearly "nuclear waste" then it tends to get abandoned...
Yeah, or greenhouses. But you know it is radioactive heat and that must be bad. You can buy a health amulet in mail order that emits dangerous levels of gamma radiation, but hot water from a nuclear power plant is not acceptable! There is no cure against stupidity.
@@sargentsakto9236 well, if the liquid salt thorium reactor works, they may take that in, because in that reactor type you can produce energy from the highly radioactive waste and turn them in to shorter lived and less radioactive substances. You can be sure that China would not miss a business opportunity like that. 😂
Nuclear material proliferation risk would be too big. There has already been cases of medical nuclear sources ending up with scrap merchants and so on. Meaning even completely passively safe dry casking needs *guarding* . not for the cask failing on it's own, but as said scrap merchant or scavenger actively coming to dismantle the cask in search of valuable materials to sell. Not understand the risk they put themselves and others. Heck Soviet union did use remote unguarded nuclear thermoelectric batteries to power remote light houses.... the sources ended up being stolen and having to be hunted for by authorities. Even in middle of nowhere arctic coast. Which means any storage there is on surface will need active guarding and thus needs to happen in limited number of manageable sites. Not at everyone's backyard. Same will be problem with small modular reactors. Any reactor no matter how small will need 24/7 oversight to account for *active attempts to interfere* . Even the biggest steel reinforced concrete cask will fall to enough jack hammers and cutting torches. I guess you could make a power plant out of the casks, but probably pretty in efficient. I think some of the cooling pools do in fact have heat capture and scavenging systems.
Most existing reactors (Light Water Reactors: LWR’s) consume less that 2% of the fissile fuel before the transuranics in the solid fuel pellets prevent further fission. It’s this unconsumed fissile material that has to be stored for 10,000 years. Forth generation burner and breeder reactors (Like Molten Salt Reactors) consume almost 98% of the fissile material AND almost 98% of the transuranics… meaning they produce 1/100th the amount of waste and that waste only has to be stored for 300 years. So what’s the problem? Primarily the Nuclear Retardation Commission (NRC) continues to maintain the GE/Westinghouse nuclear monopoly that hasn’t shipped on time or on budget since… ever. And as long as they’re in control newer technologies will never get a chance. BTW: Did you know that Japan built over 60 nuclear reactors between 1974 and 2009 on time (average less than 4 years) and on budget (average half the cost of US reactors)? Where there’s a will there’s a way. Nuclear is expensive here because someone want’s it to be.
@@markrobinowitz8473 So don’t use cooling water… Run your reactor at 1500° F and use a gas turbine… they’re 65% efficient vs. 45% for steam… plus you can use the “waste heat” from a gas turbine to make steam for a steam turbine. And you’ll still have enough “waste heat” left over to desalinate about six million gallons of water a day (for a 1 GWe reactor).
@@geowar20 Good luck figuring out what to do with the megatons of uranium tailings that are toxic for eons. We haven't made any "progress" on that since 1942. Reactors were invented to make Pu-239. Studies by the Atomic Energy Commission (now Dept of Energy) couldn't find a dose of Pu-239 too low not to cause cancer in dogs. I prefer reactors with a 150 million km. evacuation zone, no closer, please. Using less of everything is our future now that we've passed the limits to growth on an abundant, finite planet.
@@markrobinowitz8473 Not to be confused with the mega-mega-mega tons of fossil fuel pollution. One pound of Uranium can provide enough energy for your entire lifetime’s energy needs and produce less than a quarter cup of waste. Would you like to compare that to any other energy source? Seriously? You know what would be the best thing to do with Pu-239? Turn it all into energy. Todays (or should I say “yesterdays”) reactors consume less than 2% of the fissile fuel before the transuranics block further fission. Gen 4 burner reactors consume almost 98% of the fissile material AND almost 98% of all the transuranics… generating 1/100th the waste and it only has to be stored for 300 years vs. 10,000 for todays (yesterdays) reactors. Coal power plants release more radioactive radium in one day that a nuclear plant is allowed to in its entire lifetime. Completely unregulated.
Almost every city has multiple tanks storing volatile fuel, and stores shelves filled with dangerous chemicals, and people do not worry about those things, unlike they do about nuclear waste! Nuclear waste is dangerous, but so is a lot of other stuff, that is arguably more dangerous!
Well said. Doesn’t matter about which is more dangerous here in comments, but pointing out that there’s a trade off is likely that lead to better outcomes, and the fear mongers loose.
@@Nill757 well they all do actually if you do your research about it. Once they filter out the radioactive elements (cobalt 60, strontium 90 and caesium 137) all that remains is tritiated water, and the amount of tritium in the water is very little in comparison to what's already in the water naturally.
Good job putting nuclear waste into context against coal fired power plants. So much less waste from nuclear plants and, as you said, we have control over where it goes.
One other reprocessing option is Moltex's WATSS system which should be much cheaper and prevents proliferation concerns since the transuranics are never separated from the Pu.
reprocessing for the win. i guess when people talk about reprocessing, they mostly take in account the cost. but, as any fossil fuel, nuclear fuel is not unlimited and reprocessing allows us to stretch what we have which is more important than economic advantages.
American know-how will save us, they can just use their unwanted waste to make depleted uranium bullets. The waste is safely stored in the vital organs of brown people around the world. Its safe!
I am thinking how sad it is that facts get distorted to a point that an intelligent conversation becomes impossible. With all the innovation. Why can't humans get better at discussing facts and leave emotion at the door.
Perfect video. Thanks! Can you also make a video about potential 4gen reactors like the Molten Salt Reactors and how they could "eat" the waste from the current reactors?
The issue is marginal i comparison to the i practice eternal waste we dump out in the atmosphere. Nuclear waste is very compact. From Swedens total production of over 3500 TWh all waste is in a (one!) pool in Oskarshamn, Sweden, under a normal industrial land (ca 15000 m2) inside a simple net fence. That saved us 300 tons CO2 per capita in Sweden! I fantasize about if the option "carbon capture and storage" from atmosphere was available at this cost, we should build several storages already. - But here (with proper nuclear power plants, not only the waste) we got the energy as a part of it!
Yes, we almost certainly would be better off to use nuclear and deal with the long term waste problem than to continue pumping more carbon into our atmosphere. But, very fortunately for us, we have a much cheaper and even less carbon intensive alternative. And one we can bring online much faster.
If we had a such option, it would have been in use since long so I am not sure you are quite right, there. Those who designed our power systems, matching availability and demand in a delicate balance, have always been highly educated. Til now when we expect "the market" to solve all problems. It will, your option will be extremely cheap, outpricing itself etc. But it will take time. All major leaps since Newcomen has required only about a decade. This time it will take at least three. And the reason is that politics for the first time interfere with qualified, strict engineering problems.
@@johansoderberg9579 Are you suggesting that it will take at least three decades to replace fossil fuel with renewables? That is probably not correct. In the US in 2017 we converted 2% of our grid power from fossil fuels to renewables in the US. (Things slowed down under Trump.) At the moment about 60% of our electricity comes from fossil fuel. If we only doubled our 2017 efforts we could be essentially rid of coal and natural gas on our grids in 15 years. Both the efficiency of solar panels and wind turbines has increased since 2017 we could come close to doubling output with the same amount of labor, materials, and land as was used in 2017. So if we doubled our 2017 efforts we would achieve something more like a 4x increase, getting rid of fossil fuels in less than a decade. It's likely to get very interesting over the next few years. The IRA(Build Back Better) legislation is going to subsidize the cost of wind and solar generation, bringing their cost to utility companies close to zero. And battery prices are also subsidized in addition to getting cheaper. Shouldn't we expect utility companies to hasten their move to almost free energy sources? Either driven by market forces in competitive markets or leaned on by rate setting agencies whose task it is to deliver the least expensive energy to consumers.
It will definitely take more for US than 30 years if you are at 40% renewables now and despite cheap and easy alternatives only advance a few percent per year! Up to 25 %, wind is cheap but above 50% you really struggle. Countries without hydro power will have to change fundamental principles regarding aviability, prices etc for electric power. We have no climate challenge. At all. The challenge is replacing the fossile fuels. Just look how your transport is organized and you have to admit that! Germany who closed all nuclear 2022 and replaced it with Russian gas - that's nothing but a joke! Like the drunkard that declares "I will quit drinking. No more alcohol after 2040 (when I am 95 years old!) But to reach that I have temporarily to increase my alcohol consumption drastically. So, to all of you who feared we will not see each other in the pub, I can assure you: Nothing drastically will happen in the short term!" To match production and demand, not only year by year or month by month or even hour by hour but minute by minute is a demanding task you easily can doctorate on still today. In the same time as total novices in high voices claims that wind and solar will do the trick. I am so tired of this ignorance! Is there any other area in human activity where this is allowed?! Why are they messing up the energy now when the situation actually is as demanding and serious that the girl Greta Thunberg claimed! We have an energy crisis beyond what our modern society has ever experienced before! But people continue to speak about solar and wind and climate change etc! Do what you should, instead! No more, no less!!
This is such a well done and informative video. And one that is sorely needed. When I mention the facts you summed up in your video, people stare at me because they cannot believe their ears. They only know the tales that are spun by the anti-nuclear lobby. The same happens when I tell them that any given coal-fired plant will put out more radioactive pollution in a day, than an NPP in its entire lifespan(!). Videos like yours will help demystify nuclear power and its perceived dangers/pollution. Yes, nuclear can be dangerous if you do not give it the proper respect and care it deserves. However, the oil-/coal-fired plants have caused so much more pollution and casualties, and no one seems to bat an eye over that. As to the nuclear waste. We already have the technology to use most of it. One way is pairing a PWR with the Canadian CANDU. The CANDU can run on the spent fuel from the PWR via the Dupic (Direct Use of spent PWR fuel in CANDU) process which greatly reduces what's left over. China and South Korea have already done successful trial runs with this process. And the EBR-II fast reactor proved not only that it can close the nuclear fuel cycle, it also proved it is inherently safe. During two tests on April 3, 1986, they intentionally tried to cause a meltdown by; shutting off the main circulation pumps while gagging the control rods and automated safety systems; and through robbing the reactor of its means to transfer its heat to the heat exchanger while again intentionally disabling safety systems and control rods. Both times the reactor politely declined, its passive safety features kicked in long before reaching the meltdown threshold. It simply shut itself down, and just kind of sat there, completely unfazed. I'll take that result any day of the week, when it comes to meltdowns.
Coal burners do not synthesize hundreds of new radioactive isotopes not present on Earth before the nuclear age. They emit other types of pollution, sure. But none have created plutonium.
The San Onofre has cost rate payers millions of dollars to keep that stored there. It is part of the reason San Diego has the highest electricity prices in the continental us. These challenges are able to be solved but at very high costs.
They never figure that cost when talking about the fiscal efficiency associated with nuclear energy. Many reactor sites turn into nuclear waste storage sites long after the decommissioning of the plant!
@@YourCapyPal_3DPipes1999 Defects in the steam generators of Units 2 and 3. Not the original steam generators, but the replacements, which lasted three years. Sooner or later all reactors need decommissioning as neutron bombardment degrades the steel of the primary containment vessel. Obviously major replacements and repairs such as the steam loop are very expensive, so permanent decommissioning is a real option that got exercised in this case.
@@garybulwinkle82 there is perfectly good storage plus reprocessing technology available to deal with the spent waste. It's all in my playlist. The facts are simple to understand. When will facts win out of over ignorance regarding this clean form of energy??
@@aaroncosier735 I see. Seems to me replacement couldn't have possibly cost more than permanent decommissioning. Well maybe if PG&E owned it Gavin would have stepped in to provide it generous public subsidy. Between committing mass crimes of negligence and manslaughter against our communities, they know how to buy themselves ironclad political favor. I guess SDGE is a rube compared to the OG PG&E.
The US is clearly making the waste an issue when it is not and never has been a technological problem. From the US Government Accountability website: "The nation has over 85,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. DOE is responsible for disposing of this high-level waste in a permanent geologic repository, but has yet to build such a facility because policymakers have been at an impasse over what to do with this spent fuel since 2010. Meanwhile, the federal government has paid billions of dollars in damages to utilities for failing to dispose of this waste and may potentially have to pay tens of billions of dollars more in coming decades."
@@atomicblender It is not funny, it is democracy. Is the nuclear waste issue the only issue not resolved due to politics, here or elsewhere in the world?
@@atomicblender It's a concerted effort to destroy nuclear energy in the US. Policies of the DOE and NRC along with a half century of misinformation in the media has stalled nuclear energy. The general population thinks the waste is a problem and so has a negative view of nuclear energy along with the connection to the atomic bomb and lack of understanding of radiation in general. If the media had not fear mongered everything nuclear for the last 50 years we would have already had a world full of what today we call next generation reactor designs and would be using a lot less fossil fuels today.
More than 85,000 tonnes. The IAEA report on the status of spent fuel 2022 has the US inventory at 130,000 tonnes. That is based on the 2016 census. plus the 2000 tonnes per year since. Easily 140,000 tonnes this year. 85,000 is roughly the amount in wet storage - cooling pools. And about 55,000 in dry casks. The present fund for geological disposal stands at about 44 Billion. This is less than half the sum required for existing waste. 2010 is when the industry went to court to stop making contributions. One of their arguments was that it made them unviable. I agree. Waste disposal is grossly underfunded, and if the full costs were demonstrated on US soil, it would make the industry unviable.
@@aaroncosier735 Don't waste your time responding to Danna/Kevin debunked. They are old senile pro nuclear fans and that is ok but they spread misinformation and outright lies. They cannot accept facts and even if you provide proof they will continue to spread the same lie that you in fact just debunked.
Need to find room in this video to state a non debatable fact: commercial power spent fuel has never killed anyone, anywhere, ever. Instead leading with “music to scare you”, why not that declaration.
People fall off roofs when installing solar panels and solar panels/batteries would be considered ewaste and deaths are rising from ewaste every year and it would take Japan 19 yrs to reprocess 10k tons of solar panel waste.
Russians are far ahead of everyone, especially with fast neutron and recycling technology. There is a recyclable waste for 400 years of reserve. It means Russia is an energy power house of the world, and adds on oil and gas.
A lot of what people don't understand is that the used fuel pad at these plants is around 1-2 hectares, and these pads are barely 1/3 of the way full even after 50 years of operation at 2GW sights with a >90% capacity factor. Meanwhile the fission naysayers are fine with using thousands of hectares and and dealing with the toxic waste from solar and the batteries that make solar's
I suppose everyone will have their priorities of what they want and don't want, and everyone will say their view is rational. Dedicating land to solar is ok if it matches someone's priorities, but the nice thing about nuclear waste is it's really really small for the energy that's come from it. Cheers!
You should include electronic or call it ewaste because people would probably understand that better than toxic waste. Dont batteries only last 5-10 yrs while panels last 20-30 (although people claim they can last longer but at reduced capacity except the problem with that is "The average age of a vehicle on the road is about 11 years, but most drivers keep a car for about six years." "47% of Americans have lived in their homes for six to 10 years. 35% of homeowners have lived in their homes for 10 to 15 years. 16% have lived in their homes for less than five years. The average length of homeownership years is eight years." People are probably going to replace panels with more efficient ones before 30 yrs (which means that the current panels might not have been paid off) or theyre going to move and will have to replace the panels to make the house more appealing. Considering the amount of land needed for solar and wind and the environmental impact wouldnt it be better for developing countries to use fossil fuels while first world countries go carbon 0. Or what about smrs instead of solar/wind (there are nuclear batteries powering lighthouses. How much stability do you really need for that and if the area is unstable wouldnt the nuclear battery be better since its more compact and easier to protect compared to people can steal solar panels).
The US civilian spent fuel inventory is about 140,000 tonnes. Only about 55,000 tonnes is in casks. 85,000 tonnes is still in cooling pools. If the pads are only 1/3 full, then they will just barely hold the waste that already exists. Can't pat ourselves on the back for a job that isn't finished yet.
@@aaroncosier735 "The U.S., which led the way on managing nuclear waste in the 1980s and 1990s, has now fallen to the back of the pack. About 88,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors remain stranded at reactor sites, and this number is increasing by some 2,000 metric tons each year." And you didnt read the original comment that talked about how solar and wind will have more waste (by 2050 its expected there will be 78 million tons of waste from solar panels. Over 50 yrs from around the world theres only 250k tons of nuclear waste. It would take Japan 19 yrs to reprocess 10k tons of solar panels. All 250k tons of nuclear waste could fit in 1-2 football stadiums).
@@namename9998 The IAEA report on the staus of Spent Nuclear Fuel Puts the US inventory at over 140,000 tonnes. That's the 2022 report. Over 80,000 in pools, and over 50,000 in casks. It's *all* stranded. They have no facility to take it. The Global total is over 400,000 tonnes, with some uncertainty because Russia, North Korea etc are not fully forthcoming with data, but that is the IAEA best estimate. Do you really think the *weight* of the waste is the problem? See, you could have a stack of old solar panels under your bed, your whole life, in safety. But a few grams of spent fuel in the same spot would kill you in one nights sleep. So different approaches are required. It is not actually practical to put the world's spent fuel in a football field. You have to space it out quite a bit more than that. That is why proposals for disposal facilities involve many miles of tunnels and careful calculation of volumes to ensure heat removal is adequate. By all means, demonstrate how easy it is by getting the job done, then hit the beers.
Nuclear waste is already solved, just not worth to do something about it yet so we store it instead. I think the day will come when it becomes worth it.
Shooting a radioactive material containment cask, to prove its durability and integrity after an extreme circumstance is American af and reminds me of the following: The man who invented the modern ballistic vest, demonstrated its durability and effectiveness at stopping a bullet by shooting himself. This intrepid American not only survived as the bullet did not penetrate the vest, but he was also able to promote and sell them to police departments.
I like the idea of consuming spend fuel in a liquid fuel reactor until it becomes lead. At that point, you have extracted every joule of energy from the fuel.
Lead is a far endpoint, thousands of years away. All these proposed reactors still produce fission products, and those products do not contribute greatly to final output. They do contribute to waste heat and storage costs.
@@aaroncosier735 Every isotope does not end up as lead. You are referring to the Uranium decay cycle. However you are correct in that Pu239 is the major spent fuel concern, does end up as lead in its decay chain, and will take ~160,000 years to decrease to less than 1% of the original mass
@@clarkkent9080 First, that is the endpoint specified by Rick Tan above. Sure, Neptunium can end up as Bismuth. The point here is that Rick imagines this decay chain delivers useful heat, which it does not. The decay of all the fission products also produces waste heat, which is a burden, not a benefit.
Hey, really great video, I really want to get more into the topic of nuclear energy and wanted to ask if you could recommend some good books or other information sources? Should be quite recent, not too technical and should cover both reactor designs and the correct state of the industry and (geo)politics around it.
Thanks for the comment! Unfortunately, I don't have any recent books I can recommend as I haven't read exactly what you're talking about. I (somewhat) recently read "Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator" (it was mehhh ok) and am currently going through "Montreal and the Bomb" which is a really interesting take on a known story from an unexpected perspective. But I'm sure plenty of people here in the comments could direct you to something useful.
He said 97% can be recycled.. Yeah they need to make them do that. It seems stupid that no one has stepped up to do that.." I'll take your waste and sell you some too" That is a brilliant business idea.
Nature has a built-in safety mechanism in radioactive materials. Things which are radioactive for long times are more mildly active whereas things which are radioactive for short periods of time are more radioactive.
For me, this video proves three things: 1) We still haven't come up with a real, definitive solution for a very real problem, which is nuclear waste. 2) People are easily lulled into a false sense of security if you throw enough straw-man arguments at them. 3) Statistics is still the ultimate form of ignoring problems while still feeling smart about yourself.
What I have been reading says that Gen 2 (current/past) reactors burn 5% of the uranium and Gen 3 and 4 reactors can burn 95% of that 95%! Additionally the resultant waste has a relatively short half life.
I was and am still mad about the closure of the Sellafield reprocessing facility in the UK. I am aso mad about the decades of disinterest in nuclear, resulting in a dearth of new nuclear plants, nuclear engineers and nuclear long-term plans in the UK.
I chose to use the spent nuclear fuel with the new breed of reactors, for example, Russia's bn800 fast reactor. The conventional nuclear reactor generates spent fuel and a reactor like the bn800 fast reactor is loaded with this spent nuclear fuel. This creates a nuclear waste cycle where we don't have to worry about nuclear waste at all. If feasible, we should build SMRs and micro-nuclear reactors to use spent nuclear fuel.
The radiation problem is self-fixing. Radiation won't be an issue when there is no more life on the planet, which radiation will ultimately make happen.
Recycling nuclear waste, then storing the remaining waste deep underground, in bore holes, backfilled with concrete, seems the best solution. Energy analysts predict SMR’s will play a major role in future power supply, providing 20-30% of all power, with solar, wind and hydro making up 70-80% of our power generation. EV’s will take over transportation over the coming 2 decades, with over 90% of li-on batteries being able to be recycled, offering continuous loop energy, storage and transportation.
The current cost of nuclear electricity is about $0.15/kWh. The current cost of wind and solar electricity is about $0.03/kWh. The cost of storing wind/solar to make it 24/365 reliable is dropping extremely rapidly. Why would you want to add in 5x more expensive supplies?
I never understood what is there to "solve"? It's a dangerous material with potential industrial uses. The "solution" as with any other industrial product is to be careful with it, and possibly try not to eat it or anything like that. It's not that difficult.
My gut feeling is that fission nuclear power stations producing these type of radioactive waste will eventually be replaced by fusion power stations within the next 50 years or so - an educated and rather pessimistic timeline guess. Fusion reactors produce very little radioactive waste and are inherently less dangerous to operate. In addition to publicly funded fusion projects like ITER (Cadarache), JET (Culham) and Stellarator (Greifswald), the R&D of fusion reactors today by so many private companies is mind-boggling. This very legitimate nagging problem of the fission waste disposal must be designed away once and for all.
I'm not an expert, but I got the impression that fast neutron reactors are simply more expensive and more difficult to build. Russia has spent decades bringing this technology to a competitive level, i.e. Russia in this field as ASML in microelectronics. There is only one difference. ASML has no alternatives, and there are a lot of them in the production of electricity. At the same time, even now the cost of electricity, produced by fast breeders, is higher. In general, it is difficult to find information on the cost of a kWh, even in Russian. I tried about a year ago, but found only fragmentary information from which I made an estimate that the cost of energy was about 20% higher compared to traditional nuclear power plants. It is not a big differens and clear that this is just one of the parameters, but it is obvious that fast neutron reactors do not promise any breakthrough results, and it requires a lot of work and finances, so other countries do not want to invest in this technology.
Water does NOT last 10,000 yrs, it is the useful fuel that lasts that long, thus needs to be recycled into reactors, not wasted into the ground. Waste lasts less than 300 years before it is less radioactive than uranium ore, less time to be lower radioactivity than thorium ore.
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. Time taken in stocking energy to build an energy system, adding to it the time taken in building the system will always be longer than the entire useful lifetime of the system. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future".
Those casks were easily penetrated by DU (U-238) - tipped missiles. It was done many years ago in tests at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland.
At a certain point, public utilities can't be expected to handle what is fundamentally a national security issue. Do you demand nuclear plants have anti-air missile batteries??
@@Nill757 The point was to see if these specialized hardened casks could be breached, penetrated, which would release radionuclides into the environment - a safety test. So the army was contracted to do the tests. High level waste dry storage areas (and pool-type ones) at nuclear station are very vulnerable to criminal and/or terrorist explosive attack. It would create a "dirty bomb" scenario on site, which is usually close to a major city. Armed drone attacks are now a very real threat....as demonstrated in the current Ukraine/Russia war
@@davidgeary490 Comic book nonsense. Doesn’t matter who fired at the thing. Depleted U rounds also “release radionuclides into the environment.” Does that make each round a “dirty bomb”?
@@Nill757 Yes it actually does - hence all the radioactive contamination in Iraq after the US used DU tipped anti-tank munitions. Their fiery pyrophoric explosions helped spread the radiation. If the high level nuclear waste casks were full (not empty during these tests) than the fission products in fuel rods within would also be released into the air....as well as the U238 (and its progeny). The Aberdeen Proving Grounds is indeed a heavily contaminated area...from all kinds of different munitions tests. There's a good Wiki entry on it.
one thing you forgot is economies of scale for recycling. as more and more nuclear waste is accumulated it becomes more economical to recycle as it sits around cooling off. Both Japanese and French have good programs
@@markrobinowitz8473 many in pro nuclear power groups feel antinuclear sentiment comes from groups which support what you propose and thus anything nuclear gets lumped in with that theory. are you ready to go back to a level of living standard which is preindustrial revolution? there was a proposal after WWII to totally deindustrialize germany to the point where even people with tech skills would all be dispersed and germainies economy would have been no more advanced than simple agrarian culture and an estimated 25,000,000 would have dies. . so what modern NGO's support your assertion? I think it's abvious.
There is no economy of scale for disposal. Recycling is limited by the batch size, which is limited by the critical mass. Chemical separations of metals, such as in the PurEx process require near-precipitating concentrations. Interestingly, plutonium has a much smaller critical mass in solution than as a metal. To process more, you cannot just make the vessels bigger, you need more separate lines. No economy of scale. The French reprocessing programme has only processed one third of all their waste, and is falling further behind. Their power costs more than twice the global average, and would cost more again if reprocessing was expanded to match actual waste production. Recycling ONCE, to make MOX fuel is probably feasible if half the costs are subsidised. How will you recycle it further? The accumulation of U236 and U232 in plutonium-rich MOX fuel is no joke, and requires additional shielding and lockstep timetables to prevent further U232 accumulation. The longer the waste sits, the less benefit. Even in final geological disposal, the density of storage is determined by the heat generation. There are minimum volumes of rock around a given container of waste. You can't stuff more in, you have to space it out no matter what. No economy of scale.
Doesn't U238, U235, Th232 and PU339 all fission in the fast neutron side of the spectrum? Just burn it up in a fast reactor. And you will be left with hazardous waste for 300 years. As opposed to 100,000 years.
Highly radioactive elements decay fast. The stuff that lasts for a very long time does not and isn't dangerous- it might be poisonous though like a lot of things. I don't know why people can't understand this.
This position depends on two things: separating the highly radiating waste from the long-lived ones, and then actually disposing of both. Presently, most Spent Fuel remains unseparated. Virtually all of US civilian waste, and about two thirds of French of Canadian spent fuel. None at all has been placed in permanent disposal. Used MOX fuel has some extra problems. so the distinction between short-lived and long-lived gets a bit less easy. What we understand is that nothing much has been done.
6:33 why not to use this warmth for heating of buildings, by using of district heating systems, at least in winter? Or generate electricity with Kalina cycle? But the best way of course could be, to bombard the stuff with particle accelerator, to remouve the energy of it faster and neutralize radioactivity.
Good informative work! It is rare situation to have, when not doing anything with waste material is actually quite good solution (it wouldn't be truth with many chemical waste materials, massive coal ash heaps etc). There is no hurry, HLW is getting safer with every passing year (less heat generated, so only easier to deal with in the future).
It's a great route, but has a number of technical challenges. There have been several attempts to make breeder reactors work commercially (look up TerraPower or thorium reactors and some others), but so far nothing on a large scale.
@@atomicblender not in the US, because our govt POSs refuse to publicly fund the nuclear industry. But if they did, then that would be less of a factor, would it not? I mean having to provide a big fat ROI for investors on something that should be a public utility is going to put an unnecessary strangehold on progress. At first, a newer process or a technology might not be super affordable right out of the gate, but even so, as with anything, over time, costs come down. I think it's clear that until the govt starts helping, nuclear progress here will be slow, which I'm sure is what they want. I mean let's be real - who do both parties kneel to? Oil and gas. They aren't in the job to look to the future - they're in it to get rich. That's their agenda, nothing else.
The problem with breeder reactors is that neutrons used to breed new fuel are not available for fission and power production, so less efficient. Then you need a special reprocessing facility to separate the bred fuel from all the other nasties...all very expensive when virgin fuel is much less costly. Simple economics
@@clarkkent9080 it may cost more at least right now, but it's clearly the way to go to reuse almost all of previously used fuel so it doesn't need to be stored. And it produces energy. It's like getting twice the mileage out of the same tank of gas. It's a brilliant elegant solution to the issue of nuclear waste.
@@YourCapyPal_3DPipes1999 Well, the people that have to spend that money right now and are actually educated experts in the subject are not only not doing it but not interested in it in the future. That is what you call logic and not something you find on YT videos or social media. BTW, I would not depend on the government throwing money at it as one party already wants to keep you working till age 70 when they will give you less SS. The printing money spree is coming to an end and you along with every other person owes $98,000 of the debit. Enjoy reality
I work at Permafix and low level rad will fuck u up if you’re not carful eveything that is said to be low level turns to high level once it’s disturbed
Crazy idea that Elon Musk would love: send the waste into space, particularly towards the sun. Again, crazy idea, but I feel like it could be a viable option. Let the insults begin.
100 tons? That's it? Not 100,000 or 100M but just 100 tons? That's absolutely trivial. You could get all of that in *one* waste disposal facility in the middle of bumfuk nowhere in the US midwest or Siberia for the next century.
Thorium reactors can use spent nuclear fuel. 10,000 years down to 500 years due to the efficiency models of thorium molten salt reactors. Furthermore, batteries with new developments for safe use can be made to reduce spent nuclear fuel from 500 years to total depletion.
nuclear waste? - difficult job well done! Next: please make a video about the Integral Fast Reactor''s closed fuel cycle, then MSR's closed pyrochemical fuel cycle.
After seeing this very informative vid it's obvious the title is deceptive and at best partially correct...the real answer is "Hell No! not for hundreds of thousands of years". This toxicity is wayyyyy too expensive as well!! At best this is a transitional technology at this time.
Hanford has huge underground storage. During a turnaround, they would flush the core, creating several gallons of high level waste. Don't new reactors require the same maintenance?
No. First, Hanford (a military Pu-239 factory) was turned around on the order of weeks. Civilian NPPs 'turnaround' every 2-3 years. Second, the materials technology is much different in a 1960s-1980s civilian NPP production complex than Hanford, which was a big 1940s science experiment. Third, unlike the Hanford reactors, there aren't that many moving parts (which might break away or create debris). Lastly, any water radioactivity is mostly from tritium, which decays relatively quickly.
The term "spent fuel" is misleading, when in reality it the uranium that a inefficient reactor can't brun, wouldn't it make more sense to burn that uranium in more efficient reactor like a Molten Salt Reactor in the first place.
Even if we built one single fast reactor under heavy guard and operated under tight control, for the sole purpose of burning nuclear waste and throwing away the energy, even at great expense, we'd still be solving the problem completely. It's pretty wild that we just don't.
Even Germany is rethinking shutting down its last reactors. The cost of doing so just smacked them in the head. Nuclear must be on the table as a non-carbon emitting baseline source for the forseeable future. Modern modular, scalable and standardized plant designs can provide clean energy for millions and millions of people with much less accident risk and cost than large plants.
“Dry storage is temporary solution” So you say. No reason to not leave those concrete cans there forever. The oldest ones have already lost 90% of their reactivity. The concrete can is not structural, so it’s good for several centuries, all while the radioactivity continues to fade. This random, ‘that way is safe, this way is not’ list of assertions is not helpful.
Over centuries, deterioration of the casks could lead to the release of dangerous material over time, if not actively maintained, plus, you might want to use the land for something else. It's still a temporary solution, even if "temporary" means 100 years or more. Deep geologic storage means we basically never have to worry about that waste again.
@@techmage89 “dangerous material” That’s just arbitrary. How about your car, is it “dangerous material”? effluent in your sewer pipe, tanker cars carrying chemicals going down the tracks everywhere? “Centuries from now”, as you say, over 95% of the radiation in a can is gone. It’s a solid, it’s not green goo that can seep or flow, ever.
@@Nill757 Well, yes, the decay chains are pretty complicated, (uranium involves 17 elements) and until around thousands of years have passed there's still enough radioactive isotopes to be potentially dangerous. You still don't want that stuff leaking out into your water supply (which can happen if, for example, rainwater seeps into cracks in concrete and rusts through metal) so either active maintenance or stable storage is required, and in the long term, the latter is probably cheaper.
@@techmage89 “you don’t want … seeping “ Yes I know the uranium decay chain. You must know there’s uranium in the rocks in your backyard which is decaying, there’s some 4 billion tons uranium dissolved in the oceans and decaying, and has been since there were oceans. I get it if you have five friends whatever been telling you, “you don’t want that stuff seeping…”, but I’m not buying some special boogey man danger about the “stuff”.
@@techmage89 Except "After soil contamination, heavy metals from e-waste, such as mercury, lithium, lead and barium, then leak through the earth even further to reach groundwater. When these heavy metals reach groundwater, they eventually make their way into ponds, streams, rivers and lakes." "“With mounting volumes of production and disposal, the world faces what one recent international forum described as a mounting “tsunami of e-waste”, putting lives and health at risk.” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "In the same way the world has rallied to protect the seas and their ecosystems from plastic and microplastic pollution, we need to rally to protect our most valuable resource -the health of our children - from the growing threat of e-waste.” As many as 12.9 million women are working in the informal waste sector, which potentially exposes them to toxic e-waste and puts them and their unborn children at risk." "The researchers said only about 5% of used lithium-ion batteries are currently recycled in the United States today." (Princeton 2022) Youre so concerned about a non issue (nuclear waste) that youre ignoring the obvious one that the public is raving about (solar panels and battery waste).
Some Fission products can be used in Radioisotope thermoelectrical generation, or in beta voltaics. Although these produce a tiny amount of power, they can do so over decades or centuries up to millions of years. They would be indispensable for inter Stella space travel.
@@Zurvan101 Technically yes. But just like household waste could be 100% reused, recycled, repurposed there is a cost and in a capitalists' society if you can't make money from it it is not done. And I don't think the government can afford it as one party wants to cut my SS and Medicare that I already paid for. At some point the free money government must exhibit self control.
@@Zurvan101 BTW the Pu238 that is made for space probes does not come from spent fuel since it is not found in any significant quantities in spent fuel.
@@clarkkent9080 you're still missing the point. Many fission products can be used for generating electricity and they have the added bonus of using those products, as opposed to counting them as waste. Not only that but many have a much longer half life the pu 238. Voyager 1 & 2 are already in partial shutdown because their fuel has been spent.
At 4:40 Why do you switch to volume measures when it comes to nuclear waste while using weight your other comparisons? 2 m2 of Uranium are 19 metric tonnes. That would allow a comparison If you want to show the overwhelming amounts coal power plant produces in comparison to a nuclear plant. Wouodvit not be better to use weights or volumes in both cases?
I'm 100% pro nuclear but I dont think conventional designs like GE's SMR is good for nuclear long term, LWR & NaK reactors being marketed as something new when we have designs that are safer and cheaper seems like entrenched industry hubris
Give me 5 gallons. I'll store it in my balcony closet and the closet next to my parking space, next to the old paint, motor oil and old broken golf clubs 😸.
Not even remotely. You may be thinking of the liquid High Level Waste that results from reprocessing of spent fuel, principally Caesium and strontium, and decay products. You may also be applying a rough rule of thumb (ten half-lives) which is used for small quantities of material with short half-lives such as those used in biological research and medical applications. However, in Spent Nuclear Fuel, there are also transuranic bombardment products that will remain radioactive for thousands of years, at much higher activity than the original ore. Reprocessed waste is hardly a useful benchmark, as France has only processed about a third of their spent fuel, and the US has reprocessed about 1%, none at all since the seventies.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk Not many reprocess in great quantity, and none keep pace with waste production. Only a small fraction of spent fuel has ever been reprocessed, either for waste or for re-use.
The recycling of fuel. How does it compare to mining new? That has to be a factor as well. And to my knowledge we don't have enough uranium for all eternity. So getting as much as possible out of what we get is probably the wise decision
It baffles me. Even tho Society is struggling, We are yet to even attempt to implement: "The concept around: The better off the lowest income living people are doing; The better the entire rest of our countries economy could be doing." -Think of it like a ecosystem in nature. The least important little things might seem meaningless and insignificant yet, if they crumbled away, the entire ecosystem would crumble. The last things remaining would be the top diverse predators that eat everything else.. until they eat each other.. leaving just a few top sharks in the ecosystem.. the whales would all be gone once the plankton crumble away, the sharks would eat the whales. Then once all that's left is sharks, the sharks would eat the sharks. *(Think of this but as a analogy for our economy and our modern day society..) If we instead decided to support the lowest people in the ecosystem, there would be a beneficial systematic dispersion towards other aspects of society benefiting. All because the lowest people would be flourishing. I say flourish but I really just mean, able to obtain the most basic essential living standards... Yet even that would Vastly improve our current state of our economy & society *Also imagine this analogy in our economy. The more help we invest in the lowest level people, the more it would trickle into every facet of our economy. If poor people can pay their rent & not go homeless: landlords would get $, businesses would get $, banks would get $, local small shops would get $, mortgages & bills could be paid, insurance companies would get $, Taxes would get $, So essentially that $ would go out & filter right back in to improve our Country while simultaneously improving our quality of Life. Every bit of the economy would somehow find a way to benefit off of this situation... I don't get why we haven't even Given it a chance?? If it doesn't help? Then by all means stop it and figure out what problems we could be facing might be one's that run way deeper than expected and that would take drastic changes to improve that situation... (I hope we TRY something soon, before things get any more unstable. The worst thing we could do is continue on doing exactly what we are currently doing. It might get to a point where overcoming our struggles could simply become a pipedream. I don't want it to get to that)
I don't know why we are concerned with the many years that nuclear waste will be around as some climate hysterics tell us we'll be dead in 12 years anyway. Sorry I couldn't resist jabbing the folks that cry about climate change but want nothing to do with one available, carbon neutral, scalable and reliable energy source.
Just retweeted by Elon Musk on Time interview: J. Robert Oppenheimer's grandson: "We must get over our cognitive and political bias: Nuclear energy is necessary and safe, and not the same as nuclear weapons"
they can launch the nuclear waste in lead capsules like they launch satellites into space and then propel them in the trajectory where they would eventually collide with the sun and disintegrate,since there is no gravity or air resistance in space.....the capsules do not require constant propulsion to maintain its speed or momentum.
There is no radiation from dry cask storage above background radiation levels. Concrete and steel reduce it a million fold. Concrete and steel are not activated by decay radiation (alpha beta gamma) either.
Please realize that there is no such thing as high-level nuclear "waste": there is only wasted fuel. Water cooled reactors only burn about 4 percent of the potential fuel put into them, some--not all--of the U-235 in the mix. The U-238 and minor actinides, 96 percent of the fuel, are the "waste." But "fast" reactors, producing fast, un-moderated (slowed) neutrons, can burn all of that, leaving far less waste, mostly reaction products that are safe after around 300 years instead of millions. Fusion is going to fly, sooner or later. Until then we need concentrated baseload power to compliment renewables. Burning wastes in fast fission reactors--helium cooled and molten salt; I don't quite trust reactors cooled with explosively flammable molten sodium, but we might need some to breed enough fissiles (more easily reacted) to "start-up" waste burners--we should already have plenty of fissionables out of the ground to get us by until fusion flies, with no need to ever dig up another Native American reservation for uranium. I've read that we have more than 80,000 tons of high-level waste stored in casks in the U.S., 300,000 tons worldwide. That aughta get us by. Meanwhile the obstructionist NRC says they intend to have rules in place for the operation of fast reactors--30 to 50 years from now. If climate change renders humans extinct, it will be because collectively we are too frackin' stupid to survive.
Oops. NRC mean sto have regulation in place for molten salt reactors in another 30 years, when we nned them now, not fast reactors. Bet those will be dragged out even longer.
For more on long term geologic storage watch one of my favorite documentaries: Into Eternity. It asks one important question once the facility is at capacity, what should be done? Should we warn future generations about it, or endeavour to forget it? If it's the former how should we warn them? To put it in perspective 100,000 years in the past we were living in caves. 100,000 years hence humans as we know them may not exist. If we chose the latter, could that not be classed as negligence? The thing is, the materials (such as copper) that make up the casks are highly valuable. What's to stop ignorant prospectors attempting to get that stuff? So, we look at warnings, assuming they are correctly interpreted would they actually have a perverse result of inviting intrusion? The Pyramids of Giza had curses and warnings against intrusion and they were violated. And that's only around 5,000 years ago. Anyway watch it, great documentary.
@@ForbiddTV Oklo in Gabon is a fascinating natural phenomena. With very specific conditions that allow for self moderation and shows that nothing new is under the Sun... However, the situation is very different. Oklo had a neutron moderator on tap, geologic storage doesn't (especially if someone inadvertently compromises the casks). When Oklo was reacting, it probably had a quite high radiation output. While a quite high amount of Uraninite exists it's now not enough to sustain a reaction. The materials in geologic storage are highly processed and extremely radioactive. And likely will be for the best part of around 100,000 years. So, I probably wouldn't want to have been in caves 2,000,000,000 years ago either.
One detail left out is that after only 10.000 years, the waste’s radioactivity is back to that of the original ore that was extracted.
Which then raises the question of whether it is fair to require isolation for a million years.
Especially when unbeknownst to most, there already are (hundreds of) thousands of tons of uranium and other unstable isotopes beneath our feet in as small a radius as 10 kilometers down to the several 100s of meters of depth that we want our deep geological respository to be.
But considering the negligible cost per kilowatt-hour, the price of buying just a feeling of safety for the general public to gain their acceptance for the technology is a fair trade-off.
The argument is based on the bombardment products of uranium. Having made a mixture of neutron-absorbing transuranics, and a much greater amount of neutron emitting fission products, Spent fuel will continue to self-bombard. It will self-generate transuranics with biological impacts at much higher levels than the original ore. Hence the recommendation for 100s of thousands of years, but remember, this is for simple, unreprocessed spent fuel. The majority of spent nuclear fuel, globally, is still unprocessed.
This could be avoided if nuclear nations had a real commitment to reprocessing spent fuel and separating the different components.
The bulk of fission products are short lived: the Iodine has a half life of two weeks, the caesium has a half life of thirty years. This requires disposal facilities that lasted a thousand years or so, preferably ten to accommodate some of the decay daughters. The reprocessing is expensive, but shortens the period in which the facility has to be secure.
The transuranics like Americium are a small fraction, and while their disposal facility needs to last an awesomely long time, it can be relatively small. Deep boreholes might conceivably suffice, or selected deeper or hardened regions within a larger disposal site.
We are not worried about natural uranium because it doesn't radiate much. You could keep it under your bed. Reactor waste contains unnaturally high levels isotopes and elements that do not exist in nature because they are produced incredibly slowly in natural ore.
Reprocessing for disposal, or just simple disposal is a real cost. Sadly, the nuclear industry does not want to pay it, nor do national governments. Until that cost is met, and until good faith is won by disposing of the present waste stockpile There will be little trust.
Uhm if we recycle it over. And over. It would be less than 1000 years for instance 200
Which is probably why the requirement in Germany is to store safely for 10'000 years. (In salt mines I believe.) However, you are not going to have some insane nuclear disaster if storage fails in a couple of hundred years. It's not yet down to the original level, but it's not hugely dangerous to living things. Considering there are lots of churches, bridges - not to mention pyramids -that are surface constructions, and are still in use after +1'000 years, it actually seems pretty unlikely that we wouldn't be able to construct a simple underground storage, that will last some thousand years.
That's assuming you really want to burry such actually valuable material. In any case, waiting another hundred years to decide what to do, isn't a big thing. I't would be rather annoying if people had to start excavating the material as a mining operation, because using the remaining 97% of the energy in the material has become technically simple.
In Sweden, where I live, the requirement is safe storage for 100'000 years, which is obviously a politically motivated thing. For one, Swedish used fuel is obviously not 10 times more dangerous than German. Secondly, it has nothing to do with hazards to living creatures or plants.
and measuring in volumes NOT Curies .....? 1 gr of Plutonium = 1 Curie = 37 000 000 000 becquerels
Use it in breeder reactors.
I like it!
I know only 3 functioning breeder reactors : russian BN-600, BN-800 and Chinese BN-20.
But, proliferation😂
@@user-cy1zk4dp3gThe UK (UKAEA) operated a Fast Breeder. We were also working on Fusion reactors, I worked on JET.
@@peteyflynnAnyone who thinks of a breeder reactor as a problem for proliferation is an idiot, remember that there are countries that are not in the non-proliferation treaty, and if a country wants to build an atomic bomb it doesn't even need a breeder reactor, if a country wants atomic bomb he builds and no one can stop it, see North Korea.
please make a video about the forgotten soviet nuclear project.
1. the Soviet Union's plan to produce 50% of nuclear energy by the year 2000
2.such as a special nuclear reactor for water distillation (BN-350)
3.rectangular nuclear reactor (RBMKP-2400)
4. construction of nuclear reactors in remote, and dangerous areas (Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant EGP-6)
5.floating nuclear power plant (Academic Lomonosov)
6.construction plan AST-500 nuclear reactor.which aims to produce hot water for housing and industry. Soviet plant to built in 35 cities to replacing coal-fired central water heaters
7.the world's only active nuclear powered cargo ship (Sevmorput)
Great video, thanks from France ! I recognised some of the nuclear plants used in this video, as I worked in those. I'll share this with my colleagues to raise awareness among the public.
As a German, I'm really jealous of your nuclear power plants, it's incredible what we're planning here in Germany.
@@kairomon4344 what you mean planning, you guys already nuked yourself with shutting them down.
Can i ask why my eastern neighbours are so scared of nuclear power? 3 mile? Chernobyl? Fukushima? Like from all 3 there are things to learn.
1 thing at most: don't use water cooling. In reactor.
2 don't go the cheap way, Chernobyl and 3mile are the products of going cheap, 3 mile could've been a bigger problem of there wasn't an whistleblower. There where more, but those where offed.
3 make sure you always have brains at the plant. To take control IF it goes wrong. When politics are in play, stupid decisions are being made.
Like i know i don't have to tell you this. But this is what I've found. Because when this gets together it's going to be a mess. That's why I'm happy with the move forward to suspend the fuel in salt, or lead.
But truly what made you guys cancel nuclear? I'm really curious 🧐
@@RedRingOfDead Here in Germany there is a very strong lobby that works against nuclear power, the fake studies then appear on television and present the fake studies in the media, we are told that wind and sun are the cheapest and nuclear power costs 42 cents per kilowatt hour it's amazing how they do it. They even call you a Nazi if you say you support nuclear energy.😮💨
@@RedRingOfDead
The word "nuclear" is immediately equitable to nuclear weapons.
And some dipshit people are so scared of nuclear weapons that they want anything and everything that has any resemblance or anything to do with nuclear things that is must be banned.
@@RedRingOfDead
Hang on. French reactors were shut down due to heat pollution of the natural bodies of cooling water.
These are totally reasonable environmental precautions that would apply equally to any industry.
If cooling water will be limited in the future, then nuclear reactors will reasonably have to make provision or be prepared to shut down.
How do you propose to avoid using water for cooling?
"brains at the plant"? so if the cooling water was getting too warm, how would your "brains" propose to keep the reactor running? Heat dissipation is a limitation for almost any engineered device, from a train bearing to a CPU to a reactor.
Great video with good joke at the beginning, he almost got me :) My country used to export high level waste to Russia until politicians decided doing nothing is better than paying very low Russian prices in 90's. I would add Russia did reprocess spent fuel at Mayak years before BN-800 went critical, finding exact timelines in texts saturated with reports about accidents turned to be impossible for me.
If USA is really, really serious about building fast reactor this time (we know the story about Gates's promises for msr, then "cigarette with digitally aided reshuffling", two name changes for what is 50 years old fast breeder tech, etc), we should stop burying precious spent fuel because 97% reduction in waste due to reprocessing in this type of reactors would pretty much make problem go away.
Low and mid level waste can be stored in my garden, they are welcome.
Thanks! Reprocessing seems to come and go in various places, and the Russians really are good technically. In my humble opinion, better efforts at fast reactors are a better option. The US still seems somewhat stuck on making more substantial advancements policy-wise and they're going to get left behind if there are no changes.
@@atomicblender Finding good information about Russian civilian nuclear program has always been very hard for some reason, despite being good example. I know a lot more about very impressive Chinese program because they are working in several directions like developing MSR run on thorium cycle. I believe their work ethics, a lot more newly educated engineers each years and other factors will help them succeed within given time frame.
Problem in the US seems to be lack of government funding for this technology. I don't know how French do it but China and Russia have it backed by the government for reasons you explained very well.
I'm really happy for finding your channel because lack of real action bothers me a lot, thank you for making videos.
What westerners consider waist Russians think as free fuel for their new reactors for next 3000 years
@@atomicblender " by political reason" tell me about . Americans and Europeans are buying nuclear fuel right now from Russia by a political reason too?
And the joke is❓
Great video but a couple things to point out.
About those advanced reactors or Fast reactors, it's not the coolant but the lack of a moderator that distinguishes them. The reason a water cooled reactor can't be a fast reactor is water is also a moderator. So you could have a lead or salt cooled reactor moderated with graphite or heavy water.
It's also not exactly correct that fast reactors are more efficient. They consume their fuel more quickly but they use up the fuel more completly to the point they don't leave long lived high level waste. There is still some waste but it's much shorter lived. That's why Deep Isolation is working with Oklo. Oklo has a fast microreactor & is also handling the DoE's current recycling project. The idea being any leftovers can be buried in Deep Isolation borehole repositories.
Thankfully it's no longer illegal to recycle used fuel but due to expense & politics it hasn't been done in the US. Recycled fuel like MOX does cost more & natural uranium is cheap so some kind of incentive to use recycled fuel would be helpful.
Russia's BN-800 was loaded with recycled fuel last year which is huge although the war in Ukraine has made it harder to get info on.
Fair points and thanks for the clarifications. I couldn't find anything concrete for the Russian reactor being loaded with spent fuel so I left it as is.
I'm not optimistic about Aurora and Oklo. It seems to me to be a case of having some VC money but not a lot of technical experience. I hope they can figure it out, it's a nice concept.
@@atomicblender I think Oklo can get it done but the NRC is more difficult than needed imo but there are other non-water reactors I'm more interested in like Westinghouse's LFR, Natrium & Terrestrial's MSR. TBH, I'm a bit of a liquid metal reactor fan over MSRs & especially HTGRs
@@thearisen7301 which one of those can use thorium?
@@YourCapyPal_3DPipes1999 They're all uranium fueled & tbh I prefer uranium. Most of the advantages people attribute to thorium are advantages of MSRs which of course can be fueled with uranium as well but of course there are differences. Uranium based reactors are just as safe as thorium but the uranium supply chain is well established while thorium's is pretty much in it's infancy.
I really like Westinghouse's LFR because it's basically a better Natrium due to power output & being lead cooled, it's neutron economy will be better than a fast MSR's. Natrium uses sodium which reacts with water. They both have their own integrated thermal storage which improves their economics & flexibity. There is also Leadcold, a Swedish company whose lead cooled SMR is fueled for the life of the reactor which is swapped out like a giant light bulb.
Terrestrial's MSR is the most developed & closest to being ready while not trying to do too much. It's a thermal, not fast, reactor that has a graphite moderator. Still has high fuel utilization though.
The problem is that generating nuclear waste doesn't carry a cost. If it did then recycling fuel could be cheaper than using new uranium.
Canada's heavy water moderated CANDU can use natural U, Pu, and Th as well as spent fuel. On top of that, it can REFUEL WHILE RUNNING. China actually purchased a CANDU to take waste from their other reactors, without worry of further nuclear proliferation concerns. CANDU reactor designs have been around since 1974. They provide 50% all the electrical power of Canada's largest province (Ontario) which is where 40% of Canada's GDP is generated.
Instead of air cooling the dry casts, they could heat water for home heating. Or nuclear waste could be used as atomic batteries.
I vaguely recall some suggestions once in a while that the decay heat of spent fuel be used for low-power power applications. I think as soon as it's clearly "nuclear waste" then it tends to get abandoned...
Yeah, or greenhouses. But you know it is radioactive heat and that must be bad. You can buy a health amulet in mail order that emits dangerous levels of gamma radiation, but hot water from a nuclear power plant is not acceptable!
There is no cure against stupidity.
Send it to China as a requirement of doing business here. C
@@sargentsakto9236 well, if the liquid salt thorium reactor works, they may take that in, because in that reactor type you can produce energy from the highly radioactive waste and turn them in to shorter lived and less radioactive substances. You can be sure that China would not miss a business opportunity like that. 😂
Nuclear material proliferation risk would be too big. There has already been cases of medical nuclear sources ending up with scrap merchants and so on. Meaning even completely passively safe dry casking needs *guarding* . not for the cask failing on it's own, but as said scrap merchant or scavenger actively coming to dismantle the cask in search of valuable materials to sell. Not understand the risk they put themselves and others.
Heck Soviet union did use remote unguarded nuclear thermoelectric batteries to power remote light houses.... the sources ended up being stolen and having to be hunted for by authorities. Even in middle of nowhere arctic coast.
Which means any storage there is on surface will need active guarding and thus needs to happen in limited number of manageable sites. Not at everyone's backyard.
Same will be problem with small modular reactors. Any reactor no matter how small will need 24/7 oversight to account for *active attempts to interfere* .
Even the biggest steel reinforced concrete cask will fall to enough jack hammers and cutting torches.
I guess you could make a power plant out of the casks, but probably pretty in efficient. I think some of the cooling pools do in fact have heat capture and scavenging systems.
Most existing reactors (Light Water Reactors: LWR’s) consume less that 2% of the fissile fuel before the transuranics in the solid fuel pellets prevent further fission. It’s this unconsumed fissile material that has to be stored for 10,000 years.
Forth generation burner and breeder reactors (Like Molten Salt Reactors) consume almost 98% of the fissile material AND almost 98% of the transuranics… meaning they produce 1/100th the amount of waste and that waste only has to be stored for 300 years. So what’s the problem? Primarily the Nuclear Retardation Commission (NRC) continues to maintain the GE/Westinghouse nuclear monopoly that hasn’t shipped on time or on budget since… ever. And as long as they’re in control newer technologies will never get a chance.
BTW: Did you know that Japan built over 60 nuclear reactors between 1974 and 2009 on time (average less than 4 years) and on budget (average half the cost of US reactors)? Where there’s a will there’s a way. Nuclear is expensive here because someone want’s it to be.
Exactly.
Molten salt and cooling water have an interesting chemical reaction when mixed ...
@@markrobinowitz8473 So don’t use cooling water… Run your reactor at 1500° F and use a gas turbine… they’re 65% efficient vs. 45% for steam… plus you can use the “waste heat” from a gas turbine to make steam for a steam turbine. And you’ll still have enough “waste heat” left over to desalinate about six million gallons of water a day (for a 1 GWe reactor).
@@geowar20 Good luck figuring out what to do with the megatons of uranium tailings that are toxic for eons. We haven't made any "progress" on that since 1942. Reactors were invented to make Pu-239. Studies by the Atomic Energy Commission (now Dept of Energy) couldn't find a dose of Pu-239 too low not to cause cancer in dogs. I prefer reactors with a 150 million km. evacuation zone, no closer, please. Using less of everything is our future now that we've passed the limits to growth on an abundant, finite planet.
@@markrobinowitz8473 Not to be confused with the mega-mega-mega tons of fossil fuel pollution. One pound of Uranium can provide enough energy for your entire lifetime’s energy needs and produce less than a quarter cup of waste. Would you like to compare that to any other energy source? Seriously?
You know what would be the best thing to do with Pu-239? Turn it all into energy. Todays (or should I say “yesterdays”) reactors consume less than 2% of the fissile fuel before the transuranics block further fission. Gen 4 burner reactors consume almost 98% of the fissile material AND almost 98% of all the transuranics… generating 1/100th the waste and it only has to be stored for 300 years vs. 10,000 for todays (yesterdays) reactors. Coal power plants release more radioactive radium in one day that a nuclear plant is allowed to in its entire lifetime. Completely unregulated.
Almost every city has multiple tanks storing volatile fuel, and stores shelves filled with dangerous chemicals, and people do not worry about those things, unlike they do about nuclear waste! Nuclear waste is dangerous, but so is a lot of other stuff, that is arguably more dangerous!
Well said. Doesn’t matter about which is more dangerous here in comments, but pointing out that there’s a trade off is likely that lead to better outcomes, and the fear mongers loose.
Russia just dumps their waste into nearby rivers or lakes
@@levismith7444 says who? Zelensky?
@@Nill757 well they all do actually if you do your research about it. Once they filter out the radioactive elements (cobalt 60, strontium 90 and caesium 137) all that remains is tritiated water, and the amount of tritium in the water is very little in comparison to what's already in the water naturally.
@@madmax2069 great, and that’s not dumping all spent fuel into lakes rivers as was said above
Bro i really think Finland is doing a really good job. This underground storage will definitely solved the nuclear waste problem.
Good job putting nuclear waste into context against coal fired power plants. So much less waste from nuclear plants and, as you said, we have control over where it goes.
The coal ashes are also radioactive, the coal ore have traces of uranium and when it is burned up, they release these traces.
Coal ash is more radioactive waste and is spread out all over the world.
One other reprocessing option is Moltex's WATSS system which should be much cheaper and prevents proliferation concerns since the transuranics are never separated from the Pu.
reprocessing for the win. i guess when people talk about reprocessing, they mostly take in account the cost. but, as any fossil fuel, nuclear fuel is not unlimited and reprocessing allows us to stretch what we have which is more important than economic advantages.
This is the lesson everyone needs to learn.Thank you!
Thanks for watching!
American know-how will save us, they can just use their unwanted waste to make depleted uranium bullets. The waste is safely stored in the vital organs of brown people around the world. Its safe!
I am thinking how sad it is that facts get distorted to a point that an intelligent conversation becomes impossible.
With all the innovation. Why can't humans get better at discussing facts and leave emotion at the door.
Most are ignorant, and like it! They prefer an emotional response that makes them feel good!! Too much brain activity hurts their heads!!
Perfect video. Thanks! Can you also make a video about potential 4gen reactors like the Molten Salt Reactors and how they could "eat" the waste from the current reactors?
Yep. This is the most exciting frontier in nuke tech for me.
The issue is marginal i comparison to the i practice eternal waste we dump out in the atmosphere.
Nuclear waste is very compact. From Swedens total production of over 3500 TWh all waste is in a (one!) pool in Oskarshamn, Sweden, under a normal industrial land (ca 15000 m2) inside a simple net fence. That saved us 300 tons CO2 per capita in Sweden!
I fantasize about if the option "carbon capture and storage" from atmosphere was available at this cost, we should build several storages already.
- But here (with proper nuclear power plants, not only the waste) we got the energy as a part of it!
Yes, we almost certainly would be better off to use nuclear and deal with the long term waste problem than to continue pumping more carbon into our atmosphere.
But, very fortunately for us, we have a much cheaper and even less carbon intensive alternative. And one we can bring online much faster.
If we had a such option, it would have been in use since long so I am not sure you are quite right, there.
Those who designed our power systems, matching availability and demand in a delicate balance, have always been highly educated. Til now when we expect "the market" to solve all problems. It will, your option will be extremely cheap, outpricing itself etc. But it will take time.
All major leaps since Newcomen has required only about a decade. This time it will take at least three. And the reason is that politics for the first time interfere with qualified, strict engineering problems.
@@johansoderberg9579
Are you suggesting that it will take at least three decades to replace fossil fuel with renewables? That is probably not correct.
In the US in 2017 we converted 2% of our grid power from fossil fuels to renewables in the US. (Things slowed down under Trump.)
At the moment about 60% of our electricity comes from fossil fuel. If we only doubled our 2017 efforts we could be essentially rid of coal and natural gas on our grids in 15 years.
Both the efficiency of solar panels and wind turbines has increased since 2017 we could come close to doubling output with the same amount of labor, materials, and land as was used in 2017. So if we doubled our 2017 efforts we would achieve something more like a 4x increase, getting rid of fossil fuels in less than a decade.
It's likely to get very interesting over the next few years. The IRA(Build Back Better) legislation is going to subsidize the cost of wind and solar generation, bringing their cost to utility companies close to zero. And battery prices are also subsidized in addition to getting cheaper. Shouldn't we expect utility companies to hasten their move to almost free energy sources? Either driven by market forces in competitive markets or leaned on by rate setting agencies whose task it is to deliver the least expensive energy to consumers.
It will definitely take more for US than 30 years if you are at 40% renewables now and despite cheap and easy alternatives only advance a few percent per year!
Up to 25 %, wind is cheap but above 50% you really struggle. Countries without hydro power will have to change fundamental principles regarding aviability, prices etc for electric power.
We have no climate challenge. At all. The challenge is replacing the fossile fuels. Just look how your transport is organized and you have to admit that!
Germany who closed all nuclear 2022 and replaced it with Russian gas - that's nothing but a joke! Like the drunkard that declares "I will quit drinking. No more alcohol after 2040 (when I am 95 years old!) But to reach that I have temporarily to increase my alcohol consumption drastically. So, to all of you who feared we will not see each other in the pub, I can assure you: Nothing drastically will happen in the short term!"
To match production and demand, not only year by year or month by month or even hour by hour but minute by minute is a demanding task you easily can doctorate on still today. In the same time as total novices in high voices claims that wind and solar will do the trick. I am so tired of this ignorance! Is there any other area in human activity where this is allowed?! Why are they messing up the energy now when the situation actually is as demanding and serious that the girl Greta Thunberg claimed! We have an energy crisis beyond what our modern society has ever experienced before! But people continue to speak about solar and wind and climate change etc!
Do what you should, instead! No more, no less!!
Great video. Very informative and very well put together.
Burn the waste from current Cro-Magnon tech reactors in Gen 4 reactors.
This is such a well done and informative video. And one that is sorely needed. When I mention the facts you summed up in your video, people stare at me because they cannot believe their ears. They only know the tales that are spun by the anti-nuclear lobby. The same happens when I tell them that any given coal-fired plant will put out more radioactive pollution in a day, than an NPP in its entire lifespan(!). Videos like yours will help demystify nuclear power and its perceived dangers/pollution. Yes, nuclear can be dangerous if you do not give it the proper respect and care it deserves. However, the oil-/coal-fired plants have caused so much more pollution and casualties, and no one seems to bat an eye over that.
As to the nuclear waste. We already have the technology to use most of it. One way is pairing a PWR with the Canadian CANDU. The CANDU can run on the spent fuel from the PWR via the Dupic (Direct Use of spent PWR fuel in CANDU) process which greatly reduces what's left over. China and South Korea have already done successful trial runs with this process.
And the EBR-II fast reactor proved not only that it can close the nuclear fuel cycle, it also proved it is inherently safe. During two tests on April 3, 1986, they intentionally tried to cause a meltdown by; shutting off the main circulation pumps while gagging the control rods and automated safety systems; and through robbing the reactor of its means to transfer its heat to the heat exchanger while again intentionally disabling safety systems and control rods. Both times the reactor politely declined, its passive safety features kicked in long before reaching the meltdown threshold. It simply shut itself down, and just kind of sat there, completely unfazed. I'll take that result any day of the week, when it comes to meltdowns.
Coal burners do not synthesize hundreds of new radioactive isotopes not present on Earth before the nuclear age. They emit other types of pollution, sure. But none have created plutonium.
The San Onofre has cost rate payers millions of dollars to keep that stored there. It is part of the reason San Diego has the highest electricity prices in the continental us. These challenges are able to be solved but at very high costs.
They never figure that cost when talking about the fiscal efficiency associated with nuclear energy. Many reactor sites turn into nuclear waste storage sites long after the decommissioning of the plant!
Why was SO decommissioned?
@@YourCapyPal_3DPipes1999
Defects in the steam generators of Units 2 and 3. Not the original steam generators, but the replacements, which lasted three years.
Sooner or later all reactors need decommissioning as neutron bombardment degrades the steel of the primary containment vessel.
Obviously major replacements and repairs such as the steam loop are very expensive, so permanent decommissioning is a real option that got exercised in this case.
@@garybulwinkle82 there is perfectly good storage plus reprocessing technology available to deal with the spent waste. It's all in my playlist.
The facts are simple to understand. When will facts win out of over ignorance regarding this clean form of energy??
@@aaroncosier735 I see. Seems to me replacement couldn't have possibly cost more than permanent decommissioning.
Well maybe if PG&E owned it Gavin would have stepped in to provide it generous public subsidy. Between committing mass crimes of negligence and manslaughter against our communities, they know how to buy themselves ironclad political favor. I guess SDGE is a rube compared to the OG PG&E.
thank you for this beacon of sanity regarding nuclear power! much appreciated!
The US is clearly making the waste an issue when it is not and never has been a technological problem.
From the US Government Accountability website: "The nation has over 85,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. DOE is responsible for disposing of this high-level waste in a permanent geologic repository, but has yet to build such a facility because policymakers have been at an impasse over what to do with this spent fuel since 2010. Meanwhile, the federal government has paid billions of dollars in damages to utilities for failing to dispose of this waste and may potentially have to pay tens of billions of dollars more in coming decades."
I saw that on the GAO website and _almost_ included it in the video because I thought it was funny if it wasn't so sad...
@@atomicblender It is not funny, it is democracy. Is the nuclear waste issue the only issue not resolved due to politics, here or elsewhere in the world?
@@atomicblender It's a concerted effort to destroy nuclear energy in the US. Policies of the DOE and NRC along with a half century of misinformation in the media has stalled nuclear energy. The general population thinks the waste is a problem and so has a negative view of nuclear energy along with the connection to the atomic bomb and lack of understanding of radiation in general. If the media had not fear mongered everything nuclear for the last 50 years we would have already had a world full of what today we call next generation reactor designs and would be using a lot less fossil fuels today.
More than 85,000 tonnes.
The IAEA report on the status of spent fuel 2022 has the US inventory at 130,000 tonnes. That is based on the 2016 census. plus the 2000 tonnes per year since. Easily 140,000 tonnes this year.
85,000 is roughly the amount in wet storage - cooling pools.
And about 55,000 in dry casks.
The present fund for geological disposal stands at about 44 Billion. This is less than half the sum required for existing waste.
2010 is when the industry went to court to stop making contributions. One of their arguments was that it made them unviable.
I agree. Waste disposal is grossly underfunded, and if the full costs were demonstrated on US soil, it would make the industry unviable.
@@aaroncosier735 Don't waste your time responding to Danna/Kevin debunked. They are old senile pro nuclear fans and that is ok but they spread misinformation and outright lies. They cannot accept facts and even if you provide proof they will continue to spread the same lie that you in fact just debunked.
Which fission products or transuranics are actually not usable in any way?
Need to find room in this video to state a non debatable fact: commercial power spent fuel has never killed anyone, anywhere, ever. Instead leading with “music to scare you”, why not that declaration.
People fall off roofs when installing solar panels and solar panels/batteries would be considered ewaste and deaths are rising from ewaste every year and it would take Japan 19 yrs to reprocess 10k tons of solar panel waste.
Russians are far ahead of everyone, especially with fast neutron and recycling technology. There is a recyclable waste for 400 years of reserve. It means Russia is an energy power house of the world, and adds on oil and gas.
The Mighty Mitochondria!
Shame they wasnt "years ahead of everyone else" when it comes to putting reactors in properly built containment vessels though😐👎
Japan has also. Been recycling ♻️ 🤗
And France
@@kf8575that was Ukrainians
Very well put. Thank you for including reprocessing - the point often gets missed.
A lot of what people don't understand is that the used fuel pad at these plants is around 1-2 hectares, and these pads are barely 1/3 of the way full even after 50 years of operation at 2GW sights with a >90% capacity factor. Meanwhile the fission naysayers are fine with using thousands of hectares and and dealing with the toxic waste from solar and the batteries that make solar's
I suppose everyone will have their priorities of what they want and don't want, and everyone will say their view is rational. Dedicating land to solar is ok if it matches someone's priorities, but the nice thing about nuclear waste is it's really really small for the energy that's come from it. Cheers!
You should include electronic or call it ewaste because people would probably understand that better than toxic waste.
Dont batteries only last 5-10 yrs while panels last 20-30 (although people claim they can last longer but at reduced capacity except the problem with that is "The average age of a vehicle on the road is about 11 years, but most drivers keep a car for about six years."
"47% of Americans have lived in their homes for six to 10 years. 35% of homeowners have lived in their homes for 10 to 15 years. 16% have lived in their homes for less than five years. The average length of homeownership years is eight years."
People are probably going to replace panels with more efficient ones before 30 yrs (which means that the current panels might not have been paid off) or theyre going to move and will have to replace the panels to make the house more appealing.
Considering the amount of land needed for solar and wind and the environmental impact wouldnt it be better for developing countries to use fossil fuels while first world countries go carbon 0. Or what about smrs instead of solar/wind (there are nuclear batteries powering lighthouses. How much stability do you really need for that and if the area is unstable wouldnt the nuclear battery be better since its more compact and easier to protect compared to people can steal solar panels).
The US civilian spent fuel inventory is about 140,000 tonnes. Only about 55,000 tonnes is in casks. 85,000 tonnes is still in cooling pools.
If the pads are only 1/3 full, then they will just barely hold the waste that already exists.
Can't pat ourselves on the back for a job that isn't finished yet.
@@aaroncosier735 "The U.S., which led the way on managing nuclear waste in the 1980s and 1990s, has now fallen to the back of the pack. About 88,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors remain stranded at reactor sites, and this number is increasing by some 2,000 metric tons each year."
And you didnt read the original comment that talked about how solar and wind will have more waste (by 2050 its expected there will be 78 million tons of waste from solar panels. Over 50 yrs from around the world theres only 250k tons of nuclear waste. It would take Japan 19 yrs to reprocess 10k tons of solar panels. All 250k tons of nuclear waste could fit in 1-2 football stadiums).
@@namename9998
The IAEA report on the staus of Spent Nuclear Fuel Puts the US inventory at over 140,000 tonnes. That's the 2022 report.
Over 80,000 in pools, and over 50,000 in casks. It's *all* stranded. They have no facility to take it.
The Global total is over 400,000 tonnes, with some uncertainty because Russia, North Korea etc are not fully forthcoming with data, but that is the IAEA best estimate.
Do you really think the *weight* of the waste is the problem?
See, you could have a stack of old solar panels under your bed, your whole life, in safety. But a few grams of spent fuel in the same spot would kill you in one nights sleep. So different approaches are required.
It is not actually practical to put the world's spent fuel in a football field. You have to space it out quite a bit more than that. That is why proposals for disposal facilities involve many miles of tunnels and careful calculation of volumes to ensure heat removal is adequate.
By all means, demonstrate how easy it is by getting the job done, then hit the beers.
Nuclear waste is already solved, just not worth to do something about it yet so we store it instead. I think the day will come when it becomes worth it.
Shooting a radioactive material containment cask, to prove its durability and integrity after an extreme circumstance is American af and reminds me of the following: The man who invented the modern ballistic vest, demonstrated its durability and effectiveness at stopping a bullet by shooting himself. This intrepid American not only survived as the bullet did not penetrate the vest, but he was also able to promote and sell them to police departments.
I like the idea of consuming spend fuel in a liquid fuel reactor until it becomes lead. At that point, you have extracted every joule of energy from the fuel.
You are confusing radioactive decay to lead with fission. Fission produces electrical power while radioactive decay is waste heat
Lead is a far endpoint, thousands of years away.
All these proposed reactors still produce fission products, and those products do not contribute greatly to final output. They do contribute to waste heat and storage costs.
@@aaroncosier735 Every isotope does not end up as lead. You are referring to the Uranium decay cycle. However you are correct in that Pu239 is the major spent fuel concern, does end up as lead in its decay chain, and will take ~160,000 years to decrease to less than 1% of the original mass
@@clarkkent9080
First, that is the endpoint specified by Rick Tan above. Sure, Neptunium can end up as Bismuth.
The point here is that Rick imagines this decay chain delivers useful heat, which it does not.
The decay of all the fission products also produces waste heat, which is a burden, not a benefit.
Hey, really great video, I really want to get more into the topic of nuclear energy and wanted to ask if you could recommend some good books or other information sources? Should be quite recent, not too technical and should cover both reactor designs and the correct state of the industry and (geo)politics around it.
Thanks for the comment! Unfortunately, I don't have any recent books I can recommend as I haven't read exactly what you're talking about. I (somewhat) recently read "Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator" (it was mehhh ok) and am currently going through "Montreal and the Bomb" which is a really interesting take on a known story from an unexpected perspective. But I'm sure plenty of people here in the comments could direct you to something useful.
He said 97% can be recycled.. Yeah they need to make them do that. It seems stupid that no one has stepped up to do that.." I'll take your waste and sell you some too" That is a brilliant business idea.
Alot of materials are recycled and upcycled into other industries
The problem with nuclear waste isn’t technical (google “subduction zone”) it political. Mostly NIMBY.
Nature has a built-in safety mechanism in radioactive materials. Things which are radioactive for long times are more mildly active whereas things which are radioactive for short periods of time are more radioactive.
For me, this video proves three things:
1) We still haven't come up with a real, definitive solution for a very real problem, which is nuclear waste.
2) People are easily lulled into a false sense of security if you throw enough straw-man arguments at them.
3) Statistics is still the ultimate form of ignoring problems while still feeling smart about yourself.
What I have been reading says that Gen 2 (current/past) reactors burn 5% of the uranium and Gen 3 and 4 reactors can burn 95% of that 95%! Additionally the resultant waste has a relatively short half life.
I was and am still mad about the closure of the Sellafield reprocessing facility in the UK. I am aso mad about the decades of disinterest in nuclear, resulting in a dearth of new nuclear plants, nuclear engineers and nuclear long-term plans in the UK.
I chose to use the spent nuclear fuel with the new breed of reactors, for example, Russia's bn800 fast reactor. The conventional nuclear reactor generates spent fuel and a reactor like the bn800 fast reactor is loaded with this spent nuclear fuel. This creates a nuclear waste cycle where we don't have to worry about nuclear waste at all. If feasible, we should build SMRs and micro-nuclear reactors to use spent nuclear fuel.
The radiation problem is self-fixing. Radiation won't be an issue when there is no more life on the planet, which radiation will ultimately make happen.
Recycling nuclear waste, then storing the remaining waste deep underground, in bore holes, backfilled with concrete, seems the best solution. Energy analysts predict SMR’s will play a major role in future power supply, providing 20-30% of all power, with solar, wind and hydro making up 70-80% of our power generation. EV’s will take over transportation over the coming 2 decades, with over 90% of li-on batteries being able to be recycled, offering continuous loop energy, storage and transportation.
Yep, a lot of this used fuel will be a gold mine for the next gen plants, especially the fast reactors.
The current cost of nuclear electricity is about $0.15/kWh.
The current cost of wind and solar electricity is about $0.03/kWh.
The cost of storing wind/solar to make it 24/365 reliable is dropping extremely rapidly. Why would you want to add in 5x more expensive supplies?
STOP BURYING NUCLEAR WASTE! Burial is for corpses, not valuable spent fuel that still contains 98% of its energy value.
@@bobwallace9753 The grid integration costs of variable renewables is more than 10X the nominal cost.
@@gregorymalchuk272
Please explain why.
And what is the source of that claim? Where does one find the data?
I never understood what is there to "solve"? It's a dangerous material with potential industrial uses. The "solution" as with any other industrial product is to be careful with it, and possibly try not to eat it or anything like that. It's not that difficult.
My gut feeling is that fission nuclear power stations producing these type of radioactive waste will eventually be replaced by fusion power stations within the next 50 years or so - an educated and rather pessimistic timeline guess. Fusion reactors produce very little radioactive waste and are inherently less dangerous to operate. In addition to publicly funded fusion projects like ITER (Cadarache), JET (Culham) and Stellarator (Greifswald), the R&D of fusion reactors today by so many private companies is mind-boggling. This very legitimate nagging problem of the fission waste disposal must be designed away once and for all.
How do you know fusion reactors produce little waste and are less dangerous? No one has cracked the process and built a plant.
fusion produces more radioactive waste than fission if you dont account for used fuel that can be burned in gen 4 reactors.
The basic and first problem of this video is comparing nuclear to fossil energy.
How long this fault keeps on going?
12:43 those tests were awesome beyond belief.
Be great to see a video explaining "what's the deal" with fast breeder reactors.
I'm not an expert, but I got the impression that fast neutron reactors are simply more expensive and more difficult to build. Russia has spent decades bringing this technology to a competitive level, i.e. Russia in this field as ASML in microelectronics. There is only one difference. ASML has no alternatives, and there are a lot of them in the production of electricity. At the same time, even now the cost of electricity, produced by fast breeders, is higher. In general, it is difficult to find information on the cost of a kWh, even in Russian. I tried about a year ago, but found only fragmentary information from which I made an estimate that the cost of energy was about 20% higher compared to traditional nuclear power plants. It is not a big differens and clear that this is just one of the parameters, but it is obvious that fast neutron reactors do not promise any breakthrough results, and it requires a lot of work and finances, so other countries do not want to invest in this technology.
Personally I am entirely in favour of throwing this stuff into fast nuclear reactors.
Nuclear is not only the dirtiest but also will one day be so deadly for us.
I feel that environmentalists are the main cause for not being able to solve the vary issues they are raising concern about. So very frustrating.
The media lying to us for more than a half century is more on-point.
Water does NOT last 10,000 yrs, it is the useful fuel that lasts that long, thus needs to be recycled into reactors, not wasted into the ground. Waste lasts less than 300 years before it is less radioactive than uranium ore, less time to be lower radioactivity than thorium ore.
"Nuclear waste" is like using half a tank of gas, then dumping the rest into a storage pit.
Reuse or bust.
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
Time taken in stocking energy to build an energy system, adding to it the time taken in building the system will always be longer than the entire useful lifetime of the system.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future".
Those casks were easily penetrated by DU (U-238) - tipped missiles. It was done many years ago in tests at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland.
At a certain point, public utilities can't be expected to handle what is fundamentally a national security issue. Do you demand nuclear plants have anti-air missile batteries??
Those casks contain 95% U238, maybe 99% someday. What possible point is made by shooting a can of mostly U238 w U238 round? Sounds like BS.
@@Nill757 The point was to see if these specialized hardened casks could be breached, penetrated, which would release radionuclides into the environment - a safety test. So the army was contracted to do the tests. High level waste dry storage areas (and pool-type ones) at nuclear station are very vulnerable to criminal and/or terrorist explosive attack. It would create a "dirty bomb" scenario on site, which is usually close to a major city. Armed drone attacks are now a very real threat....as demonstrated in the current Ukraine/Russia war
@@davidgeary490 Comic book nonsense. Doesn’t matter who fired at the thing. Depleted U rounds also “release radionuclides into the environment.” Does that make each round a “dirty bomb”?
@@Nill757 Yes it actually does - hence all the radioactive contamination in Iraq after the US used DU tipped anti-tank munitions. Their fiery pyrophoric explosions helped spread the radiation. If the high level nuclear waste casks were full (not empty during these tests) than the fission products in fuel rods within would also be released into the air....as well as the U238 (and its progeny).
The Aberdeen Proving Grounds is indeed a heavily contaminated area...from all kinds of different munitions tests. There's a good Wiki entry on it.
one thing you forgot is economies of scale for recycling. as more and more nuclear waste is accumulated it becomes more economical to recycle as it sits around cooling off. Both Japanese and French have good programs
which are fronts for weapons programs
@@markrobinowitz8473 many in pro nuclear power groups feel antinuclear sentiment comes from groups which support what you propose and thus anything nuclear gets lumped in with that theory. are you ready to go back to a level of living standard which is preindustrial revolution? there was a proposal after WWII to totally deindustrialize germany to the point where even people with tech skills would all be dispersed and germainies economy would have been no more advanced than simple agrarian culture and an estimated 25,000,000 would have dies. . so what modern NGO's support your assertion? I think it's abvious.
There is no economy of scale for disposal.
Recycling is limited by the batch size, which is limited by the critical mass. Chemical separations of metals, such as in the PurEx process require near-precipitating concentrations.
Interestingly, plutonium has a much smaller critical mass in solution than as a metal. To process more, you cannot just make the vessels bigger, you need more separate lines. No economy of scale.
The French reprocessing programme has only processed one third of all their waste, and is falling further behind. Their power costs more than twice the global average, and would cost more again if reprocessing was expanded to match actual waste production.
Recycling ONCE, to make MOX fuel is probably feasible if half the costs are subsidised.
How will you recycle it further? The accumulation of U236 and U232 in plutonium-rich MOX fuel is no joke, and requires additional shielding and lockstep timetables to prevent further U232 accumulation. The longer the waste sits, the less benefit.
Even in final geological disposal, the density of storage is determined by the heat generation. There are minimum volumes of rock around a given container of waste. You can't stuff more in, you have to space it out no matter what. No economy of scale.
Doesn't U238, U235, Th232 and PU339 all fission in the fast neutron side of the spectrum? Just burn it up in a fast reactor. And you will be left with hazardous waste for 300 years. As opposed to 100,000 years.
Highly radioactive elements decay fast. The stuff that lasts for a very long time does not and isn't dangerous- it might be poisonous though like a lot of things. I don't know why people can't understand this.
Right, the very long lived transuranics aren't super great and can be managed, but they're not going to cause massive environmental disasters.
This position depends on two things: separating the highly radiating waste from the long-lived ones, and then actually disposing of both.
Presently, most Spent Fuel remains unseparated. Virtually all of US civilian waste, and about two thirds of French of Canadian spent fuel. None at all has been placed in permanent disposal.
Used MOX fuel has some extra problems. so the distinction between short-lived and long-lived gets a bit less easy.
What we understand is that nothing much has been done.
6:33 why not to use this warmth for heating of buildings, by using of district heating systems, at least in winter? Or generate electricity with Kalina cycle? But the best way of course could be, to bombard the stuff with particle accelerator, to remouve the energy of it faster and neutralize radioactivity.
Good informative work! It is rare situation to have, when not doing anything with waste material is actually quite good solution (it wouldn't be truth with many chemical waste materials, massive coal ash heaps etc). There is no hurry, HLW is getting safer with every passing year (less heat generated, so only easier to deal with in the future).
Please tell us more about the breeder reactors, surely using the remaining energy in the fuel is the logical route? Thanks!
It's a great route, but has a number of technical challenges. There have been several attempts to make breeder reactors work commercially (look up TerraPower or thorium reactors and some others), but so far nothing on a large scale.
@@atomicblender not in the US, because our govt POSs refuse to publicly fund the nuclear industry. But if they did, then that would be less of a factor, would it not?
I mean having to provide a big fat ROI for investors on something that should be a public utility is going to put an unnecessary strangehold on progress. At first, a newer process or a technology might not be super affordable right out of the gate, but even so, as with anything, over time, costs come down.
I think it's clear that until the govt starts helping, nuclear progress here will be slow, which I'm sure is what they want. I mean let's be real - who do both parties kneel to? Oil and gas. They aren't in the job to look to the future - they're in it to get rich. That's their agenda, nothing else.
The problem with breeder reactors is that neutrons used to breed new fuel are not available for fission and power production, so less efficient. Then you need a special reprocessing facility to separate the bred fuel from all the other nasties...all very expensive when virgin fuel is much less costly. Simple economics
@@clarkkent9080 it may cost more at least right now, but it's clearly the way to go to reuse almost all of previously used fuel so it doesn't need to be stored. And it produces energy. It's like getting twice the mileage out of the same tank of gas. It's a brilliant elegant solution to the issue of nuclear waste.
@@YourCapyPal_3DPipes1999 Well, the people that have to spend that money right now and are actually educated experts in the subject are not only not doing it but not interested in it in the future. That is what you call logic and not something you find on YT videos or social media.
BTW, I would not depend on the government throwing money at it as one party already wants to keep you working till age 70 when they will give you less SS. The printing money spree is coming to an end and you along with every other person owes $98,000 of the debit. Enjoy reality
I work at Permafix and low level rad will fuck u up if you’re not carful eveything that is said to be low level turns to high level once it’s disturbed
Crazy idea that Elon Musk would love: send the waste into space, particularly towards the sun.
Again, crazy idea, but I feel like it could be a viable option.
Let the insults begin.
100 tons? That's it? Not 100,000 or 100M but just 100 tons? That's absolutely trivial. You could get all of that in *one* waste disposal facility in the middle of bumfuk nowhere in the US midwest or Siberia for the next century.
Thorium reactors can use spent nuclear fuel. 10,000 years down to 500 years due to the efficiency models of thorium molten salt reactors. Furthermore, batteries with new developments for safe use can be made to reduce spent nuclear fuel from 500 years to total depletion.
There are no Thorium commercial reactors anywhere in the world so how can you make that claim?
nuclear waste? - difficult job well done! Next: please make a video about the Integral Fast Reactor''s closed fuel cycle, then MSR's closed pyrochemical fuel cycle.
After seeing this very informative vid it's obvious the title is deceptive and at best partially correct...the real answer is "Hell No! not for hundreds of thousands of years". This toxicity is wayyyyy too expensive as well!! At best this is a transitional technology at this time.
Nuclear waste are not impossible but some people are…
Hanford has huge underground storage. During a turnaround, they would flush the core, creating several gallons of high level waste. Don't new reactors require the same maintenance?
No.
First, Hanford (a military Pu-239 factory) was turned around on the order of weeks. Civilian NPPs 'turnaround' every 2-3 years.
Second, the materials technology is much different in a 1960s-1980s civilian NPP production complex than Hanford, which was a big 1940s science experiment.
Third, unlike the Hanford reactors, there aren't that many moving parts (which might break away or create debris).
Lastly, any water radioactivity is mostly from tritium, which decays relatively quickly.
The term "spent fuel" is misleading, when in reality it the uranium that a inefficient reactor can't brun, wouldn't it make more sense to burn that uranium in more efficient reactor like a Molten Salt Reactor in the first place.
We solved the problem with waste decades ago
The Solution; Carefully bury radioactive wastes in places that are already radioactive and partially surrounded by minefields.
Even if we built one single fast reactor under heavy guard and operated under tight control, for the sole purpose of burning nuclear waste and throwing away the energy, even at great expense, we'd still be solving the problem completely. It's pretty wild that we just don't.
There’s a great many special interests who never want that to happen.
Even Germany is rethinking shutting down its last reactors. The cost of doing so just smacked them in the head. Nuclear must be on the table as a non-carbon emitting baseline source for the forseeable future. Modern modular, scalable and standardized plant designs can provide clean energy for millions and millions of people with much less accident risk and cost than large plants.
The German public is rethinking nuclear. But not the people in charge. They destroy the reactors ability to restart in a couple months, intentionally.
17:53 $.87 per kWh in San Diego, CA from 4pm-9pm
@Atomic Blender The map behind you does not have New Zealand in it . I cannot see Japan in it either. FYI.
With commercial space companies booming recently. Throw 'em up in space
“Dry storage is temporary solution”
So you say. No reason to not leave those concrete cans there forever. The oldest ones have already lost 90% of their reactivity. The concrete can is not structural, so it’s good for several centuries, all while the radioactivity continues to fade. This random, ‘that way is safe, this way is not’ list of assertions is not helpful.
Over centuries, deterioration of the casks could lead to the release of dangerous material over time, if not actively maintained, plus, you might want to use the land for something else. It's still a temporary solution, even if "temporary" means 100 years or more. Deep geologic storage means we basically never have to worry about that waste again.
@@techmage89 “dangerous material”
That’s just arbitrary. How about your car, is it “dangerous material”? effluent in your sewer pipe, tanker cars carrying chemicals going down the tracks everywhere? “Centuries from now”, as you say, over 95% of the radiation in a can is gone. It’s a solid, it’s not green goo that can seep or flow, ever.
@@Nill757 Well, yes, the decay chains are pretty complicated, (uranium involves 17 elements) and until around thousands of years have passed there's still enough radioactive isotopes to be potentially dangerous. You still don't want that stuff leaking out into your water supply (which can happen if, for example, rainwater seeps into cracks in concrete and rusts through metal) so either active maintenance or stable storage is required, and in the long term, the latter is probably cheaper.
@@techmage89 “you don’t want … seeping “
Yes I know the uranium decay chain. You must know there’s uranium in the rocks in your backyard which is decaying, there’s some 4 billion tons uranium dissolved in the oceans and decaying, and has been since there were oceans.
I get it if you have five friends whatever been telling you, “you don’t want that stuff seeping…”, but I’m not buying some special boogey man danger about the “stuff”.
@@techmage89 Except
"After soil contamination, heavy metals from e-waste, such as mercury, lithium, lead and barium, then leak through the earth even further to reach groundwater. When these heavy metals reach groundwater, they eventually make their way into ponds, streams, rivers and lakes."
"“With mounting volumes of production and disposal, the world faces what one recent international forum described as a mounting “tsunami of e-waste”, putting lives and health at risk.” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "In the same way the world has rallied to protect the seas and their ecosystems from plastic and microplastic pollution, we need to rally to protect our most valuable resource -the health of our children - from the growing threat of e-waste.”
As many as 12.9 million women are working in the informal waste sector, which potentially exposes them to toxic e-waste and puts them and their unborn children at risk."
"The researchers said only about 5% of used lithium-ion batteries are currently recycled in the United States today." (Princeton 2022)
Youre so concerned about a non issue (nuclear waste) that youre ignoring the obvious one that the public is raving about (solar panels and battery waste).
Some Fission products can be used in Radioisotope thermoelectrical generation, or in beta voltaics. Although these produce a tiny amount of power, they can do so over decades or centuries up to millions of years. They would be indispensable for inter Stella space travel.
All you have to do is reprocess and that is $$$.. The Pu238 used in the space probes costs $90 million.
@@clarkkent9080 It would be a way of using the waste, rather than locking it away.
@@Zurvan101 Technically yes. But just like household waste could be 100% reused, recycled, repurposed there is a cost and in a capitalists' society if you can't make money from it it is not done. And I don't think the government can afford it as one party wants to cut my SS and Medicare that I already paid for. At some point the free money government must exhibit self control.
@@Zurvan101 BTW the Pu238 that is made for space probes does not come from spent fuel since it is not found in any significant quantities in spent fuel.
@@clarkkent9080 you're still missing the point.
Many fission products can be used for generating electricity and they have the added bonus of using those products, as opposed to counting them as waste.
Not only that but many have a much longer half life the pu 238. Voyager 1 & 2 are already in partial shutdown because their fuel has been spent.
At 4:40 Why do you switch to volume measures when it comes to nuclear waste while using weight your other comparisons?
2 m2 of Uranium are 19 metric tonnes. That would allow a comparison
If you want to show the overwhelming amounts coal power plant produces in comparison to a nuclear plant. Wouodvit not be better to use weights or volumes in both cases?
Interesting video, thanks. The last 3 minutes (reuse of the fuel in other reactors - eg Molten Salt) seem to make all the other methods irrelevant.
I just love this program!
love your content
I'm 100% pro nuclear but I dont think conventional designs like GE's SMR is good for nuclear long term, LWR & NaK reactors being marketed as something new when we have designs that are safer and cheaper seems like entrenched industry hubris
Give me 5 gallons. I'll store it in my balcony closet and the closet next to my parking space, next to the old paint, motor oil and old broken golf clubs 😸.
FYI after 300 years high level waste decays to a level equal to a high grade uranium ore deposit.
FYI no it does not
It most certainly does.
Not even remotely.
You may be thinking of the liquid High Level Waste that results from reprocessing of spent fuel, principally Caesium and strontium, and decay products. You may also be applying a rough rule of thumb (ten half-lives) which is used for small quantities of material with short half-lives such as those used in biological research and medical applications.
However, in Spent Nuclear Fuel, there are also transuranic bombardment products that will remain radioactive for thousands of years, at much higher activity than the original ore.
Reprocessed waste is hardly a useful benchmark, as France has only processed about a third of their spent fuel, and the US has reprocessed about 1%, none at all since the seventies.
@@aaroncosier735 Many countries reprocess spent fuel, the US could be but Carter, then Regan scared away any potential investors in the process.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk
Not many reprocess in great quantity, and none keep pace with waste production.
Only a small fraction of spent fuel has ever been reprocessed, either for waste or for re-use.
The recycling of fuel. How does it compare to mining new? That has to be a factor as well. And to my knowledge we don't have enough uranium for all eternity. So getting as much as possible out of what we get is probably the wise decision
Could we go swimming in the nice warm water of the fuel pool?
You're right... the music scared me. 😬
Nice video!
“Here’s some music to scare u!” 💀
It baffles me. Even tho Society is struggling, We are yet to even attempt to implement: "The concept around: The better off the lowest income living people are doing; The better the entire rest of our countries economy could be doing." -Think of it like a ecosystem in nature. The least important little things might seem meaningless and insignificant yet, if they crumbled away, the entire ecosystem would crumble. The last things remaining would be the top diverse predators that eat everything else.. until they eat each other.. leaving just a few top sharks in the ecosystem.. the whales would all be gone once the plankton crumble away, the sharks would eat the whales. Then once all that's left is sharks, the sharks would eat the sharks. *(Think of this but as a analogy for our economy and our modern day society..)
If we instead decided to support the lowest people in the ecosystem, there would be a beneficial systematic dispersion towards other aspects of society benefiting. All because the lowest people would be flourishing. I say flourish but I really just mean, able to obtain the most basic essential living standards... Yet even that would Vastly improve our current state of our economy & society *Also imagine this analogy in our economy. The more help we invest in the lowest level people, the more it would trickle into every facet of our economy. If poor people can pay their rent & not go homeless: landlords would get $, businesses would get $, banks would get $, local small shops would get $, mortgages & bills could be paid, insurance companies would get $, Taxes would get $, So essentially that $ would go out & filter right back in to improve our Country while simultaneously improving our quality of Life. Every bit of the economy would somehow find a way to benefit off of this situation... I don't get why we haven't even Given it a chance?? If it doesn't help? Then by all means stop it and figure out what problems we could be facing might be one's that run way deeper than expected and that would take drastic changes to improve that situation... (I hope we TRY something soon, before things get any more unstable. The worst thing we could do is continue on doing exactly what we are currently doing. It might get to a point where overcoming our struggles could simply become a pipedream. I don't want it to get to that)
I don't know why we are concerned with the many years that nuclear waste will be around as some climate hysterics tell us we'll be dead in 12 years anyway. Sorry I couldn't resist jabbing the folks that cry about climate change but want nothing to do with one available, carbon neutral, scalable and reliable energy source.
Just retweeted by Elon Musk on Time interview:
J. Robert Oppenheimer's grandson: "We must get over our cognitive and political bias: Nuclear energy is necessary and safe, and not the same as nuclear weapons"
Well Mariana trench exists just saying
I was wondering why Japan didn't dump the waste from Fukushima there!
they can launch the nuclear waste in lead capsules like they launch satellites into space and then propel them in the trajectory where they would eventually collide with the sun and disintegrate,since there is no gravity or air resistance in space.....the capsules do not require constant propulsion to maintain its speed or momentum.
Wow, a ten-year-old pretending to be an adult!
@@ForbiddTV u sure sound like it.
@@jont2576 You have no concept of reality.
The problem with nuclear waste is solved, however the problem with political waste is not solved..
Well said.
Waste is a massive nothing burger.
Ну... сухое хранение это не шилдинг это по сути накопитель , так как весь этот металл и бетон из которого сделана капсула будет фонить еще очень долго
There is no radiation from dry cask storage above background radiation levels. Concrete and steel reduce it a million fold. Concrete and steel are not activated by decay radiation (alpha beta gamma) either.
Please realize that there is no such thing as high-level nuclear "waste": there is only wasted fuel. Water cooled reactors only burn about 4 percent of the potential fuel put into them, some--not all--of the U-235 in the mix. The U-238 and minor actinides, 96 percent of the fuel, are the "waste." But "fast" reactors, producing fast, un-moderated (slowed) neutrons, can burn all of that, leaving far less waste, mostly reaction products that are safe after around 300 years instead of millions.
Fusion is going to fly, sooner or later. Until then we need concentrated baseload power to compliment renewables. Burning wastes in fast fission reactors--helium cooled and molten salt; I don't quite trust reactors cooled with explosively flammable molten sodium, but we might need some to breed enough fissiles (more easily reacted) to "start-up" waste burners--we should already have plenty of fissionables out of the ground to get us by until fusion flies, with no need to ever dig up another Native American reservation for uranium. I've read that we have more than 80,000 tons of high-level waste stored in casks in the U.S., 300,000 tons worldwide. That aughta get us by.
Meanwhile the obstructionist NRC says they intend to have rules in place for the operation of fast reactors--30 to 50 years from now. If climate change renders humans extinct, it will be because collectively we are too frackin' stupid to survive.
Oops. NRC mean sto have regulation in place for molten salt reactors in another 30 years, when we nned them now, not fast reactors. Bet those will be dragged out even longer.
For more on long term geologic storage watch one of my favorite documentaries: Into Eternity. It asks one important question once the facility is at capacity, what should be done? Should we warn future generations about it, or endeavour to forget it?
If it's the former how should we warn them? To put it in perspective 100,000 years in the past we were living in caves. 100,000 years hence humans as we know them may not exist.
If we chose the latter, could that not be classed as negligence? The thing is, the materials (such as copper) that make up the casks are highly valuable. What's to stop ignorant prospectors attempting to get that stuff?
So, we look at warnings, assuming they are correctly interpreted would they actually have a perverse result of inviting intrusion? The Pyramids of Giza had curses and warnings against intrusion and they were violated. And that's only around 5,000 years ago.
Anyway watch it, great documentary.
Two billion years after Oklo Gabon clearly shows your answer.
@@ForbiddTV Oklo in Gabon is a fascinating natural phenomena. With very specific conditions that allow for self moderation and shows that nothing new is under the Sun... However, the situation is very different. Oklo had a neutron moderator on tap, geologic storage doesn't (especially if someone inadvertently compromises the casks). When Oklo was reacting, it probably had a quite high radiation output. While a quite high amount of Uraninite exists it's now not enough to sustain a reaction. The materials in geologic storage are highly processed and extremely radioactive. And likely will be for the best part of around 100,000 years. So, I probably wouldn't want to have been in caves 2,000,000,000 years ago either.
@@icepee9252 No casks, no burial, and didn't spread all over the region. The anti-nukers want you to believe such could never be reality,