[Petrochemicals (OP)]

With the world transfixed on reducing carbon emissions and the Ukraine war showing the vulnerability in energy supplies, it is almost certain the world will embark upon nuclear energy as a means to secure energy security and lower co2.  This will mean a vast increase in waste. How are we to deal with it ?

1) long term storage as is touted at present for the current scrap heap of radioactive junk.

2)launch it into to the sun

3)bury it deep by a subduction zone

4)throw it in the Mariana trench or similar deep ocean. The Pacific seems to have been able to deal with the Fukushima spill.

5)keep it until we find a way to transmogrify said radioactive waste to products of non hazardous nature

6)use the thorium fuel cycle

Or something else.

[alancalverd]

1,3,6.

The most important problem isn't high level waste, of which there is a fairly small quantity in fairly "clean" form, but intermediate level junk - contaminated and activated bits of machinery that take up a lot of space and can't be economically processed or handled automatically.

The real answer is "something else"- reduce power demand to a level that can be sustained with renewables.  Fact is that you need to expend a lot of fossil fuel to build a safe nuke, and there probably isn't enough fossil energy to build enough nukes to meet demand 50 or 100 years hence if current trends continue. Nor is there enough potential renewable power.

[Niko43Gold]

Actually Im a little worried about this war because you never know what will happen if they reach Cernobyl

[Colin2B]

Actually Im a little worried about this war because you never know what will happen if they reach Cernobyl

Perhaps you should look at what happened when they did earlier this year

[paul cotter]

Vitrification and deep burial for high level waste. As alancalverd has pointed out the bulk of low and medium level material presents a major problem. The thorium reactors are proven, as far as I know, and cannot be diverted to produce weapon grade products. Also there are huge reserves of thorium. How about a population reduction to 500million and be attacked by the conspiracists?

[alancalverd]

Chernobyl was unfortunate as the intermediate level wind was blowing towards the north and west, thus dumping  radioactive crap on Belarus (which was civilised at the time) and western Europe. The likelihood, if the Russians manage to damage Zaphorizhye and cause a major fire, is that most of the really hot crap will fall on what Putin has now been claimed to be Russian territory, and the longer-lived high altitude cloud will blow over Mother Russia and poison his loyal taxpayers.

Nobody enjoys an own-goal, but a win is still a win.

[alancalverd]

How about a population reduction to 500million and be attacked by the conspiracists?

Welcome to the club, my friend!

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

. How about a population reduction to 500million and be attacked by the conspiracists?

How about a nice plague, or are you partial to famin Paul?
 
Rhodium and uranium 238 can be transmitted to bomb grade stuff, if only the fellows at oak ridge knew.

[Bored chemist]

Rhodium and uranium 238 can be transmitted to bomb grade stuff

WTF?

[paul cotter]

Rhodium??. Rhodium is nowhere near heavy enough to be fissile and is extremely rare.U238 while fissionable by fast neutrons is not fissile. If one has a nuclear reactor handy u238 can be transformed to p239 via neptunium but this is by no means easy and a very complex procedure( as done for the manhattan project ).

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Rhodium??. Rhodium is nowhere near heavy enough to be fissile and is extremely rare.U238 while fissionable by fast neutrons is not fissile. If one has a nuclear reactor handy u238 can be transformed to p239 via neptunium but this is by no means easy and a very complex procedure( as done for the manhattan project ).

How about a nice plague, or are you partial to famin Paul?
 
Rhodium and uranium 238 can be transmitted to bomb grade stuff, if only the fellows at oak ridge knew.

That's the spell check for you, thorium becomes rhodium, transmutated becomes transmitted.

[Bored chemist]

That's the spell check for you, thorium becomes rhodium, transmutated becomes transmitted.

OK, "transmutated" isn't a word, so you can't blame the spell checker for not recognising it..
It copes perfectly well with transmuted.
 It obviously copes with "thorium" as shown by the first post in the thread.

[paul cotter]

Petro, Alancalverd and I are not suggesting anything of the sort. Slow reduction through birth control and natural wastage. If this doesn't happen the end result of an ever increasing population coupled with diminishing resources will lead to a scenario worse than your worst possible nightmare.

[alancalverd]

How about a nice plague, or are you partial to famin Paul?

Plague is unlikely to have the desired effect and famine, whilst inevitable if we change nothing, could be avoided by actively controlling the human population. If we stopped making babies, the population would drop to zero in 100 years. If we just reduced the birthrate by only having one child per female, the population would be at an indefinitely sustainable level in 50 - 70 years with a "western" standard of living for everyone.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Petro, Alancalverd and I are not suggesting anything of the sort. Slow reduction through birth control and natural wastage. If this doesn't happen the end result of an ever increasing population coupled with diminishing resources will lead to a scenario worse than your worst possible nightmare.

How about a nice plague, or are you partial to famin Paul?

Plague is unlikely to have the desired effect and famine, whilst inevitable if we change nothing, could be avoided by actively controlling the human population. If we stopped making babies, the population would drop to zero in 100 years. If we just reduced the birthrate by only having one child per female, the population would be at an indefinitely sustainable level in 50 - 70 years with a "western" standard of living for everyone.

Yep, but what about all the expectant grandparents and broody couples ?

[paul cotter]

They will all starve if nothing is done.

[alancalverd]

Anyone who experienced Jeremy Corbyn throwing Britain down the toilet of history will be inured to disappointment.

[savita]

Direct disposal is, as the name suggests, a [link removed]management strategy where used nuclear fuel is designated as waste and disposed of in an underground repository, without any recycling. The used fuel is placed in canisters which, in turn, are placed in tunnels and subsequently sealed with rocks and clay

[Bored chemist]

Anyone who experienced Jeremy Corbyn throwing Britain down the toilet of history will be inured to disappointment.

What?
The brexiteers who got into power threw the country down the pan, rathe than the one who didn't.

[alancalverd]

Corbyn got them elected by the simple process of never actually answering a question or proposing a policy on anything. Nobody in their right mind would vote Conservative if there was any credible alternative.