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Warning on nuclear waste disposal

The total volume of nuclear waste in the UK is 470,000 cubic metres when conditioned and packaged - enough to fill the Albert Hall five times over. This includes waste that will arise in the next 100 years from existing nuclear power stations.

nuclearwaste.jpg (28.88 KiB) Viewed 5165 times

Proposals to send Britain's nuclear waste into space or to the bottom of the sea are impractical, a government advisory committee has warned.
The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management would like spent fuel rods to be either buried underground or stored temporarily in facilities above ground.

Nuclear power plants and weapons have left the UK with a radioactive legacy which presently has nowhere to go.
There will be yet more waste as nuclear stations are decommissioned.
A committee think-tank has consulted with experts and the public over the past 18 months, and has come up with four options which it considers viable.
They are: deep disposal, phased deep disposal, shallow burial of short-lived waste and interim storage.
Deep disposal is the process of permanently burying the waste between 300m (980ft) and 2km (1.2 miles) underground in
an area of suitable geology; where the rocks act as a protective chamber.

• Phased deep disposal is the same process except the waste will be retrievable.

• Shallow burial of short-lived waste refers to burying waste that is radioactive only for a short time just below the surface.

• Interim storage is a temporary management solution. Waste could be stored above the ground or just below the surface but
it must be outside the biosphere.

Alternatively, the waste could be put in secure storage above ground until better technologies become available, further consultation are ongoing Currently there is no recommendation on where the sites should be located. But the committee excluded from its shortlist blasting waste into space, storing it on ice sheets or below the sea.

The total volume of nuclear waste in the UK is 470,000 cubic metres when conditioned and packaged - enough to fill the Albert Hall five times over. This includes waste that will arise in the next 100 years from existing nuclear power stations and their decommissioning..

"There is no safe way of disposing of nuclear waste".
Should we invest in nuclear energy or not?
Nuclear waste comes from the process used to generate electricity via nuclear power, from making and maintaining nuclear weapons, and using nuclear technology in hospitals, laboratories and industry.

A recent study found that, on average, people in Britain live about 42km (26 miles) away from one of more than 30 radioactive waste sites, including power plants and military bases, in the UK.

nuclear2.jpg (43.16 KiB) Viewed 5165 times

Campaigner Roger Higman said: "The simple, most important thing we have been calling for is for whatever we do to be retrievable and reversible.
"The most radioactive waste is going to be high level in a thousand years' time so whatever happens, we have got a problem.
Post reply- what say you?

Luma wrote::D

luma2106.png

That is a great drawing, as are all of yours.

But, to me, it looks like a protest against a motorway or bypass. Maybe the nuclear dump aspect needs to be highlighted a bit more... A bit of radiation leaking and people "glowing" along with more sinister machinery and warning signs above a "hole in the ground" might do it?

That said - you are an amazing artist

giai wrote:Warning on nuclear waste disposal

nuclearwaste.jpg

Proposals to send Britain's nuclear waste into space or to the bottom of the sea are impractical, a government advisory committee has warned.
The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management would like spent fuel rods to be either buried underground or stored temporarily in facilities above ground.

Nuclear power plants and weapons have left the UK with a radioactive legacy which presently has nowhere to go.
There will be yet more waste as nuclear stations are decommissioned.
A committee think-tank has consulted with experts and the public over the past 18 months, and has come up with four options which it considers viable.
They are: deep disposal, phased deep disposal, shallow burial of short-lived waste and interim storage.
Deep disposal is the process of permanently burying the waste between 300m (980ft) and 2km (1.2 miles) underground in
an area of suitable geology; where the rocks act as a protective chamber.

• Phased deep disposal is the same process except the waste will be retrievable.

• Shallow burial of short-lived waste refers to burying waste that is radioactive only for a short time just below the surface.

• Interim storage is a temporary management solution. Waste could be stored above the ground or just below the surface but
it must be outside the biosphere.

Alternatively, the waste could be put in secure storage above ground until better technologies become available, further consultation are ongoing Currently there is no recommendation on where the sites should be located. But the committee excluded from its shortlist blasting waste into space, storing it on ice sheets or below the sea.

The total volume of nuclear waste in the UK is 470,000 cubic metres when conditioned and packaged - enough to fill the Albert Hall five times over. This includes waste that will arise in the next 100 years from existing nuclear power stations and their decommissioning..

nuclear2.jpg

Campaigner Roger Higman said: "The simple, most important thing we have been calling for is for whatever we do to be retrievable and reversible.
"The most radioactive waste is going to be high level in a thousand years' time so whatever happens, we have got a problem.
Post reply- what say you?

Well, firing it into space, actually crashing it into the Sun would be the best way of disposing of it but we cant take chances with rockets as there will always be the danger of a failure and the consequent dirty bomb scenario.

Storing it under the sea would lead to problems worldwide if it leaked.

Deep burial is a possibility but even if phased so as to make it retrievable would make it clumsy and expensive and it would probably mean buried forever.

Storing it on the surface is not an option as it would become a target if we have a war. Dirty bomb scenario again.

Putting it in secret shallow underground storage, retrievable and monitored, seems to me to be the less-worse solution.

hi steveizy thanks for your comments.
Luma checks the site regularly and I know appreciates the feedback.
I am going to mail him to request a picture of an elephant in stillettos
after your observation in the thruth fact or fiction page.

dub wrote:hi steveizy thanks for your comments.
Luma checks the site regularly and I know appreciates the feedback.
I waqs going to mail himto request a picture of an elephant in stillettos
after your observation in the thruth fact or fiction page.

That'll be worth waiting for.... don't forget the fishnets though