Hacker News Reader

Comment by caymanjim | Hacker News Reader

That's how most of the power plant waste in the US is "handled" right now, because it's so far been politically impossible to agree on long-term storage and transportation. It's an inferior solution, though. There are security issues, and many points of failure for environmental damage. It's particularly problematic when plants are decommissioned and the waste is still stuck there requiring indefinite security and storage facilities for an otherwise-defunct plant. We'd be better off with all of it in one secure and safe facility, pending a better solution in the future.

View on HN

How would one transport the waste across the country? I imagine there are some security issues with that too.

Very easily these days [1]

Its been done since days of nuclear plants. And no - there are no security issues, since as the name indicates, its a “waste”; you can’t make a bomb out of it and spreading it would not be as efficient as some type of gas that you would have easier access to. I imagine actually officials would love just to give away that nuclear waste to ISIS, preferrably deliver it to them for further handling by their peers, without gloves of course ;)

http://nuclearconnect.org/know-nuclear/technology/nuclear-wa...

I wasn't afraid of terrorists or people making bombs, I'm not American. I was worried about a truck or train crashing and showering an area in nuclear waste.

> The cask systems are designed to handle a wide range of severe environmental conditions, including earthquakes, flooding, extreme temperatures, and tornadoes. This includes objects that may impact the cask at high speed, such as during a tornado.

I suppose that means they withstand a car crash too.

Yes, and even being crashed into by another train: https://youtu.be/ZY446h4pZdc

In the U.K., a nuclear cask was tested in a train crash and came out fine. I’m sure a car crash would be alright too. :)

The US also did some testing with their flasks:

https://youtu.be/1mHtOW-OBO4?t=80

It's a pretty awful source (dubbed impact sounds), and very much in UK dialect, but it has some footage of the US testing I've not seen elsewhere.

You're ignoring the legitimate safety concerns over nuclear waste. It's not about an explosive nuclear device. It's about the risk of contamination, particularly of water supplies, and the psychological impact that radiation has (rational or not). There are both security concerns (preventing intentional misuse) and safety concerns (transportation accidents, leaky permanent storage). If it were harmless, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

But in that respect it’s not very different from the hundreds of hazardous chemicals that are transported around the country every day.

I agree, and objectively there are pollutants that are far worse than nuclear waste, both in actual harm potential and in ubiquity, but there's a strong fear factor about radiation that drives all the NIMBYism. It's rational to be concerned, but not rational to be concerned to the level people are. Alas, irrational people still vote. Maybe they can be distracted with a train full of vaccines.

> there are no security issues, since as the name indicates its a “waste”; you can’t make a bomb out of it

Without applying a lot of imagination, I can think out about some non trivial security issues in the idea of adding deplected uranium waste to a bomb as shrapnel. Definitely a bomb can be made with this stuff.

Depleted uranium is uranium that isn’t as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium. That’s what the depleted means. It’s so dangerous that they use it in hospitals as X-ray shielding.

Paper, your clothing, or even your dead skin cells is enough to block what little radioactivity is present in DU. What is dangerous about DU is that it’s a heavy metal (and pretty toxic). It’s not easy to work, so even forming it into bomb parts would kill more ISIS members than using it would kill the general public.

Obvioysly the GP does not literally mean depleted uranium, but spent uranium, i.e. containing whole decay chains of radioactive isotopes...

Depleted uranium is used in artillery munitions by the US since the early '90s. It is, allegedly, a cause of increased cancer rates in NATO personnel and others involved in conflicts were the US deployed heavy artillery.

If you cannot think of security issues around nuclear waste, you have no business discussing nuclear waste and you are doing your "cause" a disservice.

It's at least enough of an issue that the VA addresses it directly: https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/depleted_uranium/

Uranium is also toxic. The personnel that used DU ammo has mainly lung diseases due to Uranium dust. Metal toxicity has nothing to do with radioactivity.

Probably the same way that the nuclear fuel is transported in the first place?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com