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Comment by wahsd | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad we have solved the nuclear waste problem.

The "nuclear waste" problem is hardly a problem at all in comparison to most economically viable alternatives, namely coal. Coal produces more radiation than nuclear waste, not to mention many other toxins.

Cite: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-r...

It's a political problem, not science problem. We could have already completed the Yucca Mountain project, if not for the anti-science anti-nuclear fear mongers and NIMBYs.

You delusional people are fascinating. If anything you are anti-science, considering that it's bat shit insane to do something that has absolutely no chance of being sustainable and every chance in the world of being a disaster. What's so darn scientific about piling up nuclear waste with a half-life longer than humans have even been able to spell out names? This has nothing to do with NIMBY, but if you think it is, why not simply store it where you live.

That project is not complete at all and there are significant problems with it altogether, not even to mention that it's not a solution, it's a warehousing of a problem. It's as if you cut off your house from the sewage system and started stockpiling your waste in the garage. Sure, that would work, but for how long.

Most of our nuclear waste, and almost all the long-term waste, is unused fuel. Fast reactors and some molten salt reactors (eg. Transatomic) can use it as fuel, leaving a small amount of waste that goes back to the radioactivity of the original ore in 300 years.

So most of our waste only has to be contained until we get around to building advanced reactors. Russia already has a couple fast reactors in commercial operation, one since 1980.

But you are always left with a waste product that is simply not going to be anything but a health hazard. So you cut down the nuclear waste with a 500,000 half-life to only having a 250,000 year half life. Congratulations.

How about finding a solution before making more problems.

Eh no. It cuts the total volume of waste per gigawatt-hour by a factor of 100, and the half-life down to decades. That's why it only takes about three centuries before it's no more radioactive than the uranium ore that was there in the ground before we dug it up.

What's more, these reactors could eliminate the long-term waste we have already.

There's plenty of other waste that's more dangerous and produced in far greater quantities that people mostly don't care about. Why all the attention on nuclear waste specifically?

Waste with a half-life of 500,000 years?

There's a lot of industrial waste out there where the half life is more like 10^32 years (if protons actually do decay).

Anything that has a half-life of 500,000 years isn't very radioactive at all. The half life is directly related to the amount of harmful stuff it puts out.

Yeah, well, when this guy retires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Harry_R... we should see some progress there. And/or as the court case WRT to his stopping it proceeds, the utility companies are paying for it without getting any return and are more than a little fed up.

See elsewhere for my comments on why it's not hardly the problem it's made out to be.

Don't expect future Nevada senators to be any different than Harry Reid on the issue.

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

> A two-thirds majority of Nevadans feel it is unfair for their state to have to store nuclear waste when there are no nuclear power plants in Nevada. Many Nevadans' opposition stemmed from the so-called "Screw Nevada Bill," the 1987 legislation halting study of Hanford and Texas as potential sites for the waste before conclusions could be made.

> The governor of Nevada had 90 days to object and did so. However, the United States Congress overrode the objection. If the governor's objection had stood the project would have been abandoned and a new site chosen.

I simply expect them to be less powerful.

They'll be pretty powerful. A single senator can secretly prevent a motion from reaching the floor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_hold

Heh, a hold on this subject won't be very secret. And cloture can zap it.

But that's a power of a very different nature than that of one of the two political party's most powerful members in the Senate.

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