Impressed £67.5 billion... nope... 263 billion, and rising.

[Tom]

SIXTY SEVEN BILLION

So four times what people in the UK spend on fags. Big deal.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Deep geological storage has been found the world over to be an unmitigated joke.

Only thing that shows is that there's a right and wrong way of doing it. As per my earlier example, Onkalo is not a joke, all signs pointing to a stable and reliable storage that won't be interfered with come future generations.

If we can pack the nuclear waste somewhere that will not harm nature, water resources and will not be interrupted for generations to come, where's the "joke"?

Not to mention; the radiation from nuclear waste to humans is negligible, especially if compared to natural sources alone.

 

[Scouse]

So four times what people in the UK spend on fags. Big deal.

It's 67 billion pissed up the wall Tom. And we're thinking of increasing that pissing up the wall - literally getting zero value from that spend. Absolutely NOTHING back from that spend (not even the ability to smoke fags - free fags for smokers would be arguably better than what we're doing with it).

We could, rather than adding to that hosepipe of monetary waste, change the plan and spend the money where the public gets a return for their hard-earned.

 

[rynnor]

Oh, I'm sorry rynnor. I was unaware that disgust at a taxpayer-funded SIXTY SEVEN BILLION (and rising) bill was disproportionate and hysterical rather than sensible and well-considered.

You're a denialist on a lot of things aren't you - even in the face of sixty seven billion pounds of fiscal evidence that nuclear is perhaps "a bit expensive".

Its a real problem and I think we should do something about it - how is that denialist? 97% of the waste is historical so I'm not sure what your arguement is?

I smiled reading your 'leaking caesium and strontium' above. The radioactive isotopes of those 2 have a half life of 30 years so if you sealed them for 300 years you would find the following

30 years - 50% drop
60 years - 75% drop
90 years - 87.5% drop
120 years - 93.75% drop
150 years - 96.875% drop
180 years - 98.4375 drop
210 years - 99.21875% drop
etc. etc.

So not a big problem - Plutonium is a different kettle of fish but we also have only tiny amounts of it.

 

[old.Tohtori]

The 67 billion is not that high due to nuclear waste though, main point against your anti-nuke rant. It should be a rant about stupid measures.

 

[rynnor]

It's 67 billion pissed up the wall Tom. And we're thinking of increasing that pissing up the wall - literally getting zero value from that spend. Absolutely NOTHING back from that spend (not even the ability to smoke fags - free fags for smokers would be arguably better than what we're doing with it).

Giant infrastructure projects do tend to employ people back out in reality scouse...

 

[Scouse]

If we can pack the nuclear waste somewhere that will not harm nature, water resources and will not be interrupted for generations to come, where's the "joke"?

That'd be great Toht. But so far it's been proven to be a fantasy.

Every deep geological storage facility has come a-cropper once they've been used - despite rafts of people saying exactly the same about their storage facilities that your government is saying about yours.

And they've not failed 2 or 3 hundred years in (never mind the tens of thousands they need to work for) - they've failed in decades.

 

[Scouse]

Giant infrastructure projects do tend to employ people back out in reality scouse...

Giant infrastructure projects like the alternative generating projects? You know - ones that employ people, produce electricity, have no waste decomissioning issues yadda yadda yadda.

"Back out in reality"? WTF? Are you so blinkered that "in reality" you can't see that that money would be better and more profitably spent elsewhere?


Nuclear waste is a COST - not an "investment".

 

[rynnor]

Oh and the high level waste is dried out (its mostly liquids from cooling reactors) and powdered and mixed into glass - that stuff will last a very long time...

 

[rynnor]

Giant infrastructure projects like the alternative generating projects?

And you call me a denialist??

The waste exists - it must be dealt with - end of.

It doesnt relate to modern nuclear power since its 97% historic.

 

[Scouse]

The waste exists - it must be dealt with - end of.

:massivefacepalm:

It's extremely clear from my argument that I'm saying adding to new nuclear is idiocy.

We've currently got a £67 billion pound bill (that's going to end up in the hundreds of billions). That needs to happen. It's self-evident that we should NOT be adding to it.

Nuclear does not need to be "part of the mix".

 

[rynnor]

We've currently got a £67 billion pound bill (that's going to end up in the hundreds of billions). That needs to happen. It's self-evident that we should NOT be adding to it.

Nuclear does not need to be "part of the mix".

If you dont want to add to it then you are immediatly banning x-rays, NMR, CAT scans, barium meals etc. etc. I take it ?

Scrapping all our nuclear subs, research institutes, nuclear dis-armament etc.

Oh and closing commercial/university labs because these also create radioactive waste - nice one

The historic radioactive waste has nothing to do with modern systems and radioactive waste will continue to be created in this country even without it.

 

[Scouse]

If you dont want to add to it then you are immediatly banning x-rays, NMR, CAT scans, barium meals etc. etc. I take it ?

You're being disingenuous now rynnor. Another phrase for it is deliberately being a dick.

We do not need to add to our nuclear energy generation capacity issues - which is where the overwhelmingly large slice of our massively expensive waste issues come from.

The additional money that would have to be wasted on waste handling problems created by new nuclear build is self-evidently idiotic - far better value could be had almost anywhere else.

 

[Wij]

Oh, I'm sorry rynnor. I was unaware that disgust at a taxpayer-funded SIXTY SEVEN BILLION (and rising) bill was disproportionate and hysterical rather than sensible and well-considered.

You're a denialist on a lot of things aren't you - even in the face of sixty seven billion pounds of fiscal evidence that nuclear is perhaps "a bit expensive".

Logic fail. That's the bill for previous stuff not future stuff. Gimme your figures for upcoming reactors before ascribing costs to the future of generation in the uk.

 

[Himse]

What gives better energy output than Nuclear? Lets face it, it's the way to go.

 

[rynnor]

What gives better energy output than Nuclear? Lets face it, it's the way to go.

Nothing - if you look at it from an energy in energy out standpoint then stuff like wind turbines and solar panels are a net energy defecit i.e. if not for fossil fuels/nuclear power subsidising them in energy terms they couldnt be built.

 

[Scouse]

Logic fail. That's the bill for previous stuff not future stuff.

Reading fail.

It's quite obvious that I'm talking about that and saying that we shouldn't add to it - as it's effectively dead money.

I'll leave it to the government to tell us what the figures are for the additional capacity. (Then multiply them by a factor of 3 as is historically accurate).

 

[rynnor]

which is where the overwhelmingly large slice of our massively expensive waste issues come from.

Short answer No - the overwhelming slice comes from historic uses R&D, Defense, prototypes etc.

And we will always be producing radioactive waste - its just a fact.

 

[Scouse]

And we will always be producing radioactive waste - its just a fact.

How many times to I have to explicitly state that I understand and accept that before your brain will assimilate it?

 

[rynnor]

How many times to I have to explicitly state that I understand and accept that before your brain will assimilate it?

Once is enough for me - well done

I just think that the historical costs of developing one of the worlds earliest nuclear weapon/nuclear power programs have to be seperated from modern nuclear power generation.

 

[Scouse]

Once is enough for me - well done

Get bent

Either way - argument over cost is largely irrelevant. We still have no safe method of storage. Period. We're heads in the sand about it.

 

[rynnor]

We still have no safe method of storage. Period. We're heads in the sand about it.

I think it depends on your definition of safe - if you mean safe forever from any conceivable thing then no - if you mean safe beyond the expected lifetime of our species then I think thats achievable.

If you vitrify it and bury it deep in an impermeable clay layer like the oxford clay/kimmeridge clay or gault clay well below the water table I think you'd be fine for potentially millions of years.

 

[Scouse]

If you vitrify it and bury it deep in an impermeable clay layer like the oxford clay/kimmeridge clay or gault clay well below the water table I think you'd be fine for potentially millions of years.

I'd love that to be the case. But all the massive engineering efforts to do just that sort of thing so far have come to shit.

All I'm saying is "lets not add to that"...

 

[rynnor]

http://www.sckcen.be/en/Our-Research/Research-facilities/HADES-Underground-laboratory

Like these guys - clay is pretty much perfect to house the stuff - even when the containers are long gone the geology will trap it for millions of years to come.

Edit - oh and this is the only repository to date built in clay (and this is just a proof of concept) so no history of failure for these. I'd be more dubious of trapping it in a hard rock layer tbh.

 

[rynnor]

All I'm saying is "lets not add to that"...

But you just admitted above that we will add to that regardless - you just dont want to add to it for energy generation - personally I think the small amount of waste future nuclear power stations will produce is worth it.

 

[old.Tohtori]

That'd be great Toht. But so far it's been proven to be a fantasy.

Every deep geological storage facility has come a-cropper once they've been used - despite rafts of people saying exactly the same about their storage facilities that your government is saying about yours.

And they've not failed 2 or 3 hundred years in (never mind the tens of thousands they need to work for) - they've failed in decades.

So you're saying that because engineering and tech have failed before it's impossible for, say, the finnish project to succeed?

As you tend to say to other people; didn't know you had a degree in nuclear waste disposal technology and deep mining engineering

 

[TdC]

Well you can't know anything for a 100%, but as stated there it would take such an event to dig out those canisters(sealed with best tech we got, encased in bedrock etc) that the nuclear waste would be a smallscale problem at that point.

When it's complete, there's no reason for people to go there and they probably won't even know(outside history books) that the storage even existed.

100k years is good enough for me as a solid storage

I would go out on a limb and say that this idea looks like the seemingly best possible compromise at the current technology level. Will it last 100000 years? Most likely no. Will it start to pollute at some point. Most likely yes. Will somebody mind that? Maybe. Will it end up being a very expensive problem for somebody? Probably yes.

This isn't Fallout 3 dude: you don't wash away rad poisoning by taking a pill. This stuff *always* ends up being a problem. Always.

 

[ileks]

What gives better energy output than Nuclear? Lets face it, it's the way to go.

They are incredibly expensive and take a very long time to set up. If there is a future decrease in energy prices (due to shale gas, say) it would make them an absolutely disastrous investment. Even in an ideal world you are talking decades to see a marginal return.

They also have to be running all the time (so can't deal with spikes in demand). It's not just waste that's the problem. Shale gas is the way to go until Nuclear technology is sufficiently improved to make it a viable private sector investment.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Most of what you said is opinion based so i'll not start on that(all the will it questions), but the thing i will say(on matter of it being a problem) is that compared to rest of waste from industry(etc) sources nuclear is rather miniscule. Chemical wastes being, if i remember correctly, thousand times greater in harm. Also, after a quick googly, it seems no human or nature in general has been harmed by well maintained nuclear power plants.

This isn't fallout(No need to be condecending ), that is true, but nuclear isn't the big boogeyman everyone makes it out to be, especially when comparing to other waste sources and radiation sources(as noted before).

All current facts point that the waste disposal solution(in finalnd per example) is a safe, long lasting and cost efficient. We can speculate, but i'd rather trust our scientists.

 

[Ctuchik]

63 billion sounds a rather high quote tbh - if you just buried it deep on-site it wouldnt cost a fraction of that but the costs are all driven up by enormous planning procedures etc. and all the hand wringing.

You can't just dig a hole and dump nuclear waste in it. You need to make sure the site won't leak anything out in to the groundwater, and then you have to make sure it won't happen for the next god knows how many thousand years.