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Comment by notacop31337 | Hacker News Reader

I think I understand the point you're trying to make, but funnily enough, based on the current methods, yes.

That's not to say that the blades are more dangerous than the nuclear waste, just that the nuclear waste has many years of waste management engineering behind it, due to its danger. So there are defined processes of management that are well tested, well designed and well implemented.

Processes for blades currently are just bury them in landfill, which causes a bunch of unmitigated issues.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...

The idea that we "just bury" nuclear waste in the same way a dog buries a bone, is kinda funny, but very far from reality.

This also doesn't even touch on nuclear waste recycling, which is enormously beneficial.

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So you're saying there is years engineering experience behind nuclear waste management but burying wind turbine blades is somehow completely uncharted territory? Tell me how many landfills/regular waste processing plants (or are wind turbines fundamentally different?) exist compared to existing long term nuclear wast storage facilities? Do you think no engineers are involved in designing landfills? If you think the waste from wind turbines are a problem, what about the carbon fibres from all the other things (cars, planes, bikes...) that produce orders of magnitude more waste.

Same goes for solar cells, the recycling process is similar (but easier) than most regular electronics and if you think nuclear power plants don't require heavy metals in their construction, boy have I some news for you about what is in your laptop/desktop.

You might want to update your research on the state of play of turbine blade disposal. There are several companies with active recycling programs in place and scaling as we speak that do everything from recycling the blades into perfectly reusable fiberglass and fuel materials to converting them into building materials.

As far as disposal of nuclear waste goes, yeah there's a ton of engineering involved because the stuff is just that big a pain in the ass to deal with for any length of time. Given half-lives typically range between 30 years and 5 times the length of recorded human history and that the rule of thumb for "safe" levels of emission are 7 half-lives we're talking about borderline geologic time frames before certain types of waste meet anyone's definition of safe. We could also spend a moment here reviewing all of the incidents in the last 40 years where source material has managed to jump a fence and ended up crapping up an entire village or neighborhood. All of that is to say that anyone peddling the notion that storage of radioactive waste is a solved problem either has an agenda and no ethics or is grotesquely uninformed.

All I am reading is just how influential the nuclear lobby groups up if they can make these stupid comparisons and get away with it.

I'll give you this: nuclear proponents are really dedicated to twisting the facts to fit the narrative. "Actually, yes, large fan blades in landfills are worse than nuclear waste." Good stuff.

It looks less silly when you acknowledge the problems while explaining how they are outweighed by the benefits.

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