88,000 tons of radioactive waste - and nowhere to put it

The United States produces 2,200 tons of nuclear waste each year…and no one knows what to do with it. The federal government has long promised, but never delivered, a safe place for nuclear power plants to store their spent fuel. This means that radioactive waste is piling up all over the country. We visited one of the worst places where the waste is stuck: a beachside power plant uncomfortably close to both San Diego and Los Angeles. And we asked the people in charge of the waste there: what happens now?
Video by: Rachel Becker, William Poor, Alex Parkin, Cory Zapatka
Audio Mix: Andrew Marino
Director of Audience Development: Ruben Salvadori
Social Media Manager: Dilpreet Kainth
Thanks to: Julie C Holt, Kevin Crowley, William Charlton
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[@VergeScience]

What do you think we should do with nuclear waste?

[@AS-3D]

Space

[@oftext]

Verge Science send it to outer space what else is there ;)

[@IONAPINKMOXIE]

The desert or places at the poles where no one lives?

[@dijarqerimi6849]

Verge Science well theres is no answer what did we do with that radioactive waste in chernobyl underground that melted dwn on the ground

[@sanderleung1807]

Maybe we can use it to paint

[@royvonsoysauce8889]

we could always put in on Buzzfeed's headquarters.

[@dulynoted2427]

RoyVonSoySauce Make any pipe bombs lately? Freak.

[@a1r592]

I believe their headquarter's already full...

[@djanitatiana]

Yeah, radiotherapy for the primary tumour of America's cancer.

[@royvonsoysauce8889]

buzzfeed is the cancer of our generation.

[@SetiI_ceng]

I do support this decision.

[@sayrith]

You forgot to mention that newer reactor technologies can use spent fuel as energy. They old reactors are incredibly inefficient at extracting energy from uranium. Newer ones extract more and thus produce less waste.

[@coolhandluke1503]

So instead of using 5% now we can burn up what 10%? and now we have to handle more of an active substance.

[@coolluckyme2007]

@@coolhandluke1503 here's type of reactor that re-uses its own waste, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor . US had prototype in 1986.

[@brian2440]

coolluckyme2007 His comment is still a good one and acknowledges a risk that many laymen nuclear supporters don’t recognize. If you utilize actinide waste products by burning them into isotopes with shorter decay rates you are increasing the radioactivity of the material inside your reactor. This requires that your core be made of materials that can handle higher amounts of radioactivity that will in turn increase your facility costs and likely increase maintenance. However from a cost analysis you have to compare the costs of more expensive reactor core to that of long term waste disposal costs (decommissioning), which in the long term seems to favor IMSRs (like what Terrestrial energy is building in Canada) and ABRs (like experimental pro types featured at ANL and INL)

[@amigaamigo5307]

What about fusion reactors haven’t they been perfected

[@user-si5fm8ql3c]

@@amigaamigo5307 Fusion has nothing to do with Fission Reactors self powering Fusion Reactors aren't a Thing yet.

[@MM-hq5qk]

Nuclear waste is recyclable. Once reactor fuel (uranium or thorium) is used in a reactor, it can be treated and put into another reactor as fuel. In fact, typical reactors only extract a few percent of the energy in their fuel.

[@OzCroc]

Yes but eventually people will stop using it. Maybe it will wear out, or maybe something will happen to humanity where it is not useful anymore (think apocalyptic event). Eventually it needs somewhere to go.

[@yesimthegoat0385]

But in terms of that scale and timeline, the amount of waste produced is very very small. It’s not that difficult of a problem and the benefits are astronomical

[@zeropride1133]

@@OzCroc it will eventually be shipped into space when its safe enough to do so. its the most logical since space is radioactive already

[@OzCroc]

@@zeropride1133 That will cost a lot of money and spend a lot of fuel

[@zeropride1133]

@@OzCroc everything has a price.

[@09rja]

88,000 tons is nothing. It sounds like a lot but it's nothing compared to the general waste and the level of waste produced from other energy methods. Coal (for example) produces 120 million tons of toxic waste a year.

[@bryanl1984]

@09rja Exactly! The level of fear and ignorance about radioactivity is shocking. Not only is the waste dense, compared to coal waste etc. it is ridiculously clean and safe. Also, it's not the long term waste you have to worry about. It's the short half life stuff that's super hot. Duration of waste is inversely proportional to radioactivity. Why isn't this taught more widely? More people die servicing windmills every year than the combined death toll from the entire history of US nuclear power.

[@bryanl1984]

Oh, one more thing. I have a feeling you got those toxicity numbers from anti-nuclear activists, which can present factual info very dishonestly. It may be technically true that the waste _could_ kill that many people _but,_ it has to be delivered perfectly. A baggy of Ricin could kill hundreds of thousands but, it has to be administered properly. The radioactives would have to essentially be injected via syringe or something to kill that many people. An environmental release would be of very limited geographic scope. If someone spilled that baggy of Ricin, you evacuate a few hundred feet and it would be fine.

[@Birdofgreen]

@@jobelb.garcela9476 I think you mean "if properly processed and concentrated then placed in a complex device with a high failure rate then intentionally triggered inside a high population center." Not "mishandled."

[@royk7712]

Jobal Doctolero if you can get over military protected place that heavily defended, yeah

[@jobelb.garcela9476]

Kevin birdofgreen ...I misunderstood a nuclear waste from a processed material. But I still worry once a disaster strikes like fires, Tidal waves or earthquakes at the storage area and the effect would be enormous to the communities nearby.

[@BruceConsidine]

The "waste" still has almost all of its original energy so it's fuel for Molten Salt Reactors. They can burn it to exhaustion and the small fraction left gets stored for only 300 years.

[@johnnyllooddte3415]

youre talking pie in the sky.. building those reactors is decades away

[@austrianoe]

​​​@@johnnyllooddte3415nope the tech is already here both for MSR and MOX fuel reactors (some are already in use in France and China), its just more economic in the moment to use traditional Pressurized Water Reaktors or others with Uranium and store the "waste", personally I think theres also a lobby behind it, but thats just me. But from the tech side, it is already since the 1960s possible to completely burn nuclear "waste" and also make some energy out of it.

[@snarckys3063]

"only"... 🤦‍♂️

[@TheDutchShepherd]

​@@snarckys3063yes only... When you know that the spent fuel from the other reactors needs to be stored for tens of thousands of years, 300 is nothing.

[@sulfo4229]

As my former professor of physics once pointed out (about any NPP in general): Don't you expect there will be anything else standing on that place once you tear that plant down and clean it up, because there WILL be another nuclear power plant. There are reasons why the plant stands there instead of a kindergarten.

[@octavia.n]

I don’t see your point

[@PTNLemay]

I can understand people's apprehension, but the government needs to start education programs or something to placate people's fears. The simple fact is, we are going to need power for the foreseeable future. Renewables (wind, solar, hydro) can do their part, but there is no way they can supply the entire grid (not yet). So we either resort to nuclear, or fossil-fuels. Some people think that fossil fuels are the lesser of those two evils, because at least fossil fuels isn't dumping radioactive substances into the environment. But... the truth is trickier. When you burn coal, you do end up throwing tiny amounts of harmful substances into the air. I don't mean greenhouse gases, I mean radioactive substances (also mercury). Coal power plants do their best to try to filter these out of their exhaust, but some do still leak out. Per pound of fuel burned, nuclear fission is more dangerous. But per watt-hour of energy produced, coal does produce more radioactive waste. Nuclear fission is ideal (in a way) because all of the harm is concentrated into neat boxes that can be safely stored. Instead of just thrown into the air. You might argue, what about Fukushima Daichi, and Three Mile Island. These things clearly aren't safe! But the counter-argument to that is simply... those where all very old reactors (Chernobyl was in a class all it's own). People like to play the environmentalist, saying we shouldn't build new reactors, or modernize the existing ones. That they should all be shut down. But we can't do that, not unless we cut off a huge chunk of our energy consumption. So we keep using old, outdated nuclear reactors. And the older they get, the more of a risk they can become. Edit: Removed gas, I made an error claiming it contained radioactive bits.

[@mikeyoung9810]

Great power, terrible waste produced. I haven't heard a way yet of making accidents impossible or a solution to the waste product. Everyday a nuclear reactor operates the problem only potentially gets worse. If you are saying we have no choice then we are doomed. Maybe not us today but someday.

[@PTNLemay]

ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh Even when we take into consideration all of the worst nuclear accidents that have happened to date, pretty much every other power source has more fatalities related to it. Nuclear power is dangerous, and it should be treated with respect, but it's actual danger is hugely inflated in people's minds. It's not seen in that chart, but in the same study that produced it they found that globally (taking a yearly average that takes into consideration the major nuclear accidents) 10 times more people die from falling off their roofs while installing solar panels than people have died as a consequence of nuclear power.

[@speedy01247]

Look at France 90% nuclear and doing fine. Besides nuclear is literally the second least deadly form of energy, second only to wind (solar has some really dangerous materials that are in it which cause more fatalities then you think)

[@TheBluMeeny]

speedy01247 Slight correction, as of this year it's 75%, but still 100% agree with this thread on everything.

[@the0433]

you should read about desertec project, you will realize how wrong you are...

[@irish_soldier1248]

All the industrial advancement and forward movement we’ve had in 245 years...and we still run on steam

[@tinytownsoftware7989]

Maybe because it's the cheapest, most effective, most versatile way to generate electricity at the moment? You need a kinetic force to spin those turbine blades. In the case of wind and hydro, it's wind and water that spin the blades. If you don't have those (wind doesn't always blow and you don't have dams or fjords everywhere), you gotta do it somehow and the best way is to boil water, which is practically free. Just gotta find a way to boil it. The fact that we can do that by using multiple fuel sources (coal, gas, oil, nuclear) is why it's been used for so long. There's no need to improve the process, because it's already really good. Even fusion, which doesn't exist yet, would work the same way once they figure it all out, by heating water and making turbines spin.

[@aa2339]

I’ve seen the video were they strap radium glow in the dark tubes on to photovoltaic cells.

[@gerardoberdin6036]

I am one of solar advocate, I used solar power energy for 8 years to lessen my electricity monthly bill. Its just 1200 Watts but very helpful. No brown out during power outage.

[@Kriduth]

Any native Southern Californian knows that those things are nuclear boobies.

[@KaiWCGaming]

Hyung my dad and I always laugh when we see them going to San Diego

[@Akash.1288]

Tanner fox

[@eddy87578]

sano boobies, straight facts

[@ThePerpetualStudent]

Yes, yes they are.

[@lucaszelaya710]

lol i live in Orange County and I always drive past it on the way to san Diego for sports

[@TheElmatoc]

*Nevada doesn't want to take one for the team....shame on them* .....

[@LitaMendoza07]

Internet Explorer As a resident of Nevada, please accept this apology: ”Our bad, guys.” Internet Explorer, since you don’t think it’s that bad of an idea, give them your IP address and maybe they can bury nuclear fuel under your home.

[@halo3odst]

it would be a better thing to do than for the governor to waste everyone's time and money on those stupid pointless overpasses that go nowhere you see on the way to las vegas.

[@maxmagnus777]

Don't worry it will be spread all over foreign countries in next invasion. For example 90 Italian peace keepers got cancer while serving in Kosovo (Former Yugoslavia)

[@Deadlyaztec27]

Nevada is acting like they're actually using most of that land, lol

[@eb60lp]

Lita Mendoza they weren’t about to bury it under your house. They were going to bury it in the desert.

[@StrangerHappened]

*THERE IS A WAY* to deal with it. New nuclear reactors like BN-800 and BN-1200 feed on nuclear waste. Of course, not all types of nuclear waste can be eliminated this way, but a huge chunk.

[@leerman22]

"It pained chemists to see precisely fabricated solid-fuel elements of heterogeneous reactors eventually dissolved in acids to remove fission products-the "ashes" of a nuclear reaction." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueous_homogeneous_reactor The next best thing to a molten salt reactor.

[@flybeep1661]

I don't think you realize what nuclear waste encapsulates. It's everything, radiactive waste material, radiated materials from hospitals, irradiated stuff. What you're talking about is nuclear spent fuel. The waste itself which is not spent fuel is far larger.

[@StrangerHappened]

I don't think you realize what I wrote. I specifically used "of course, not all types of nuclear waste can be eliminated this way, but a huge chunk" qualifier, which makes my position on this perfectly accurate.

[@willyouwright]

Thorium lftr?? too??

[@goawayplease6456]

Would that nuclear reactor produce it's own waste?

[@leerman22]

Every gram of plutonium and U238 can be burned away in a molten salt fast reactor into short lived waste, and make a crapload of electricity doing it. The fuel in a 20Kg CANDU fuel bundle makes about 1,000,000KWh of energy, but in a MSFR it could make almost 150 times that and no long lived waste.

[@arvaborelius7269]

Source?

[@willyouwright]

Kirk sorensen is your source..

[@N8TheSnake]

Divergaming google MSFR reactors. They are superior technologies for safe, efficient power generation that have never been given a fair shake. Their day is coming, just a matter of when.

[@arvaborelius7269]

@@N8TheSnake ok. I'm not questioning the superiority of nuclear power. Just wanted a source.

[@leerman22]

Nathan D Drunk version of me: The parasite loves to think they know better and yank at the great chain like a child instead of looking at the long term impacts. Where would we be if early nuclear innovation wasn't regulated out of existence? Recycling nuclear waste is practically banned in America, something breeder reactors NEED in order to operate efficiently.

[@kopp1948]

Dry-cask storage is now used for storage of spent fuel after it is removed from the reactor facility. These casks are now stored in 34 states.

[@Airman1169]

And it's very safe. Because they have no moving parts that can break. Ive touched them and the radiation off the casks are extremely low. You detect normal levels at only a few inches from them and only slightly more at the surface of the casks.

[@tiffanylaserna1288]

That guy at 1:20 just casually going for a swim next to the nuclear waste facility lol

[@marclaky384]

One of the most famous longboard surf sports in the world is right there.

[@chrisrock4428]

I live near Babcock and Wilcox in western pa where they buried all the waste in the field next to the factory. The cancer rate in my town is off the charts. When I was 17 my buddy and i went for a walk at like 2am. We saw guys in those white suits burying the stuff in the middle of the night. Ridiculous

[@paulanderson7796]

The point being missed is that the fission byproducts with the longest half lives are those that present the least risk. U238, whilst not being a byproduct, forms between 97-98% of the uranium content loaded into the reactor. It doesn't change inside the reactor core. U238 has a half life of around 4.2 billion years, thus from a radiological safely / risk perspective U238 itself can be ignored completely.

[@paulsehstedt6275]

The waste can be used either in MSR (Molten Salt Reactors) or DFR (Dual Fluid Reactors). Just invest in the development of these two reactor types. Both produces no nuc waste or very little, depends on the lay out

[@Whiskey11Gaming]

You always have fission products as part of nuclear fission and only a few have commercial applications if separated. That means you always have a waste... it's just that fission products are shorter lived. Most take 300 years or less to reach background radiation. MSR is the fission power plant we need, for sure, but they still generate waste, it's just easier to manage.

[@LifePaki]

I didn’t know u had knowledge like the people who designed these plants if that were true this would be at every plant as it increases the amount of energy they can produce per rod

[@paulsehstedt6275]

@@LifePaki so you learned something new

[@LifePaki]

paul sehstedt that’s common sense😶

[@Wesley-vy3hy]

Sodium reactors definitely are not the stablest form of energy fermi tried that a while ago with their breeder reactor and it didn’t go so well

[@danhantheman]

the tune of the first few secs made me think the background song was gonna be Call Me Maybe

[@nsr5961]

Dan Han I had to replay video to hear it. I thought that too! 😅

[@mgpunya1]

They never told or asked us or even shared when enjoying them but telling us now when it's a problem...

[@lefunk22]

A nuclear power plant right next to the sea. What could possibly go wrong? Fukushima: "Hey you guys, you'll never guess what happened"...

[@jillaustin3143]

They use the water to cool down the engine

[@Hellsong89]

Nuclear reactor middle of the desert far from sea: Hey guys, we might have problem! Reactor cooling main system just failed and secondary system evaporated empty last week, so can anyone drive truck and get some more water like yesterday?! Gets blown and radioactive particles get spread all over the sands and being spread by the winds. Its next to sea so any of the 3 cooling systems can keep core cooled, or it goes critical, melts and then things start to go bad....For tsunamis and earthquokes construction must be built to withstand those and given alternatives its better to have it under water than run dry.

[@connivingkhajiit]

Cant say i remember the last time California had a tidal wave from a magnitude 9 earthquake

[@captainsloth5895]

The only thing wrong with fukushima, was not putting the generator uphill away from the plant... Besides nothing happened that day only a natural disaster.

[@BnMProductions11]

@@connivingkhajiit I mean it's sitting on the San Andreas fault line. Just waiting for a massive earthquake to happen

[@Zeroneii3]

nuclear waste does less damage than fossil fuels nuclear energy would be a good transition energy from non-renewable to renewable energy

[@user-bw3fl7fj9w]

Best would be finding ways to make it less radioactive and easier to store or even better find a way to make it usable for something

[@johnnyllooddte3415]

youre talking pie in the sky.. building those reactors is decades away

[@cosimakazak2309]

the see levels rises dramatically and these storage objects become fragile , we all know where that will end.

[@anonymnahyena6711]

Nuclear waste could be used in future as energy source in breeder reactors because 96% of nuclear energy is still there. Nuclear power plants are the future, because it can produce lot of power at small area and also in night and when wind is not blowing, so no batteries needed in comparison to "green/renewable" energy sources

[@adolfodef]

Maybe that is the reason they are "delaying" the "definitive burial" of nuclear waste: They know how valuable it is RIGHT NOW in their "easy to access" places [even if you left a way to retrieve it later, just MOVING IT through the states (high security measures are not cheap) will make it less valuable per ton later].

[@markplott4820]

Spam Spam - well we need a MIX of more Nuclear Reactors and Renewable Energy projects with Battery Storage, ONE GWh class wind/solar install along with POWERPACK energy storage means, TWO conventional power plants using Fossil Fuel can be permanent shutdown. But, we also need to research NEW geothermal , Hydroelectric and Tidal power as well, Tidal has been used successfully in IRELAND.

[@hectora7479]

Spam Spam I like being used as energy!

[@trumpeytoes7450]

green renewable generators are the way to go, look at plants ffs.

[@magic3061]

0:55 this reminds me of the naked gun film..

[@itsMelonPVP]

oh my god yes

[@billyboblillybob344]

Everywhere I go, I just can't get her out of my mind...

[@chrisklaffi9425]

billybob lillybob. u made my day :D Childhood memories

[@wino0000006]

But the car was going the other direction - hahahaha.

[@adam2uber]

I grew up in southern California and we called it the Anna Nicole Smith Memorial.

[@mohdsirajsaifuddin]

What happens if the fuel, dumped into an active flowing volcano? Will it react and create an explosion? Or just melt? And how about the radioactive numbers, will it be high or low?

[@zakmclaughlin8450]

I think maybe it would create ☢️ clouds with ☢️ rain

[@vaclavzajac214]

Some of the waste would evaporate so it's not a great idea but there were plans to put the waste on the edge of tectonic plates so that the waste would be trapped inside the core of the Earth.

[@stickynorth]

They actually use a technology to contain low and medium waste called glassification which is really just a controlled version of the old "stick it magma" trick... so it's not a foolish idea at all... The explosive power of rods without a moderator is why they are stored either safely in dry casks or in water-filled pools... not ideal but better than nothing...

[@ashc3765]

Those concrete boxes are a gift to our future generations who will use it to generate cheap clean power. Something America seems unwilling to do today.

[@JLaboss65]

Ash Carter Spent Nuclear Fuel doesn’t have enough uranium to sufficiently and efficiently make power that is why it is spent and discarded

[@ashc3765]

JLaboss65 newer reactor designs can use spent rods as fuel. The spent rods still contain approximately 96% of the uranium by mass.

[@3User]

@@JLaboss65 It has WAY more than enough uranium left. After fuel enrichment, a fuel rod contains about 3% U-235, rendering the other 97% of U-238 to be disposed as "waste" which could easily be converted back into usable fuel via a breeder reactor

[@luddite333]

the ending with the foolish seagull poop mention really undermines the video

[@jrjon738]

1.4 million homes, I can't fathom the amount of co2 due to all the coal and gas plants have to pick up. (Yes, i know that renewable is catching up, and thats awesome) We still need convention, the wind doesn't always blow, and the sun doesn't always shine.

[@simonno5869]

the sun actually shines 24/7

[@hochhaul]

Or the radioactive contaminants released in the burning of all that coal.

[@mannuelvigneault1583]

with a president who doesnt believe in climate change, im not surprise ^^

[@johna1671]

I've lived in San Diego my entire life and no one thinks about these reactors. Chill out lol

[@RiotHRC]

2020 and these things still here lmao, I love driving past sitting nuclear power plants just chilling with all that nuclear fuel by it self ya know

[@genericyoutube]

still safer than coal

[@hugodoucet2872]

Generic KZbinr Oh , we must not have read the same studies. Please elaborate.

[@genericyoutube]

@@hugodoucet2872 www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

[@genericyoutube]

www.washingtonpost.com/national/nuclear-power-is-safest-way-to-make-electricity-according-to-2007-study/2011/03/22/AFQUbyQC_story.html?.f869b8efe0da

[@Demonbacktony]

Oooooof

[@genericyoutube]

@Ian Brown tell that to the millions that have died from coal

[@kalzonenu]

Put it on vice headquarters where Theres No Brain anyways.

[@chapter4travels]

Waste is a selling feature for nuclear, not a reason to be against it. The little bit of waste generated from massive amounts of energy produced is all contained and safely stored for future energy use in the new breeder reactors coming out.

[@RickSigma]

Just put it in a furry convention

[@XXKXKX]

YES

[@deejudanne460]

then they might actually fuse into their suits lol

[@tycenreche6587]

Why are we not just taking it to the Mexican American border? No need for a wall people would get as far from it as possible

[@GREENHOUSE_LIGHTSHOW]

Pyro invited it to a furry convention -Keemstar

[@pappapinskie5883]

Radioactive furries doesn't sound like a solution to furries

[@gerardoberdin6036]

Imagine from thousand to 2oo up to 300 years before toxic radiation shall be vanished still unsafe that it takes 2 to 3 centuries.

[@Tuppoo94]

I wonder how many millions of tons of waste other forms of energy produce EVERY YEAR.

[@DRUmBEaTTS]

Reprosess spent nuclear fuel, refurbish and update the reactors and reopen the plant!

[@kazikian]

20% of US power from only 100 reactors. 400 reactors (at the same sites! Four per site) would cover all our needs, with renewables picking up the slack!

[@storyls]

Ahmed Kazikian It doesn’t actually scale like that due to how power grids work. Nuclear is an amazing backbone for electricity but due to changes in demand we need options that are quicker to regulate as well, such as natural gas.

[@kazikian]

Styil I did not know that! Okay, so let’s have 300 reactors, 100 natgas plants, and renewables.

[@kazikian]

@@thecommenterabc6122 As long as somewhere in the plan we have >50% nuclear, it's a good start!

[@jameskellenberger8740]

Store the waste. The issue with waste is no knowing where it is. We just dump pollutants right in the area

[@jokerman213]

This was literally my back yard growing up. .. I lived 300 yards from here on the Marine base and surfed this beach daily.

[@gilian2587]

And now you look like Daniel Radcliffe from Horns, right? ;)

[@mattyallen3396]

Wtf? A nuclear power station in California? Fricking earthquake centre!

[@Tman76]

Recycle it. The technology has been around for decades, and reduces the harmfulness from thousands of years to a few hundred, which is very manageable. It also reduces how much mining is needed.

[@Charles_Anthony]

San Onofre nuclear plant was the worst plant in the nation. Run by highly corrupt So. Cal. Edison. Most people don't know that they bought the wrong size generator from Japan. The workers told my drivers so many horror stories about this plant during the yellow cab rides to the high Desert. Almost every worker at San Onofre lived in the high Desert in the Mojave/San Bernardino. They knew that it probably would've blown sky high and they lived so far away from it for a reason. Nuclear energy isn't a negative thing, but whe run by the free market, it becomes a very dangerous thing due to greed and corruption.

[@Charles_Anthony]

@@sjjubb1989 : I am a registered Republican, but after the horror stories I heard, coming out of San Onofre, I'd rather have the idiots in Washington run the plants. Ask yourself this, why does our nuclear powered navy run so efficiently?

[@ianprinzing1273]

Wait so California politics ruins a nuclear plant that otherwise had potential and you blame... the market? Connect the dots for me.

[@Charles_Anthony]

@@ianprinzing1273 : For once, California politics actually had nothing to do with this. Simply put, it was the loss of profits combined with the rising costs of repairing the reactor and generator due to the damage it sustained when So. Cal. Edison put the wrong generator in. Long story short, it was unprofitable. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but So. Cal. Edison did this to themselves, not California.

[@ianprinzing1273]

@@Charles_Anthony It's a utility company, in California. Why do you think almost every utility company has a near monopoly in its state?

[@BurroB0Y]

Yes, SCE was a bunch of shitheads. No, most workers and families did not live far away. We lived as close as we could be, because there was no reason to believe that the place would blow up.

[@AutocrossCarAccessories]

Brother video is damn sick and lit af

[@rustyyb8450]

Put spent fuel in a municipal HEAT PLANT so that it can be used to warm the city!

[@jacktoomey8565]

We gotta do better... cause what we are doing right now isn’t working

[@EpticityOG]

Always see it when I drive yo San Diego

[@Matildacapone]

You could store the radioactive ☢️ waste by building a facility on the outskirts of NYC,not Staten Island,closer to Jersey. Lots and lots of revenue for the city.

[@russpink4185]

Shoot it into space... not like we care too much about space travel so why not use the space in space.

[@tillinginagrave1]

Proof we never went to space

[@anonyninja7737]

If you make 3 million dollars worth of energy, but then have to pay 6 million dollars to get rid of the waste product produced, you end up IN THE NEGATIVE. The amount of money/fuel it takes to launch something like that far enough into space that it won't end up falling back down is many, many, many more times what we make from the power plants in the first place - measured in both energy and profit.

[@anonyninja7737]

@@tillinginagrave1 It's not "proof we never went to space" you absolute fuckin' moron.... it's simple logistics.

[@russpink4185]

Anony Ninja should have never started creating nuclear waste in the first place then. We have unlimited power if we use water and air.

[@ricktimmons458]

great idea - can this horrible stuff be reused on Mars? the Moon? does the proposed SPACE FORCE have the ability to power a future spaceship? Space is cold so the decay time would be altered. back here on earth can plutonium be frozen with dry ice or nitrogen?

[@42luke93]

Oh was this the plant in the beginning of the Naked Gun?

[@i_r3l4x]

The Dual fliud reactor is a way to get rid of nuclear waste and its a safe reactor means no reactor melt down that could effect a ultimate MCA ⚛️👌

[@jimmythepigeon1932]

How much radiation will actually be left after 20k years? A good 15 year old chemistry student will tell you not very much and this is only going to happen if there's civilasation collapse. If science and tech continues to progress we will have either found away to spend this fuel or safely send it into space within the next few hundred years. The risks of radiation are completely overblown and are nothing compared to the risks of continuing to burn fossil fuels. Why does no one talk about the higher amount of radioactive waste generated from coal fired power plants?

[@markplott4820]

Jimmy the Pigeon - people have already begun to repopulate Fukushima area, but they have to hunt wild boar and bury them. The wild hogs are distructive to environment and are radioactive.

[@lilaclizard4504]

_"Why does no one talk about the higher amount of radioactive waste generated from coal fired power plants?"_ because no-one in America's building new coal fired plants? lol new plants would be either nuclear or solar & solar outperforms nuclear these days (when you consider that a nuclear reactor that started building today wouldn't open for a decade & look at the advancement of solar in the last decade & therefore it's expected position by the time the nuclear plant can be opened, no comparison!)

[@markplott4820]

Lizzard - agree, for now we still need NG powerplants mixed in with our Renewables. agree, the process in getting permission for NEW renewable power plant is faster. but, we still need NEW nuclear to happen because power happens day/night any weather. besides , for every GWh class renewable project goes online, we can shut down Two coal fired plants.

[@lilaclizard4504]

Mark, but by the time a new one opens, batteries will have come so far & I suspect everyone will have already switched to decentralised systems. Right now I think pumped water batteries are the way to go if looking at building new infrastructure, but even that is looking like it could be outdated before they will become operational & they only need a few years max to build & get operational, then there's systems like kite wind that is looking really promising & accessing higher wind drafts that are more reliable & geo-thermal & particularly the lower level systems that only need to drill down a few hundred metres for building temperature regulation have barely even started to be explored but show huge potential & much faster rollout capacity than nuclear does. All this stuff is jobs jobs jobs too! spending money on this stuff is a good investment imo, speed up the demise of coal power, while creating jobs for those workers in the new energy field :)

[@markplott4820]

If I were President I would not bother with NEW Nuclear Plants, instead create funding of putting up partally or Fully subsidized SOLAR on rooftops in America along with Home Battery storage. and LET the consumer when and how to send Energy to the grid. I would also mandate the creation of GWh class Renewable Energy projects with Battery Storage across America. we would also need to investigate NEW sources of GEOTHERMAL and HYDROELECTRIC energy. and perhaps Retrofit older dams to have Battery Storage.

[@nawneetsharad426]

I think they should try to find out ways to keep them from where they got it..

[@edwardyang8254]

The really stupid thing was to "retire" the reactors in the first place. If you "retire" the Capitol Hill, it'll quickly become a "waste" land, too.

[@Fish220]

The thing uh., I think Ireland did? A huge hole that can hold that stuff for millions of years.

[@Jhihmoac]

This is the result of trashing the "Yuck! A Mountain!" project...

[@mateo1aaa]

Actually Generation 4 Nuclear uses nuclear waste so nuclear power has a future, a bright future.

[@go06bolts]

And it’s like a hop an a skip away from Camp Pendleton. A major Marine Corp base.

[@RemoveChink]

Hi, I watched Chernobyl and now I know everything about nuclear power ;)

[@yuvinduperera7062]

I know all about the bullets

[@LeoArenales18]

You didn’t see graphite

[@amigaamigo5307]

And how all of Eastern Europe could have been wiped out. Brexit might have not happened if that were the case

[@3User]

@@amigaamigo5307 that "all of eastern europe could have been wiped out" statement is an EXTREME exaggeration, in the show they claimed the steam explosion produced would have been 2 *MEGATONS* , which is multiple magnitudes greater than what it really would have been, around 147 tons. There was 7000 cubic liters of water in the tank, the explosion produced would barely scratch europe

[@amigaamigo5307]

Coniver Divide so it’s not as deadly to Europe as Islam.

[@perspexsavant4787]

If they would sell me the plant for $1, I have a process that will neutralize ALL of the fuel and any other radioactive material including the core. Then, they would need to dismantle and move the plant. Next I would sell the property. And yes, I do have an easy process. The REAL problem here is the storage of radioactive material is a HUGE business. Even though we have proven ourselves on the the radioactive material they sent us with professionally verified results, no one wants to disrupt this industry. It’s just too lucrative.

[@havanascp9602]

Put it in the Washington DC. Nothing worth losing there 😬😬

[@maverickdallas1004]

I have always felt that there is a huge amount energy in spent nuclear fuel that isn't being harnessed.

[@vidita4186]

"He's delusional, take him to the infirmary."

[@OctaneSlain]

Not great, not terrible

[@michaeladgo]

What are ‘turbins’? I’ve heard of ‘turbines’ 😹

[@Acompony]

Walter Maboyo what I was about to type

[@SonicAviator]

Same thing just easier to say. I usually pronounce it turbans

[@sigvekjnny8380]

It's like a turban, but with a bin.

[@1crazysushiluver91]

Even considering the waste nuclear power is ridiculously better and less damaging than fossil fuels

[@stefanQ10]

nuclear energy is the best type of energy

[@haus_cat]

Most powerful? sure , most economic and sustainable? No.

[@pranavutekar241]

We can use sapcex to lauch the nuclear waste into space .

[@Draxindustries1]

Spread it on the fields as fertiliser..

[@anikettripathi7991]

Pollution and environmental issues are directly proportional to energy consumption irrespective /irrelevant to type and sources used. Because all energies inevitably goes for production, manufacturing, heating, cooling ,industrial and personal needs only. So unless we learn to limit ourselves nothing would change /improve. Human are very clever in fooling themselves and prefer enjoyments only.

[@lilianafernandez7329]

But far away from the planets have you tried to throw it towards the sun or somewhere else like the planets with the same chemicals

[@mralisaleh]

Not a cheap energy afterall

[@halo3odst]

cheaper than coal solar and wind.

[@Robert-hm1ob]

They were thinking $$$ at the time of building😂😃😁

[@thetruth7633]

Waste now, fuel tomorrow

[@justethical280]

Send it to El Cajon. It's already a dump.

[@williamhill2221]

Don't forget uranium ore come from cooling volcanic rock to chronology experience 10 thousand years to 100 thousand years even 1 million years, which thus form as categories kinds of ore containing categories chemical elements.

[@billkuhl4051]

Hey your the one's who made it so figure it out

[@victorzedwings]

did you try to delute it and expose to radiation again? may be you could transform it into something other, harmles....

[@williamstephens9945]

Haha. Maybe.

[@nickking6371]

How much can spacex super heavy carry? Something in the thousands of tons of payload range

[@Andrew-eg7fy]

It's sad that people are abandoning nuclear power. Nuclear power is the future, people are just scared that its going to blow up at any second.

[@edilbertorivera3467]

And that is why lead and steel containment exists.

[@nothinglessthanepic9902]

Did you know that 98% of the fuel is wasted?

[@brandonarnold382]

Nothing Less Than Epic I thought it was 99.3% is non fissionable U-238 and the remaining 0.7% is fissionable U-235?

[@Sitiveni12]

@@brandonarnold382 I think Nothing Less Than Epic is referring to the fact that spent nuclear fuel still contains up to something like 95-98% of fissionable material. Current regulations prohibit reusing and recycling fuel.

[@brandonarnold382]

Sitiveni12 I think that’s probable, if we wait for the material to decay. However, I can assure that 99.3% (+- 0.2%) is non-fissionable material; which is what the whole narrative of the story is.

[@Sitiveni12]

@@brandonarnold382 your stats are correct for the concentration of mined uranium or it's percentage of occurrence in nature by isotope, but not for enriched Uranium used in a reactor. Enrichment of Uranium increases the fissile U-235 from .7% to 2-3% of U-235. Hope that clarifies things. Spent nuclear fuel still has energy left in it, but has to be reprocessed to remove the material inhibiting fission.

[@brandonarnold382]

Sitiveni12 nice, I’m glad you were able to find the understanding and correcting my misunderstanding. I completely disregarded the enrichment of U-235. Nonetheless, even if spent fuel has an extra 2-3% fission potential, there’s still a big margin of non-fissionable fuel that leads to concern of the future of fission reactors. I appreciate your knowledge on the subject!

[@Jo-Jo8vs]

The current nuclear waste isn't waste, there are new technologies like batteries and new kind of nuclear power plants developed where this "waste" is their material to use for hundered of years. This is the reason why just recently to China government forbid to store this kind of nuclear material somewhere where you don't have proper access too. So my suggestion is, don't think about it as waste, think about it, what can we do with it and use it properly. What we should do with any kind of waste, meaning don't throw it away, think about it as a new source to create new things.

[@aleks-wp5sl]

Put it next to the ocean !! Great! We gonna be our own demise

[@kristoffer3000]

Water blocks radiation very well, get educated before you spout drivel.

[@lorenzoblum868]

WHAT IS THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX?

[@Trump985]

There isn’t any problem the waste isn’t hurting anyone or anything. It can sit right where it is.

[@zerosubscribersvideos1543]

Well maybe it could help if you feed it to corrupt politician

[@markrobertmurphysr]

FHAT BASTERDZ,R2PHAT

[@jennifurzoe1302]

Just Random gonna need more waste then

[@bobdavid343]

Just drag it to the recycling bin

[@ReaLzEdits]

The file is too large, do you want to permanently delete it?

[@borkmaster2726]

Nah. Just delete System32 and you're fine for good.

[@ubaidmohamed9911]

bob david 😂😂😂

[@aaronsosnoski1017]

The whole reason all this waste exists is because reclaiming fuel is illegal.

[@jahhahn]

@@aaronsosnoski1017 r/woooosh

[@zapfanzapfan]

Better than having a couple of million tonnes of coal ash seeping arsenic into the ground water...

[@zapfanzapfan]

Future Hindsight: No, Arsenic does not decay, it'll be toxic for eternity...

[@zapfanzapfan]

Ah, sorry, I took your first comment to be supportive of coal.

[@clough211]

HAHAHAHA you must be talking about China because any coal that is burnt in America is filtered about 98% before it reaches the atmosphere

[@shawnnoyes4620]

If you process the actinides and burn them in a fast reactor, then yes it is less than

[@cryptowages]

well said people are so stupid it shows geo engineering is doing its job the masses have their brains reduced to think logically

[@datashat]

This nuclear fuel isn't really "spent". The only way to actually deal with all this stuff is to use it, not bury it in the ground (and our heads in the sand). Uranium fuel rods still contain 90%+ of their potential energy when they're removed from reactors as waste. The problem is that solid fuel reactors are a ridiculous idea in the first place, but have ended up being the de facto reactor design due to a whole mess of military, market and political reasons. If this could be reprocessed for use in a molten salt breeder reactor (far more efficient, much much safer), nearly all of the long-tail isotopes would fission to generate clean, zero-carbon electricity, leaving only a tiny fraction of the original waste by volume (think pounds instead of tons) and with a half life of about 300 years instead of 20000. It's worth noting this process could potentially generate 10x more energy than the original reactor did during its entire lifetime, while actually cleaning up its waste rather than shoving it into a mountain.

[@blackice214]

Na big oil doesn't like that

[@abhaysharma9317]

Don't write gibberish there is nothing like that what you have mention why you didn't wrote the reference on what you have written all this thesis what on earth makes you think that if there were a better solution and still scientist won't use that method and would still work with a more danger and less efficient, The ultimate thing which can save us from all this nuclear waste crisis is fund the nuclear fission research heavily that would be the only thing that can give us the abundant energy for the cheapest price and without being a threat to the environment.

[@datashat]

Here is some good information on next generation nuclear Fission (not Fusion) that is actively being developed in China, India and Canada: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZyldIB7itqGhNk There are a bunch of alternative Nuclear ideas out there, Bill Gates has thrown billions into a company called TerraPower, look it up. If we have a chance in hell of averting climate disaster, we need to be doing EVERYTHING: - Next gen Fission - Fusion - Large scale wind, hydro - Pumped hydro storage - Domestic solar - Battery storage / smart grids

[@datashat]

Here's a more recent one that explains how inefficient solid fuel reactors are: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mWjFkoearq2pbsk

[@Xylos144]

@ Abhay This is not theoretical nonsense. Oakridge National Laboratory literally prototype such a reactor for 4 years, running it for over 20,000 hours. It holds the record for the highest temperature nuclear reactor at around 900C where it self-arrested due to its design being 100% passively safe. It ran on uranium dissolved into a FLiBE salt in thermal-neutron configuration. They did not test the implementation of a thorium blanket around the reactor for breeding purposes, but the running of the reactor itself is far past being fanciful promises or even promising designs. It is literally tested and proven, with technology from 4 decades ago. Oakridge Molten Salt Reactor Experiment: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqqnk6RrfbemZtE

[@wolfenhausen9682]

I’ve lived within 30 miles of the plant my entire life and I can tell you people here rarely if ever talk about the plant as a potential concern.

[@bergensteinmacwhorfmanteis2417]

I live near a nuke plant too and it’s rarely ever discussed. We tend to overlook things we don’t recognize as part of our daily lives. Don’t take it for granted.

[@danielheady2786]

@@bergensteinmacwhorfmanteis2417 do you love near a plant where they make nuclear bombs or just a nuclear energy plant

[@bergensteinmacwhorfmanteis2417]

Nuclear energy station

[@simonfrederiksen104]

The capital of Denmark, Copenhagen is within spitting distance of the Swedish nuclear plant Barsebeck - in operation since 1975

[@rustingflamberge]

Nuclear plants are very safe these days

[@LasTCursE69]

Considering America's experience with extraterrestrials, they should try selling it to them

[@user-nj6kh2se5r]

Lol

[@funny3scene]

Indeed

[@Br-sy9vi]

Cos they only land in America lol

[@karolakkolo123]

Stonks

[@Saboguin]

@@Br-sy9vi A theory could be that the US has already secretly set up an alliance or partnership with ETs and are working together already with new weaponry and tech. It would make sense kinda. Just a random theory though, no evidence to back it up.

[@Hiimstring3]

2200 tonnes per year? Maybe with technology from the 70s, but that misrepresents modern nuclear reactors. A 1000MW nuclear power station could power a city the size of Amsterdam and produce 30 tonnes of waste per year. Compared to an equivalent coal powered station, kicking out 300,000 tonnes of ash per year.

[@joerivanlier1180]

They are not separating high, mid and low level nuclear waste. Reactors produce huge amounts of very low level waste (first cycle coolant water mainly), which is either a simple proces of filtering it or decays below safe levels in months. And I know uranium is heavy but 30 years of 2200 tons a year would be a bit bigger that what she showed there. But they picked a true expert on radiation. Nothing beats measuring your own radioactivity (inside of a very well shielded reactor) to check your exposure.

[@DriveCarToBar]

it's funny that you mention 70s technology when the electro-refining process used at Argonne National Labs for the EBR-2 reactor and reprocessing facility, was invented in the 1960s. It will literally be 1960s technology that can save us from the waste we generated with our 70's technology reactors. That is some irony!

[@W.GlobalAffairs]

Ash is better than oil when it comes to which one could be easily disposed

[@markrobertmurphysr]

COAL ASH IS RECYCLEABLE,,,,,,,,,GOOGLE IT

[@amigaamigo5307]

What of Nikola Tesla

[@visibleconfusion9894]

Just throw it at the sun lol edit: if you somehow couldn't tell this is obviously a joke... wooooosh

[@jaridkeen123]

We dont have a Great History with Rockets as Humans and if the rocket blows up a large area pf the Earth is contaminated with Nuclear Waste

[@TheCJUN]

First need to make scramjet spaceplanes work, or build a space elevator.

[@jerry3790]

It’s easier to throw it into another star than it is to throw it into the sun.

[@JarrodBaniqued]

There are researchers considering using fusion reactors to dispose of nuclear waste, so you’re not off the mark.

[@TheJoeSwanon]

Олег Шелеметьев it’s a joke

[@dandan6683]

Or let the politicians drink it

[@applemacHATER]

MAKE politicians drink it I vote for!

[@tsimmons1974ts]

🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂

[@Isaac-ll7fi]

Do you want a radioactive Pelosi vs atomic trump?

[@rockedout]

but if they die from drinking it, isn't it still radioactive waste?

[@hairyhenry97]

It’s not enough for our current president, he gets thirsty

[@nightviber2097]

Try pressing the Az-5 button

[@GuerraProd]

"I understood that reference" - Steve Rogers

[@Baleur]

BRUTAL!!

[@troybernal5085]

What does this mean I'm on my phone

[@nightviber2097]

@@troybernal5085 Can you tell me how an RBMK reactor explodes ?

[@nightviber2097]

@Garrett McGinnis why worry about something that isnt going to happen

[@CousinJesse1]

As I understand it, 4th generation/thorium reactors can use the waste from older facilities like these and in doing so, reduce the halflife of their radioactive material from thousands of years down to just two or three hundred years at most before they are totally inert. So.. there is that. Look into it.

[@JudgeMad]

yeah, on the point, people keep fearmongering about nuclear energy, when in reality its the safest, cleanest and most efficient energy source we have

[@joeblower5003]

You forgot about the excessive amount of handling of the product to alter it and do so........it is NOT NEARLY as simple as you make it sound. Read about decommissioning sometime, and the spin off effects......Hanford in the USA is the single most polluted place in the Western Hemisphere (over 70 square miles of ground water unfit to drink and rising).....This is a problem for the industry....... in Canada ,the NWMO (Nuclear Waste Management Organization....solely funded by the Radioactive waste producers)and OPG(Ontario Power Generation....one of the Funders) are trying to bury it right next to the largest drinking water reserve in North America. The problem is NOT going away......I say shut the industry down until they can figure it out...... they are making billions of dollars, and appear to have been irresponsible with their waste product planning right from the start.

[@CousinJesse1]

@@joeblower5003 I never said the solution was easy. But it’s a solution that provides energy and makes the nuclear waste inert so much faster so that’s about as good as its likely to get.

[@piotrd.4850]

Existing and on verge of phase out CANDU can do the same.

[@davidpilling9466]

@@JudgeMad well not safest but safer then coal and gas by far

[@HolaEbola]

I heard it's the the equivalent of a chest x-ray

[@imalostkiwi]

good answer comrade

[@ckr3167]

I heard it’s the equivalent of 2 Hiroshima’s

[@bjrnb9042]

no!

[@HolaEbola]

Yes

[@dpray4857]

I was in the toilet.