Nuclear waste in our environment.

[Bobby]

It's a bad problem:



A nuclear waste dump for eternity.

France has found a €25 billion solution to the unanswerable question of what to do with its high-level nuclear waste - bury it deep underground.
While nuclear energy has a small carbon footprint, its waste still produces a puzzling problem for the industry. For the moment, it is treated and held in temporary sites but the plan is to store it 500 metres below the Earth's surface.
Our team from Down to Earth went to the most radioactive waste site in Europe where the spent fuel is waiting to be buried, before visiting the underground tunnels that may be the final resting place for this indestructible toxic trash.








88,000 tons of radioactive waste – and nowhere to put it.

The United States produces 2,200 tons of nuclear waste each year…and no one knows what to do with it. The federal government has long promised, but never delivered, a safe place for nuclear power plants to store their spent fuel. This means that radioactive waste is piling up all over the country. We visited one of the worst places where the waste is stuck: a beachside power plant uncomfortably close to both San Diego and Los Angeles. And we asked the people in charge of the waste there: what happens now?

[Bobby]

Uranium reactors are so dangerous.
they operate at 70 atmospheres of pressure:





Chernobyl's Massive Radiation Shield Is Preventing Nuclear Fallout


Published on Apr 6, 2017
The damaged Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant still holds 200 tons of nuclear fuel and if it were to leak into the atmosphere, the consequences would be catastrophic. So the world came together to find a way to seal the radiation and the result is a megastructure like we've never seen before.

[Neferti]

YAWN

[Bobby]

YAWN

It's very important -
this waste will still be poisoning the planet a billion years from now.

[Bobby]

Nuclear waste takes too long to decay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

Some common nuclear waste half lives:

Plutonium 239 half life ‎24,110 years.
Americium 241 half life 432 years
Radium 226 Half life 1,600 years
Uranium 236 Half life 15 million years.
Plutonium 244 Half life 80 million years
Uranium 235 Half life 704 million years
Uranium 238 half life 4.5 billion years

[Bobby]

Many people don't realise that elements heavier than iron
are only made in neutron star mergers or supernovae explosions.
The sun or normal stars can't make them.
These elements formed the dust in our solar system
when it was very young.
As our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old
most of those elements have decayed into relatively safe elements.
When nuclear technology was invented it allowed humans to create dangerous elements that have not
been around for billions of years.
The radiation from them is too high for us to cope with if we're too close or consume them in our food.
This what we refer to as radioactive waste.



Ancient Neutron-Star Crash Made Enough Gold and Uranium to Fill Earth's Oceans

https://www.space.com/neutron-star-cras ... anium.html


By Charles Q. Choi May 08, 2019 Science & Astronomy

Enough gold, uranium and other heavy elements about equal in mass to all of Earth's oceans likely came to the solar system from the collision of two neutron stars billions of years ago, a new study finds.

If the same event were to happen today, the light from the explosion would outshine the entire night sky, and potentially prove disastrous for life on Earth, according to the new study's researchers.

Recent findings have suggested that much of the gold and other elements heavier than iron on the periodic table was born in the catastrophic aftermath of colliding neutron stars, which are the ultradense cores of stars left behind after supernova explosions.

[Neferti]

You won't be around in 100 years so why do you care?

I reckon that I will be lucky to be around in 2020. However. My descendants will flourish and NEVER vote Green or get a tattoo.

[Black Orchid]

You won't be around in 100 years so why do you care?

I reckon that I will be lucky to be around in 2020. However. My descendants will flourish and NEVER vote Green or get a tattoo.

[Bobby]

You won't be around in 100 years so why do you care?

I reckon that I will be lucky to be around in 2020. However. My descendants will flourish and NEVER vote Green or get a tattoo.

That's not a good attitude.
I would always hope that I'd leave the world a better place than when I was born
not turn it into a radioactive waste dump.
Did you know that they used to dump radioactive waste in the sea?

[Neferti]

You won't be around in 100 years so why do you care?

I reckon that I will be lucky to be around in 2020. However. My descendants will flourish and NEVER vote Green or get a tattoo.

That's not a good attitude.
I would always hope that I'd leave the world a better place than when I was born
not turn it into a radioactive waste dump.
Did you know that they used to dump radioactive waste in the sea?

Yeah, right! I caught a 3 HOUR movie on Foxtel's NITV the other day (made by the SBS apparently) to do with the GHAN .... you know the railway line from Adelaide to Darwin built by the Afghans. Something I was actually interested in.

There is bugger all out there but I was surprised that there were some trees, some green grass and a couple of flowing rivers.

IF you are interested.....