Permanently Deleted

  • Hoyt [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The amount of handwaving that you put into "just put it in a box and bury the box" solution to nuclear waste is astounding. You can't just compare it so blithely to other forms of energy waste. Nuclear waste has a half life of 24,000 years. You cannot build something that won't leak for twice as long as there's been civilization. It will get into the ground water, and it will kill people. Nuclear waste has the ability to render entire regions completely unlivable if it were to seep into an important aquifer, which it WILL eventually do. And not to mention the fact that any place that's been selected for some kind of waste management always affects those least able to fight against a nuclear waste bunker being built in their back yard, like native americans.

    • Infamousblt [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      So pile it up in one place that doesn't have a water table beneath it and leave it alone. Build a wall around it and make Exxon pay for it. It's easily solvable. It's not like it grows legs and spreads all across the world like the radioactive waste fossil fuel power is constantly doing every single day all across the world. The problem of "destroying one tiny part of the ecosystem" is much more solvable than the problem of "we're destroying literally the entire ecosystem". Break it into smaller chunks and solve those. Nuclear takes many of these big problems and breaks them down into one much smaller one. Your other options are "do nothing" or "become a luddite". We're going to use power, so it's time we minimize the impact of that as absolutely much as possible, as fast as possible. Nuclear is that ticket.

      • Mouhamed_McYggdrasil [they/them,any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        t’s not like it grows legs and spreads all across the world

        Its literally 100% pure unadultered radiation! That's what radiation does to shit, it makes it mutate. Who's to say that in 24,000 years it won't mutate a box enough to have it growing working appendages

        • Infamousblt [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I guarantee you it has failed because there is absolutely no profit incentive in creating and building proper storage. Proper storage technology is absolutely solvable but since there's no profit in it, it hasn't been done yet. Again we're just taking existing systemic problems and ascribing them to nuclear like it's some sort of special thing. It's not. Any problem with nuclear is systemic to power generation period.

            • Infamousblt [any]
              ·
              edit-2
              4 years ago

              I actually have read some interesting articles about that. I think the most compelling one was to essentially use folklore to do it. By creating some story about the "magic death mountain" or something. Folks would learn a passed down story about the magic death mountain, and evidence of people visiting said death mountain and dying would reinforce the story to the point that future societies actually believe the story and just stay away from it altogether. The paper was around how to pre-seed said folklore so it doesn't take a future disaster for a post-cataclysm society to create it themselves. Put in the right spot, away from things like giant freshwater lakes or massive underground aquifers, this issue wouldn't be one that kills huge portions of humanity. It would be like a minefield...it sometimes kills people but mostly they stay away from it. This is not ideal, but compared to the scope of the problem that nuclear sets out to solve, it's manageable. The cool thing is that folks do recognize this and are trying to solve it, which tells me that if we funded the research it's solvable too.

              That particular problem is only actually a problem if you assume two other giant points though. First being that humanity has some cataclysmic problem by which we lose all of our historical and cultural memory, and the other being that said cataclysmic problem doesn't just end humanity outright. Again, global warming being the absolute most pressing of those...if we continue as we are without any course correction, there won't be any humans left for us to worry about them finding a pile of waste 5000 years in the future.

              • Hoyt [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Using the plot of a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel to make my energy solution sound reasonable

                • Infamousblt [any]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Consider this the Official Request To Disengage. Feel free to respond to me if I respond to you, but I'd rather have civilized conversations with folks, and you ain't it

            • Collatz_problem [comrade/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              IIRC, Soviet storage technology was based around vitrification, turning shit into glass to prevent leaking. Of course, before they managed to do it reliably, there were some fuckups.

          • ElonMarx [comrade/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            there is absolutely no profit incentive in creating and building proper storage. Proper storage technology is absolutely solvable but since there’s no profit in it, it hasn’t been done yet. Again we’re just taking existing systemic problems and ascribing them to nuclear like it’s some sort of special thing.

            But it is ESPECIALLY prescient of the issues with nuclear more than any other green energy source. Which is why it is a choice to be avoided.

      • Hoyt [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        lol just bury it 4head

        it would be so easy to remove toxic waste from an entire region after it got into the water system. Just use the de-nuclearizer or whatever 4head

        It's amazing how fast people here turn into the same kind of morons that kiss Elon Musk's ass when it comes to nuclear power. "Stop bringing up the problems that are inconvenient to my fanboying of this technology!"

        • Infamousblt [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Know what's super easy? Removing greenhouse gasses that are quite literally destroying the entire planet today. That's really easy. Know what else is easy? Fixing the massive amounts of toxic waste that are destroying entire countries who are mining lithium and producing batteries. I also find that reversing an earthquake caused by hydroelectric is extraordinarily easy. It's way easier to clean an entire planet than it is to just cordon off one small piece of it and put all of the problem over there. Super smart, why didn't I think of that?

          You know, it's almost like I actually already said that literally EVERY SINGLE WAY of generating power causes massive problems. Including nuclear. It's almost like I actually already said that nuclear power takes existing problems, which are happening today, and condenses them into a much smaller problem. Interesting.

          • Hoyt [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            You don't know anything about the engineering nightmare of nuclear waste containment. You just hope to kick the can of ecological disaster down the road and hope that technology finally comes to rescue humanity. And yeah buddy, getting CO2 out of the atmosphere, or toxic stuff from mine leakage IS actually easier than decontaminating nuclear waste.

            • ElonMarx [comrade/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              People here have decided nuclear is the best energy source and work back from that conclusion in their arguments. It's inane.

      • JuanGLADIO [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Getting companies to pay for externalities is easy...?

    • Mardoniush [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      I note people aren't equally concerned about preventing, say, the toxic slag from solar panel construction seeping into the oceans.

      The toxicity issues with nuclear waste are way more serious than the radiation issues (which are a non issue, really. You could lick a depleted fuel rod and if you get ill it wont be the radiation.)

      So unless you are concerned with the sum total of all industrial production waste (and you should be), most more dangerous than nuclear, your irrational fear of "radiation" is getting the better of you.

      • Hoyt [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        the radiation issues (which are a non issue, really. You could lick a depleted fuel rod and if you get ill it wont be the radiation.)

        What the fuck are you talking about. Go to Fallujah and tell me that all the depleted uranium we filled that city full of isn't dangerous.

        Miss me with that accusation of hypocrisy because I'm not simultaneously railing against all forms of environmental waste in a thread about nuclear power on chapo.chat

        I'm just really tired of nuclear advocates acting like we can either A) just like bury it lol how hard could it be or B) acting like we can just wait for some magical technology to be invented to make it a non-issue

        • Mardoniush [she/her]
          ·
          4 years ago

          It's dangerous, sure. Its just probably not in the top 10 dangerous ordinance remnants in Fallujah. And its danger is mostly its chemical toxicity as a heavy metal. Again, safer than a bar of, say, cadmium.

          Turns out heavy metals in civilian areas is bad, who knew?

          Seriously, actually have had jobs working in enviromental soil testing here.

      • Infamousblt [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I've always loved this idea except it's kinda hard to launch anything into the sun, and also if there's a malfunction, now we actually DO have radioactive waste just...floating around the atmosphere. Which is explicitly what we're trying to avoid. It's a cool idea but if it goes wrong, it goes too wrong.

      • Nebbit [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        All well and good until the rocket it's on explodes on launch and throws nuclear waste across the whole of Florida.

      • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Someone explain to me why or if this is a bad idea. IDK how much mass of waste nuclear produces, so if it's not like massive coal ash ponds or some shit then surely throwing away a rocket now and then is worth it to prevent irradiating aquifers

        • Infamousblt [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Oh, just posted before I saw your post, but the very short answer is that if the rocket malfunctions and explodes, you now have exploding radioactive rocket issues instead of just "we have a pile of this bad shit we don't know what to do with". Much, MUCH bigger problem. Keep that shit squarely on the ground and move it slowly and safely.

      • Hoyt [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        People on this site: "train good car bad"

        Also people on this site "whats wrong with putting dense rocks in a rocket idk"

    • ElonMarx [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      "Let's put it off until later" has never come back to bite humanity in the ass before, Nuclear Ho!