Hacker News Reader

Comment by anonymouskimmer | Hacker News Reader

> That has been working well, stored well and safely without issue.

Fukushima Daiichi. In case those two words aren't enough to jog your memory:

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

> "leading to releases of radioactivity and triggering a 30 km (19 mi) evacuation zone surrounding the plant"

> "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years."

I'm hopeful that when/if fusion reactors become prevalent that we will prioritize burning up the fusion waste radioactives. https://cns.utexas.edu/news/fusion-fission-hybrid

But, of course, that's an if: https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run...

View on HN

> "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years."

A minuscule amount of tritium, dumped into an ocean that has billions of tons of uranium dissolved in it. This Fukushima water issue is a perfect example of people letting emotions overrule rational thought.

> A minuscule amount of tritium, dumped into an ocean that has billions of tons of uranium

(And then marine life enters the room, accumulating this while ignoring that, and all those carefully raised math models, simulations and speeches fall like a house of cards).

The "National Association of Marine Laboratories" publishes a Position Paper titled "Scientific opposition to Japan’s planned release of over 1.3 million tons of radioactively contaminated water from the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster into the Pacific Ocean."

https://www.naml.org/policy/documents/2022-12-12%20Position%...

> Fukushima Daiichi. In case those two words aren't enough to jog your memory:

Yes, I get that nuclear power scares people, which is why we should put aside our emotions on the subject and just deal with the facts. We've had decades of empirical evidence about nuclear safety at this point.

Zero radio-logical related deaths from Fukushima. And zero deaths in all history from all other civilian nuclear waste.

> "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years."

It sounds scary. "Radioactive water!" But it's not an issue. How many will die or have shortened lifespan from this? Let me know and we can add it to the zero above.

The comment I was responding to was "WITHOUT ISSUE". A 30 km exclusion zone, even if temporary, is AN ISSUE.

> And zero deaths in all history from all other civilian nuclear waste.

It's rare, but happens:

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

> September 30, 1999 Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

> Two of these workers died.

"Inadequately trained part-time workers prepared a uranyl nitrate solution containing about 16.6 kg (37 lb) of uranium, which exceeded the critical mass, into a precipitation tank at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokai-mura northeast of Tokyo, Japan. The tank was not designed to dissolve this type of solution and was not configured to prevent eventual criticality. Three workers were exposed to (neutron) radiation doses in excess of allowable limits. Two of these workers died. 116 other workers received lesser doses of 1 mSv or greater though not in excess of the allowable limit.[39][40][41][36]"

We are discussing nuclear waste in this thread.

I said "stored well and safely without issue".

You find 2 dead workers from an industrial accident over a 70 year history that was not actually about nuclear waste but was a fuel processing and fabrication facility making fuel for experimental reactors. Not civilian power reactors. [1]

Even if you included it (which clearly it's not related to waste so shouldn't) it would still be the safest and best managed waste of anything we have!

The exclusion zone is not nuclear waste. It is interesting though because a lot of research after the event seems to show that the evacuation and such a large exclusion zone was a mistake and we should evacuate less in such events. But in the moment I get everyone was scared and didn't have a good idea of what to do.

[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...

"Re-processing facility" means it comes from used rods (i.e. "waste").

This is fine, you can have your thread dedicated solely to waste. Though I do think that waste reprocessing should also be included in such a thread.

-----

As to the more general matter, people aren't concerned so much with waste, as with everything about nuclear power. Including "accidental waste" such as that caused by the Chernobyl civilian reactor failure.

Yes, I'm glad we're designing and building meltdown-proof reactors.

The long-term waste, regardless of how it originates (whether from conventional waste, decommissionings, or what have you) needs to be processed such that people a hundred, thousand, ten thousand years from now don't have to do anything special about it.

I think this can be done. But without stringent, real-time regulations I am not confident industry, or even government, will do what's necessary.

> Zero radio-logical related deaths from Fukushima. And zero deaths in all history from all other civilian nuclear waste.

Still a trillion dollar clean up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com