This could become the most radioactive place on earth

[@YourAliasIsNotAvailable]

"In some cases leeching toxins into the environment" There is no leaking anymore - the content of these containers are encapsulated in concrete and glass nowadays. Also there is no fluid inside, those pellets are solid material - it can only "leak" if water get into the containers - which is why you shouldn't throw them in an old abandoned salt mine... There is also the possibility to recycle and reuse nuclear waste products which leads to much faster decay.

[@flixri726]

Aren't the containers enclosed in Bentonite to prevent water ingression? But yeah, the Finns different than us buried it in Granit and not in salt, which sounds...logical.

[@btudrus]

"There is also the possibility to recycle and reuse nuclear waste products which leads to much faster decay. " Which is a strong argument AGAINST a final deposition...

[@flixri726]

@@btudrus there is no commercial process that is licensed and tested as well as commonly used reactor design or licensed scalable reactor design. The reprocessing also produces a lot of low to medium radiating wastes, many of them acids, which are a nightmare for long term storage. We have thousands of tones of either weapon grade plutonium or plutonium from spent nuclear fuel in storage. There is no need for all the hassle, which most likely won't be profitable or will leave a new nuclear problem. It's better and easier to burry it deep and dry, somewhere where people most likely won't dig a few thousand meters. And if they do, they most likely will have the capability to detect radiation anyway. After a few hundred thousand years, the radioactivity will be negligibly low. Compared to chemical wastes like huge arsenic dumps which will be dangerous indefinitely, this problem will solve itself, if you give it time and the volumes are quite low comparative.

[@btudrus]

@@flixri726 "there is no commercial process that is licensed and tested as well as commonly used reactor design or licensed scalable reactor design." Given the half-life of that radioactive vaste, it is very likely that the time needed to develop an appropriate reactor is negligible compared to that half-life time of these radionuclides...

[@flixri726]

@@btudrus nope, it is way to expensive to reprocess used fuel and even then, you are left with dozens of fissionproducts you still need get rid of by storage. We have tons of literally nice and shiny plutonium, no need for dirty reprocessing while we could just bury the FP we have. High level waste like is really hard to process, you need a lot of subject matter experts, you would increase the risk of proliferation of plutonium processing if you start reprocessing all around the world. While tons of good and shiny plutonium decays away in expensive weapon grade storages🙄. This reprocessing and some cool Peeble-reactor-ideas make cool CGI, but it’s not viable atm

[@jimmycher45]

Two things I chuckled at: 1. “It took a quarter of an hour to get down there!” Ahhh yes. 15 minutes. 2. Thank you for helping out your American viewers with the conversion of 1/4 million metric tons to 26 Eiffel towers. ❤️

[@eetuthereindeer6671]

I thought you made that eiffel tower thing up as a joke but its actually in the video. Why don't schools teach measurements in football fields and washing machines?

[@Sycophantichallenger]

:) Your comment made me chuckle.

[@Phyz7]

In particular, because Eiffels tower is not about weight but static and the art of steel as a structural material. Indeed they had to deal with the Eigenweight. Anyhow, allez vous coucher.

[@BeKindToBirds]

There is an unbelievably huge amount of radioactive material in the ground naturally, this really is a very safe and logical solution and as close to no risk as is possible with the very most efficiency of cost at the same time in balance.

[@charlesmartin623]

Not just the ground, but matterials too. Even in Washington State, USA 1990s a house had sealed off. Government sealed of house and vented house.

[@qdaniele97]

There is a huge difference between naturally occuring radioactive minerals and nuclear waste: Concentration. The everage chunck of rock dug out of a uranium mine is little more radioactive than any other rock. It takes a huge effort to refine it into something that can be used for nuclear power. High-level nuclear waste instead has already gone through that refinement process and contains thousands or milions of times the amount of radionuclides that natural occurring radioactive minerals contain (let alone regular rock). That means that some natural or artificial phenomenon unearthing a vein of natural uranium ore would do little to no harm to the surrounding environment but the same thing happening to one of that barrels would be really, really bad.

[@hausaffe100]

There is absolutely no plutonium naturally

[@georgewashington1621]

@@qdaniele97 Why not reverse the process then? De-refine this material that comprises spent nuclear fuel rods and just reintroduce it into the environment at the same concentrations that it naturally occurs?

[@zigmasj6572]

@@georgewashington1621 That sounds pretty interesting. Though you would probably need to excavate thousands of tons of rock to homogenise it with just one of the rods, and then put the mixture back in the ground. How practical could that be?

[@joyeuxdoomer]

Bure is not only "a proposed site for nuclear waste" but also a laboratory that studies nuclear waste storage for decades.

[@jannejohansson3383]

Whole reactor is put down there some day, but because need's dosen't go anywhere, that thing will most likely run longer than what is estimated. This is far mor better way than what some other countries has done in their own land and sea with n-waste

[@Suiseisexy]

More like just the 2nd one, putting it by the sea like this is silly for "hundreds of thousands of years" but great for shipping costs. Really I think what will happen is we'll either find a way to reprocess it or maybe even stop thinking of it as waste wayyyy before 100,000 years, more like 100 years. We're gonna be coming back for this weird energy-rich material we made.

[@DB-ub3wx]

Humans in a million years digging up thinking they are all tombs 😂

[@nayeon_twiceimnida1654]

You think human would be around in a million year?🤣

[@logansmith6342]

Imagine: current society making hostile architecture to keep future people away from danger, expecting them to not understand our symbols and language so we try to make a way for them to understand it's dangerous, but instead they think it's treasure and keep going!

[@scarpfish]

@@nayeon_twiceimnida1654 Considering that on the high estimation we've only been around for 300,000 or so, my money would be against it. If we somehow did survive that long, I think we'd eventually find a better solution to dealing with something that energy dense than burying it deep underground while we go on burning fossil fuels like it's no big deal.

[@Thunderhawk51]

​@@nayeon_twiceimnida1654The humans probably won't be around the next century by the look of things today 😂

[@drd1449]

The thing is. If someone is capable of digging 400meters of bedrock they are capable of identifying radiation or that it was used for radioactive waste.

[@qdaniele97]

I think the reason Finland is way ahead of most nations in choosing the site for their nuclear waste disposal has a lot more to do with their unique geology than their unique mentality. It's a lot easier to find a suitable place to bury your nuclear waste when your entire country sits inside the East European Craton (a craton being an incredibly old and stable portion of Earth's crust, usually flattened by ages of erosion), and probably in the oldest and most stable part of it. Things get a little less simple when you introduce younger rocks, volcanism and those pesky active fault lines onto the table.

[@aaroncosier735]

Up to a point, yes, but there are other factors: Finland only has a very few thousand tonnes of spent fuel to inter. The US generates over 2000 tonnes each year, every year. Finland also commenced the project by seeking community engagement, whereas the US tried an autocratic approach, which deserved to fail.

[@abrahamedelstein4806]

I think the waste heat should be used for district heating and electricity generation until we can reprocess it, not spend billions on glorified caves.

[@aaroncosier735]

@@abrahamedelstein4806 The waste heat from spent fuel isn't really able to be harnessed like that. From one point of view it is far too little to be worth putting in pipes and heat exchangers. From a disposal point of view it is too much heat, which builds up until something fails. A bit like a compost heap getting hot enough to catch fire. Reprocessing is not all that effective. France has reprocessed about a third of it's spent fuel, and in so doing has probably complicated the problem. Instead of ceramic fuel pellets encased in fuel rods, reprocessing gives you large volumes of fission products dissolved in aqueous solution, a lot of depleted uranium, and some conveniently separated plutonium and minor actinides. The fission products need special processing and vitrification, and still need fairly long term deep disposal lasting at least a thousand years. The rest still needs disposal with ten or hundred thousand year horizons. Reprocessing for use in MOX fuel also has issues. Used MOX fuel has much greater isotopic diversity, and specifically accumulates more neutron poisons and U232, which makes any further treatment and re-use *much* harder and more expensive, and *also* is more difficult to dispose.

[@abrahamedelstein4806]

@@aaroncosier735It's literal megawatts of energy wasted, that and the cost of actually cooling it. District heating is but one application, the "waste" could also be used for thermal electric generation, you could quite literally have building next to nuclear power plant with hundreds of thousands of thermal electric generators producing a small but steady stream of current. It's an ant's piss in the grand scheme, but it's a huge amount of energy when people are getting raped over energy costs. Do you know how many people would be happy to have a small container of nuclear "waste" in their basement?

[@aaroncosier735]

@@abrahamedelstein4806 Yes, it is megawatts. and the cost of cooling it is substantial. But a mere handful of megawatts of very low level heat are not worth recovering. The cooling towers have to get rid of two Gigawatts that are similarly not worth recovering. It's not enough to drive turbines and the hardware overhead for other types of conversion are uneconomical. It's not recoverable in any meaningful way, but it *is* a substantial expense to dissipate, just another big reason why nuclear is not worth the bother, and why it has been in decline for decades.

[@tsbrownie]

Arizona was abandoned because locals objected to the facts that the salt bed (highly corrosive and soluble) turned out to have significant water passage (migration of leakage) and was more geologically active than originally thought. Plus salt is a desirable material, easily mined, and readily absorbed by plants, animals, and people. So it was pretty much the opposite of the Finnish site.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

So oil can stay in salt domes for 300 million years but nuclear waste can't stay there for 10,000 years?

[@tsbrownie]

@@gregorymalchuk272 So how much oil leaked out over time? And oil breaks down, reacts in hours. Radioactive materials, not so much.

[@BS-vm5bt]

@@gregorymalchuk272 Go live in a bunker, since if so scared of radiation you should never be in contact with the sun. Or what do you think the sun is releasing?

[@matthewhartley8756]

Pretty sure the government are seecart or garbage into the sea. Is a bigger problem than that s*** because we've literally killed so many marine lives oh no good ways? Where when

[@qdaniele97]

​@@gregorymalchuk272Can stay there untill someone starts mining the salt.

[@padddy48]

What is that banger of Techno you put on the beginning of the video that runs until 0:01-0:44 ? I need that in my life. 😂

[@DWPlanetA]

🎶 The track is called _Scare Tactics_ by Igor Dvorkin, Ellie Kidd and Duncan Pittock 🎶

[@El.Duder-ino]

Fins r once again showing the world how things should be done by not being afraid to take the lead!👍 Its truly remarkable what such a small nation can achieve and surpass even "giants" and world leaders a.k.a. nowadays "empires". Finland got my respect - pragmatic and commons sense approach without any unnecessary BS will get u there. I can only wish 5 mil nation like Slovakia will get there one day with its mentality which relies so much on diversifying almost each and every square meter of its land and people. Once again great report DW, thank u very much!👏

[@kapu4369]

There is a phrase that every finn will go to heaven. That because too much finns in hell will extinguish that fire pit and then it's the devil who must leave.

[@sudeep407]

Fighting cat is easy, fighting tiger is not… both cat and tiger are feline… when you have 2 power plant it’s easy but when count gets larger it’s a problem. Let’s talk when France does the same…

[@nealanthony3482]

In the US we have developed a strong sense of mistrust becuse of environmental disasters from the past. The government isn't always truthful with the public. This often comes from politicians who want to get reelected or company officials who want to keep their bonuses or jobs. Read about the Love Canal in New York in the 1970s.

[@El.Duder-ino]

@@nealanthony3482 It's great you are exercising critical thinking and have your justified believes based on that, however no matter what you believe in you cannot ignore scientific FACTS that radioactive waste is best buried in most stable (Pangea) rock we have and in best possible containers we can manufacture. If you and your politicians start accepting scientific and technological facts above political BS you achieve results which will make perfect sense in real word and r logical on global scale. Science and technology always transcends politicians and political BS. Glad to see that Fins made progress in this space and elevated technical and scientific solutions higher. It's about time, world should look at them as another great example. Another excellent achievement for Finland after they solved house/homelessness in very unique way.

[@tompenston]

Thanks so much for this channel, just about to study my masters in 'energy and Sustainability development' and really kicks in my passion for this field ❤

[@DWPlanetA]

Great to hear! 😍 Good luck with the studies!

[@kkanth0ny]

I wish the rest of the world will be more like finland!

[@SMGJohn]

Or just recycle it like the Soviet Union did and america at least attempted to until the US privatised it and they gave up LOL. Only Russia today recycle nuclear waste into more nuclear fuel, but their facilities are from USSR and neglected for 30 years, literally falling apart. Recycling is too expensive for free enterprise, so dumping it into someones backyard is cheaper, might as well just dump it in the ocean and you should support this if you love Capitalism.

[@Davoodoox1]

Finland seems to be doing almost everything right at the moment.

[@Karl.Hanzel]

Rather than store nuclear “waste”, trying to preserve it intact for eons, we need to consume & transform it into a non-hazardous state / isotopes. Others more qualified can surely describe how this would work. “Reprocessing”, generally.

[@badenglish7979]

sadly we dont have nor anyone that is willing to research this technology

[@notastone4832]

@@badenglish7979 maybe you should think about why that is.. its almost like what you want, is literally not possible.

[@scarpfish]

France has been reprocessing spent nuclear fuel at La Hague for 50 years. About 95% of it is the original uranium that was there from the start.

[@jm-holm]

As far as I know, this technology has existed for a long time and one of the issues is non-nuclear proliferation agreements. Some of the rest products of the process are essential materials for nuclear bombs.

[@izzieb]

As ​@@scarpfishhas said, some countries recycle spent fuel for reuse. Unfortunately, it all comes down to money as always. Most places do not recycle fuel as it is cheaper to obtain fresh uranium. They will only resort to recycled fuel when uranium prices are high.

[@jonathantan2469]

Over 90% of used fuel is still recoverable as material to make new uranium fuel rods, and the technology exists & is used by several nations on a large scale. This greatly reduces the volume & also the need for more uranium mines. I wonder why this was not discussed in the video.

[@ppc7457]

because U.S does not want recovery process(PUREX), only france operates these facilities.

[@maximusg88]

Because it doesn’t work as well as the nuclear industry promises and it’s super expensive… better to invest in non toxic renewables

[@1112viggo]

Ay someone actually noticed that. I can´t even find any numbers on how much spent fuel we actually recycle, but they have been able to do it since the 70´s so there is no excuse for not implementing it in every plant built since. It seems like a perfect solution, right?

[@leechowning2712]

​@@1112viggoWe've been able to do it since nineteen fifty. However part of the recycling process separates the fuel. One of the sections that separates out is plutonium, Weapons grade. That is why in the eighties the president wrote a hold on any further recycling, As part of his efforts towards controlling proliferation. He assumed that once the us banned something the rest of the world would follow, limiting nuclear power to the already existing powers.

[@aaroncosier735]

It's not that easy. The U238, any remaining U235, and Plutonium produced by bombardment can certainly be separated. It can be used to make MOX fuel (with some leftover weapons plutonium that cost billions) and certainly MOX works in some reactors that have been certified. Used MOX fuel is a whole other problem. The plutonium breeds a lot more products than Uranium, so you you get more neutron poisons, and specifically more U232. These make any further re-use more difficult. They also make direct disposal of MOX more expensive. The facility has to be larger to dissipate the greater decay heat. Overall, direct disposal of spent uranium fuel is probably the best bet.

[@nobodynemoq]

Every time I see anything regarding "extremely dangerous nuclear waste", I just can't believe that hardly anyone even tries to address the elephant in the room. Which is also about radioactivity, but... from coal plants. So much fuss about the nuclear waste, while it is just a small fraction of a waste generated by coal powerplants. And the coal waste is just stored in the open air as the ash - exposed to sunlight, rainwater, air, even though this ash is radioactive as well, and amounts of radioactivity are way higher than from nuclear powerplants, since uranium is very, very effective and actually very small amount of it is used. Just imagine - 1 gram of uranium replaces 3 metric tons of coal! Three million times less source material, and remember that coal is still the dominating source of electricity in the World! Just one quote from official documents: Studies show that ash from coal power plants contains significant quantities of arsenic, lead, thallium, mercury, uranium and thorium. To generate the same amount of electricity, a coal power plant gives off at least ten times more radiation than a nuclear power plant. We need to know, that used rods are not simply thrown away as a nuclear waste - they still hold a lot of energy and are reprocessed/recycled into new rods. It is the remaining material that can't be easily used, that is stored as nuclear waste. Also, a lot of medical equipment that has been used with radiology or radiotherapy. Generally, most of the fuss about nuclear waste comes from anti-atom maniacs, who try to convince us that this is a much more serious issue than it really is.

[@arthurdefreitaseprecht2648]

Well said, excellent comment! Let's make it go all the way to the top

[@Niveaufriedhofchef]

You are misquoting a misquotation from the european parliament website - let me clear something up: your “official quotation” is just a question that has been asked TO the euopean parliament. Their answer, very cryptic and bureaucratic I must admit says that each member state controls emissions from powerplants themselves, meaning they dont feel responsible. Your quoting is misleading because it insinuates than coal powerplants are 10x more harmful than nuclear plants. This is simply not true, because the harm from nuclear powerplants doesnt stem from the radiation emitted DURING the production, but AFTER. A nuclear powerplant emits 1% of nuclear background radiation in europe. But nuclear waste is 1000x more radioactive than the environment. So yes, coal powerplants emit radioactive ashes. And yes, these levels are 10higher than a nuclear powerplant DURING production. But by the time nuclear waste has become harmless, it will have radiated billions of times more than a coal powerplant. Don’t compare apples and pears people

[@juniuwu]

​​​@@Niveaufriedhofchef You have zero clue what you're going on about. Nuclear waste stored properly does not cause radionuclide contamination of the environment. Coal ash does, and not just that but also chemical contamination.

[@Niveaufriedhofchef]

@@juniuwu i worked in a coal power plant and have an industrial engineering degree. None of my arguments are in contradiction with what you said. Comparing coal ash and nuclear waste is comparing apples with pears. That was my point and you are doing it again mate

[@GalopaWXY]

SAY IT LOUDER

[@biologicalhunter520]

I really just want to roll a bunch of bouncy balls from the top to the bottom just to see how long they would take. But this was really cool

[@kinuorthel8096]

I would translate "onkalo" as "the cavity".

[@sicknessnfilth1616]

Truckmans cavity

[@McSlobo]

The containment doesn't have to last up to a million years. Radioactivity decays more or less logarithmically, meaning very fast in the beginning and eventually slower. This means that after 1000-10000 years spent fuel is somewhat safe to handle. The rule of thumb in radioactivity is that the shorter time the stuff remains radioactive the more dangerous it is, and vice versa. Bismuth is radioactive practically infinitely long time, but therefore is absolutely no danger at all, while iodine released from nuclear accident vanishes in about month or so but is therefore highly dangerous.

[@aitorinarra]

That's right. In 200 years it will be harmless. The only thing radioactive after that time will be plutonium and transuranics, which is as harmless as natural uranium or thorium found in nature. All this antinuclear propaganda paid my the oil industry is BS

[@certaindeed]

Not true if there is plutonium in the spent rods...and if you think 1000 to 10000 years is feasible...I put it to you that if these were put into the great pyramid of Giza it would only be 4500 years and it would still poison and contaminate the entire Nile Delta area today.

[@JuhoJohansson-bz3jb]

Indeed. I have seen some sources that say spent nuclear fuel is relatively safe after about 500 years... Wich is obviously a very long time still... But to put that into perspective, there are actually buildings with wooden structures older than that. And stonework can easily last for about a 1000 years, even on surface. Something worth noting is that there are actually many surviving man made marks from stone age, that are basically on visible parts of rock... The Onkalo is more than 400 meters deep. There is literally nothing in the realm of possible physics that could make nearly half a kilometer of solid rock simply disappear in less than 500 years... That is unless if talking about events that would likely end if not all, atleast most life on Earth anyway, say like a huge meteor impact.

[@stevenmitchell1]

It's a good thing that you know a lot more than nuclear scientists do about the length of time that nuclear waste will remain radioactive.

[@juhojohansson1716]

​@@stevenmitchell1it is not about knowing more than nuclear scientists, but more about paying attention what they actually say. "being radioactive" is not a black and white thing. In the sense that something is radioactive for a hundred thousand years and then suddenly one day not at all... Radioactivity decreases very rapidly at the beginning, this is the inevitable consequense of the whole nature of radioactive decay.

[@Demons972]

As a foreigner working construction job in Finland i can tell you Finnish job is top notch quality that nuclear waste is safe for thousands of years if not millions.

[@terpomotestudo]

I want to clarify something from France: a few sites had been chosen to test the project, but they chose to build it in Bure because that's where there is less people, so less annoying manifestants, not because it was the best site. This site also brings questions if it is a truly good one. There is more ground water than expected... Nothing is really working with the radioactive waste burying project in Bure.

[@rolletroll2338]

Bullshit

[@Garbimba1900]

"Huge if true" did a similar piece recently. The video looked into what the Japanese are doing with their spent fuel. You should check it out! I think it might be a good approach too

[@miles67733]

If spent fuel rods still emit enough heat to be of concern why can’t that heat be utilized for further electricity production?

[@JuhoJohansson-bz3jb]

I could imagine their thermal output might not make them very efficient for producing electricity... But district heating should be plain and simple.... Even if there are some radiation safety issues to be worked around, but assuming you could potentially get signifficant amounts of heat from spent fuel rods for literal decades, I think there might be some potential there.

[@JuhoJohansson-bz3jb]

One thing about the Finnish Radiation Safety Center (STUK) that does tell something about the attitudes and trustworthy of the STUK is that it has been said that the history of the Soviet nuclear industry is split into two parts, one is before the construction of Loviisa Nuclear power plant and the other is after construction of the Loviisa nuclear power plant. The Loviisa nuclear power plant is in many ways quite unique, as it is one of the very few (if not the only one) to have both soviet technology and western technology integrated to the same plant. And one should note that at the time (late 1970's) the relations between east and west were not exactly easy, and Finland was practically forced to perform this certain balancing act between east and west. After all, Finland is practically a western country with more than 1000 kilometers of shared border with Russia, and not some remote parts of it, but literally all of Finland is closer to Moscow than most of Russia itself. But none of that cold war era tension would in any way prevent the STUK from adhering to the most strict requirements... Up to the point that because of being so strict it had lasting impact on the whole nuclear industry of the Soviet Union. So the STUK does have extremely good track record of maintaining strict requirement levels and it has earned a very good reputation in the industry. So it is no wonder most Finnish people do trust STUK.

[@RKTGX95]

i know this is not exactly the topic of this video but finally DW Planet came close to understanding the scale of nuclear waste amounts and scope when they talked about the types. So here are some general criticism and specific about the video: First, it would have helped to see the complete distribution between low level, intermediate and high and not just lumping the first 2 together since anything low level is not a problem really since it decays quite fast (don't remember exactly). Second, there should be a general explanation on how well most of the spent fuel (high level waste) is stored since the vast majority is taken very seriously and safely. heck, transportation of high level waste is so safe that they are sealed in casks that a train can crash into them and only the train is damaged. Obviously every negligence or subpar treatment should be criticized and scrutinized but the point is it is entirely possible to keep the waste completely safe even if we still don't have a long term solution like in this video. Third, 250million metric tonnes of high level waste, assuming it was meant for the waste of the entire world combined (should have been clarified). which means from the 50s (or 60s ?) till today, all of the nuclear power plants combined, created "26 Eiffel towers" worth of waste by weight that by volume would be even less since Depleted uranium is about twice as dense as iron. and the volume of just the iron of the tower would occupy a volume of only 930 meters cubed, which is equivalent to a sphere with a radius of just six meters. So it could have really helped to add some estimate of how much waste is planned to be stored in this facility and for how long this will last given the current amount of generated waste and some future projections if more Nuclear Power Plants will be built.

[@op4000exe]

I did a quick back of the envelope type of calculation on how much coal had been burned in the same amount of time, which came out to around 184 billion cubic meters of coal. To put that into perspective, 1 billion cubic meters, is a cubic kilometer, so that would mean a cube 5.7km on all sides. Compare this to the entirety of the uranium used in the same time, making a cube 24 meters on each side. It's not even close in comparison. My asusmptions being: 1m^3 of coal is 1350kg (it's between 1300 to 1400kg for anthracite), so 1 ton of coal would be around 0.74% of a m^3 (1m^3/1,35T of coal per m^3). 1m^3 of uranium is around 19000kg. Each year I assumed that the world burned 100.000 PJ of coal on average. I used an online converter to convert 100.000 PJ of coal to 3.421.000.000 tons of coal. Calculation being: 3.421.000.000 PJ * 0.74 m^3 per ton of coal = 184.000.000.000 m^3 of coal. If I got something wrong, feel free to correct me, I have a tendency to get something wrong somewhere, when it comes to calculations.

[@scarpfish]

Too many people hear the term "nuclear waste" and they envision leaking barrels full of glowing green goo with the radiation symbol on it. The reality is much, much different and compared to other environmental hazards caused by the mining or the fossil fuel industries, the waste is contained and would be comparatively easy to clean up if people would quit being nukeophobes and allow the infrastructure to remediate it to be built.

[@georgewashington1621]

@@op4000exe i wonder how much radioactive material was released into the atmosphere in burning all that coal, i bet its A WHOLE LOT. if we accept such levels of radioactive contamination (and we do, and evidently there's nothing wrong with it) why not just re-introduce all this "waste" nuclear material back into the environment in some way that would not significantly elevate the natural concentrations of those isotopes.

[@McSlobo]

However, I wouldn't make a 6m diameter ball of spent fuel for obvious reasons. ;D

[@4bSix86f61]

Their mentality to bury the most common and expensive metal used in eletrical systems called copper.

[@acchaladka]

Valuable video on this topic, though I agree with the critique about scale. I'd love a follow up on the disposal options including vitrification and à comparison with waste from fusion.

[@macbuff81]

Or you could use breeder reactors, like those in use France already, to reduce the half-life of that high-level waste to a couple of hundreds of years before storing it

[@seanhewitt603]

The ph of the ground water can dissolve certain metals effectively .

[@PHelsing]

i was expecting nothing but the best from my fellow metalheads. good job guys. While everyone is screaming and turning coal power plants back on you have solved the problem. Good job Finland

[@sirianrune198]

It is so dumb that people are afraid of nuclear waste. A dry cask for nuclear waste is safe enough to put your mouth. You're orders of magnitude more likely to develop complications from the bacteria on the cask than the trivial amount of radiation emanating from it.

[@Mr.JerziiE]

I'm thinking about moving to Finland

[@a564-c3q]

Finland should make this facility bigger, as big as any possible. Then they should take in radioactive waste from other countries, of course at a premium price point. If the place is 100% safe, then there are no downsides for Finland. But there's a load of money Finland could make and plenty of jobs for Finns for many years to come. I'm also confident that the Finns will *actually* store this stuff safely. Much more confident than I am in other nations trying to do the same. So this would be a win win scenario for everyone, including the planet.

[@wizaaeed]

This is why accidents happen, because you people think business can be done with nuclear waste. Imagine all the travelling risks of the waste, transfering waste from country to country is not easy.

[@stijn2644]

@@wizaaeed isn't spend fuel transported in canisters that can resist almost every accident imaginable? If smaller country's can participate with large country's with lot's of knowlegde, then why not?

[@gregorymalchuk272]

Deep geological waste burial is an uneconomical answer to a question that only bad-faith anti-nuclear activists asked. It's no coincidence that a leading us nuclear regulator who spent her entire career opposing Yucca Mountain just wrote an article about how deep geological storage is absolutely necessary. It's a ploy to keep nuclear power just over the horizon forever, and to increase the costs and make it uneconomical. In reality, cask storage or shallow burial is preferable so that the waste is nearby for future reprocessing.

[@gibuswagen7729]

​@@stijn2644 Because it would be directly voted on by the public, and it's a good guess to say that most of us finns wouldn't be in favour of importing other countries' nuclear waste no matter how much it pays

[@wizaaeed]

@@stijn2644 yes buddy, it's possible, in the perfect world of youtube comments everything is possible. First time I've heard of a container that can `survive every accident imaginable`.

[@eetuthereindeer6671]

I'd probably be digging out of curiosity if this thing was done 200 000 years ago instead

[@joanieswanson570]

I live in Nevada, just a 75 to 90 minute drive from the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste deposal site and it is being used, albeit on a sparse basis. It’s been in development for almost 20 years.

[@daryllect6659]

"...and it is being used, albeit on a sparse basis." Not for nuclear waste it's not.

[@stevenp8198]

There is no nuclear waste at yucca mountain.

[@daryllect6659]

@@stevenp8198 Nope. Not a speck. Yucca was/is a gigantic boondoggle.

[@imjody]

It should definitely not be left unmarked, that's for certain. Crazy that they decided to build it where people live, though. There's such a vast amount of earth that sits unpopulated, and can be used for, well, stuff like this. But great stuff.

[@apollo209]

8:20 I find it weird it will be left unmonitored and unmarked.

[@freezedeve3119]

there should be nothing to monitor and no one should ever go digging there so better that no one ever knows it is there.

[@charlesmartin623]

US Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, there has been a flurry of headlines this summer about a "nuclear coffin" leaking radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean. It is cracked concrete.

[@theworddoner]

These nuclear waste isn't truly waste. There's a lot of untapped potential energy inside there. The 1000's year half life can be reduced to a few hundred if we thoroughly use them. Japan is already doing that. There are problems associated with this however. We can get weapons grade fuel doing that but as long as it's handled with care then I don't think this is a big issue.

[@imortaliz]

6:40 does she think they drill those holes etc in the mountain without water cooling the drillhead? Ofc its gonna be wet in there for a while

[@cordingdesert9566]

A hell of a lot safer then just leaving it lying around on the surface.

[@sirianrune198]

Especially when they're safe even when they are on the surface.

[@Ed-ty1kr]

Yeah... highly radioactivd high energy HOT particles that need cooling ponds and pumps to keep it from burning exposed to air. Then contaminates thousands of sqare miles instantly, rendering it uninhabitable for longer than the planet had been here. All that to solve climate change, cause its zero emmissions you know. As long as you ignore those high energy HOT particles, and the hundreds of THERMOnuclear atmospheric tests, hotter than the surface of the sun... :-)

[@stevenmitchell1]

​@@sirianrune198So, why then is nuclear waste stored in the state of Washington leaking so much nuclear waste into the ground?

[@blackterminal]

Thanks for the video DW.

[@harperwelch5147]

Why does DW use provocative titles for their posts? They frequently suggest an opinion by virtue of the choice of words. Often negative sounding. “Radioactive Cave”. Could have been “A safe storage solution” for nuclear waste.

[@NickHaVAnaClub]

Hats off to Finish scientists and people.

[@kennethcarpenterii7636]

First time I've heard someone refer to 15 minutes as a quarter of an hour.

[@JuhoJohansson-bz3jb]

That sounds very strange to me.... But I guess I am from a world that is allready fading from memories. Back when clocks were analog, only very few people would actually bother to care about exact time to the minute. Now people often use "exact" numbers, even when it makes little sense to do so... I mean even temperatures, now people often speak about temperature in decimal values, even if the accuracy of common thermometer is around +/- 1 degree. But I do understand, back when displays were analogic, finding an exact value required looking at it very closely. With digital displays, the display will give you an arbitrary "exact" number, to say it rounded to nearest 5, requires some thinking. Point is, that before and now, people were really doing what was easy, it is just what is easy has flipped directions when going from analog to digital...

[@therookieca]

Almost a quarter of an hour sounds so much longer than 15 minutes.

[@charlesmartin623]

Only Finland has permanent storage. UK Sellafield, formerly known as Windscale, is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning.

[@ddr3629]

Reuse it in reactors on fast neutrons.

[@agw5425]

Why are the containers made from copper a rather soft and conductive material likely to be needed for power cables in the future and not in stainless steel, far stronger and much less reactive material if water do indeed intrude ?

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! Copper has proven to be a very resistant material but as tackled in the video, there is a residual risk. Stainless Steel is also used as material for disposal canisters. However, there have been studies of cases for nuclear disposal where a reaction resulted in a highly increased corrosion. It seems there is no perfect solution right now.

[@STONEDay]

@@DWPlanetA Thorium reactors left the chat.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Copper cannons have been sitting at the bottom of the sea for a few centuries on old wrecks and they have hardly corroded, so copper is a good material.

[@Iaintwoke]

​@@zapfanzapfanDo you mean bronze cannons ? As in an alloy of copper and tin that is extremely corrosion resistant. Copper, not quite so much.

[@JohnJohnsonSonOfJohn]

“-437 meters underground”… sounds legit, i deduce from this that they’re actually 437 meters above ground

[@morpheus1285]

They should mark the concrete barriers and entrance to the tunnels with hieroglyps to warn future humans of entering. Like a puking emoji or something. "We have lots of money" made me laugh. 🤣

[@vice.nor.virtue]

There is a actually a serious discussion going on about how to mark these sites or humans thousands of years from now. By then anything could have happened to language and communication so how do you symbolise the danger of something which can't be detected with normal sense. I love this finish site, I think it's such a good idea to bury it all in concrete half a mile underground in stable rock formations that are completely worthless in every other way.

[@flipgarwood]

@DW Planet A What's different from the Canadian undergroung storage? I guess this have something to do with techtonic plate?

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! It is very similar actually. The probable location would be at 680 meters below surface, a bit more than Finland´s site. The plan is to use a similar way of storing with copper canisters, tubes, sealing with concrete. However, it is still not 100% decided yet. There is a lot of political difficulties and discussion ongoing. The decision is expected in 2024.

[@flipgarwood]

@@DWPlanetA thanx for the answer! Has long as there's no movement underground i guess this is a good an probably the best way to do it so hope it goes fine!

[@adamsterdam9049]

You can have a nuclear plant using nuclear waste, reducing the radiation to only a few hundred years

[@damegaKing]

there only theoretical concepts.

[@Yaivenov]

​@@damegaKingEBR-II

[@Ikbeneengeit]

​@@damegaKingthe French have been reprocessing spent fuel for ages

[@matthewfarbach8998]

@@damegaKing Japan already does this in their fleet!!!

[@originalketchup7498]

​@@damegaKingwrong

[@itveritabil]

How do you ensure the sound effects match the visuals so well?

[@stijn2644]

What surprises me is the fact that there are other options for the waste that are not talked about or even mentioned. Burrying the "waste" as in used fuel from LWR's is just crazy to me. they are burrying litteral unused fuel. Maybe it had been more informative if they had talked about the fuel cycle. When working with a fully open cycle meaning using the fuel once and then considering it waste is what happends now. You could also be recycling the spend fuel (waste) to turn it into MOX fuel, this is considered a half-open fuel cycle. When working with a fully closed cycle like using fast neutron reactors the waste that comes out of the reactor doesn't have to be stored for 1 000 000 years but more in the order of 300 years. Geological disposal is certainly a good solution, it's just not the only one. luckly the facility will be closed for good in the next century, so by then commercial fast reactors will be available to reuse the fuel and power country's for century's to come.

[@noeyes6151]

Not joking here, you could have done the video👍 Far more informative than watching x mins of fluff😃

[@mfulan7548]

sources?

[@stijn2644]

@@mfulan7548 Sure, just google some of these reacotrs: EBR I & II, Phénix, Super Phénix, BN-600 & 800. some literature: JRC124193 "technical assessment of nuclear energy EU", "What a waste" from Replanet

[@arthurhq5741]

Yeah It drive me crazy too

[@mfulan7548]

@@stijn2644 Thank you, but which one of that sources for that "stored for 300 years"?

[@nutzeeer]

maybe a dumb question but why cant we use spent nuclear rods as heaters?

[@DWPlanetA]

It is not a dumb question at all! The idea to heat up cities with nuclear rods is out there and there are few reactor-based heating plants that have been in development for some years. One of the is the Teplator. (Read more here: www.ciirc.cvut.cz/teplator-is-celebrating-success-on-ukraine/)

[@michasosnowski5918]

What about new technologies that allow you to use nuclear waste in further energy production - making it alot less radioactive? We are talking about transition from 100s of thousand of years to few houndred years(~300). Hitachi is making this kind of reactors. Also Copenhagen based startup claims to have build small reactors to deal with nuclear waste, and also running on thorium.

[@Rubensgardens.Skogsmuseum]

Sure, if people are ready to pay for it. We have our own production at home, so are a log of people. Who will pay for such expensive energy?

[@sander8928]

2:36 Thanks for the video, nice to see. A small point of feedback: "The trip underground takes almost an quarter of an hour". Why not "The trip underground takes 15 minutes." In my opinion, sounds unnecessary daunting.

[@vernonbrechin4207]

Excellent report. In the U.S. the quest to come up with a deep geological repository for high level nuclear waste began in the 1950s. Little progress has been made since then after spending many billions of dollars on the effort. The creation of such a repository is still likely many decades away. Most likely the rapid effects of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD) will overwhelm the disposal efforts. Here the final waste disposal efforts have always taken a back seat compared to the financial revenues that came from the sale of nuclear energy. It has always been assumed that future generations will be in a better position to deal with this issue.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

It's unnecessary. The people who clamor most for deep storage are ironically the same people who worked the hardest to block Yucca Mountain. It's a deliberate ploy to drive up the costs of nuclear energy and make it uneconomical. The truth is that cask storage or shallow burial are preferable so that the waste is always nearby for future reprocessing.

[@vernonbrechin4207]

@@gregorymalchuk272 - That is an interesting perspective from someone in love with nuclear power technology. It ignores the enormous efforts and expenditures that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) invested in creating a deep deep geological repository, beginning in the 1950s and extending to around 2000. At least $9 billion was spent on the Yucca Mountain Project alone. That effort included a study of how to mark such a site after it was filled and sealed. The containment requirement was then specified as 10,000 years. That was an engineering compromise since it was too difficult to predict what might happen beyond that time period. Some of the radioactive actinides remain a potential threat for up to a million years. Many nuclear power advocates have a caviler attitude and feel certain that human controls over nuclear power and its waste products will last many centuries from now. They have a vested interest in excluding the following warnings from their consciousness. I urge readers to search for the following article headlines. IPCC report: ‘now or never’ if world is to stave off climate disaster (TheGuardian) UN chief: World has less than 2 years to avoid 'runaway climate change' (TheHill) * Note that this statement was made 4.5 years ago.

[@zachduncan6421]

Just because you bury it doesn’t mean you’ve solved the problem

[@bornwanderer1]

Fins and sweds i love them so happy people ! ❤

[@zapfanzapfan]

Tack! 🙂

[@rivan0]

Good job Fins. Very clever people

[@karstendoerr5378]

Well, this is all just a drop in the bucket. Uranium 235 has a half-life of 704 million years. So it will take another long time for all the uranium to decay. But this is not the end of radioactivity, because most of the decay products are radioactive themselves. So if you continue to use nuclear power, you need many final storage sites.

There is less than 1% of U235 in spent fuel rods. The 100 000 years mentioned here will be enough to render the material not dangerous to humans (unless eaten). The more radioactive material will decay faster and the cumulative effect of everything won't be problematic in 100 000 years anymore.

[@karstendoerr5378]

@ But 94.5% uranium-238 with a half-life of 4,468,000,000 years. So you can turn it around however you want. At some point, every repository will be full.

@@karstendoerr5378 The actual amount of waste coming as spent fuel rods is relatively low. For example, Finland has five nuclear reactors. One repository is enough to take all nuclear waste they will create during their lifetime. If necessary, we could build 50 such repositories in Finland alone without an issue and we would still have lots of land available for more such repositories. There are about 440 nuclear reactors in the world. Less than 100 such repositories are needed for all nuclear reactors in the world. That's less than one repository per country in the world on average.

[@karstendoerr5378]

@ In Finland, perhaps. In Germany, nuclear power plants have been shut down and are to be rebuilt. A lot of things will come together, because there are not only the fuel rods that radiate. Reactor pressure vessel was activated, pipelines, which came into contact with radioactive water, are activated. And they want to do that, although they don't even have a proper repository. The fact is that nuclear power plants cannot be left standing around forever.

@@karstendoerr5378 Other parts of the reactor are low level waste, they can be processed without need of any repository.

[@WingspeedGarage]

Been there core drilling Some of the first tunnels

[@ashc3765]

Todays nuclear waste is tomorrows fuel.

[@aaroncosier735]

That is awfully optimistic. Some attempt has been made to use reprocessed fuel. MOX can be used in some reactors, but spent MOX fuel is a bigger problem than spent uranium fuel. Harder to reprocess, and in disposal it needs more space and heavier shielding.

[@pacharaponprachai5999]

@@aaroncosier735 more heat mean shorter time to decay

[@aaroncosier735]

@@pacharaponprachai5999 You haven’t thought it through. Different starting conditions. MOX starts with more high-mass fissiles so there is a longer decay chain with more diverse transuranics. In particular, Pu236 decays to U232. It stays hotter, longer. In addition, U232 half life is 70 years. The immediate daughter emits gamma at 200MeV. Much more penetrating than from typical uranium fission products. Quite aside from that, MOX usually has longer burn up, so more fission and activation products. Simply put, and to correct you, used MOX is hotter, for longer.

[@alextclulz]

Well done Finland, for leading the way. Its actually criminal that any other country can build nuclear power plants without having a disposal site. Like, a super safe and well thought out, low risk of polluting the environment nuclear waste disposal site.

[@disky01]

I'd like to believe that we can still use the fuel rods for other applications.

[@jonathantan2469]

The "used fuel" still contains over 90% uranium which can be recycled and reused in new fuel rods. Currently it is more "economic" to put them in dry cask storage and bury them.

[@certaindeed]

Sealing them in copper is crazy

[@rajendratayya8400]

Drugs and gadgets solve problems, but it is the human nature that prevents problems.

[@Sjalabais]

400+ meters down right next to the sea...imagine future societies being able to scan bedrock and finding a lot of valuable copper down there. :P

[@drd1449]

If they can scan 400 metres of bedrock for copper they can also scan what is inside of said copper

[@Darkness251]

The baltic sea is not so deep. You're out over 10 miles from the shore until the water reachers 100 m depth.

[@Sjalabais]

@@Darkness251 it's that shallow? I live at a Norwegian fjord. One step to far and I have 400m of water below my floating belly.

[@laxarus3259]

It does have some deep points (450m) but not along the Finnish coast. That area is quite shallow. Less than 50m quite far out...

[@quinto190]

Yea, we really need to find a better solution for the high-level nuclear waste. The storage facility is great, but there is so much potential energy still in those fuel rods...

[@matthewbaynham6286]

Uranium is a natural metal that is found in nature, it's just dug up from somewhere else. If you look at the lifecycle of the uranium then it's just concentrated before it's used in the reactor, but it's almost the same amount of radioactivity afterwards as before it was dug up. So although it might be in a different part of the world it is still just the same radioactivity being put back underground.

[@nenasiek]

Yeah but like you said its concentrated, which is the real issue. We need to store it safely for a long time after we used it

[@krautergarten4529]

No, we need to store it safely until we want to use it. ... only 4% of a fuel rod is used up in an light water reaktor.

[@matthewbaynham6286]

@@nenasiek if the fact it's concentrated is so much of a problem then there is an incredibly easy way to undo that, just simply add something else to it.

[@scottycatman]

It's the byproducts that are the danger, not the uranium. Strontium 90, Cesium 137, Plutonium 239.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

Cask storage or shallow burial is totally sufficient. We WANT the waste nearby for future reprocessing. Deep geological storage is unnecessary and adds to the cost for no discernible benefit.

[@bluebanana6753]

I have been to the forsmark site in sweden has been dug for a long time. I got to go into the caves and see example but also one of the medium tunnels through a window. Basicly glass concrete square containers. As said the problem has been controversy around the copper cask. Some say a kind of brass could be better. The tunnels have been there for years. I think they approved the fuel waste recently or is soon going to do it.

[@arthurhq5741]

4:50 This a tank built in early 1940's to store hazardous waste from plutonium production (for atomic bombs). Also, nuclear waste from reactors isn't some weird goo stored in rusty yellow barrels. It's solid metal and it's either in a spent fuel pool or vitrified in a metal canister. Honestly all those mistakes could be just neglect but I'm pretty sure it's made on purpose.

[@shoolkurt]

there's a fascinating documentary about Onkalo called "Into Eternity"

[@boombot934]

Okay👌, you persuaded me! Too much of precious materials, like copper, should not be wasted😥

[@postminchoppa]

This infra sequel is wild

[@scarpfish]

"There are a quarter million tons of nuclear waste just lying across the globe. In some cases leaching toxins into the environment. And nobody knows exactly what to do with it yet, except for the Finns." France: (who has been reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for years) What are we, chopped liver?

[@whooptysandwhips2262]

"The trip takes almost quarter of an hour''

[@gregorymalchuk272]

Nuclear waste is not a problem. It is an asset for future reprocessing. We want it nearby. Deep burial is an expensive answer to a question that nobody asked.

[@johnpalmer5131]

I agree, nuclear waste is actually not an issue if you take away the irrational phobia… It is a shame we can’t do something Finland here in the US. We did have a plan but it was blacked by Harry Reid for years because of politics s and some think corruption…tragic shame.

[@davidgeary490]

Incorrect. Reprocessing merely adds more (leftover) waste because of the process employed - waste now in acidic & radioactive liquid form -which is even MORE difficult to manage (eg.. at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Washington - a toxic no mans' land). The only solution would be breakthroughs in large scale 'transmutation' of the solid waste into a non-radioactive state....which, at the moment, is pie-in-the-sky.

[@krashd]

@@davidgeary490 Also if we ever did crack transmutation everyone would be turning lead into gold and calling themselves alchemists. It would be a chaotic time.

[@SueFerreira75]

Finland has taken intelligent action. The US at Hanford Site in Washington State, where plutonium was enriched for the Manhattan Project, is far more of a hazard than Onkalo. Perhaps DW can do a comparative documentary between Hanford and Onkalo.

[@Geronimo122]

My concern might be with that second or third 100,000 year period that the waste needs to be safely stored... Seriously, anticipating or even imagining the circumstances or even ballpark conditions that might prevail over these kind of time scales is presumptuous to the extreme. I get that something needs to be done, and this may be a pretty good option based on current knowledge and conditions. Then again it may not really matter; who knows whether there will be any meaningful civilization at all by year 2023+200,000?

[@doomkitty8386]

You have a great point, but engaging in that absurd level of projection is the only way to be responsible with such potent, long-lasting material. Everything you say is true; but if we're going to create safe storage, then what else can we do?

[@arthurhq5741]

There isn't enough uranium on earth to keep us going for thousands of years (let alone a second 100 000 y period). Also, fast neutron reactors are very likely to get more numerous at some point, making the issue of nuclear waste far less problematic.

[@MTobias]

Nuclear waste is mostly harmless after 500 years already, what happens after 100,000 really doesn't matter.

[@a564-c3q]

​​​​​@@MTobias It all depends on the particular isotope. The isotopes that get put in these kind of storages is the stuff that indeed needs hundreds of thousands of years to decay to fairly safe levels. And it'll be in the storage containers in a quite concentrated and still highly radioactive state. Like for example Plutonium-239, which has a half life of 24,000 years. So it takes 24,000 years until its radioactivity reduces by 50%. 48,000 years it's down 75%, and so on. Stuff that "only" needs a few hundreds of years to decay won't even make it into such a long term storage. At least not right now or in the foreseeable future.

[@MTobias]

@@a564-c3q What gets put into geologic depositories is spent nuclear fuel, which is made up of many different isotopes. Most of those are very short lived, which is why nuclear waste has already lost most of it's radioactivity after 10 years. The longer lived isotopes are somewhat less dangerous. Plutonium for example has a long half life but is also an alpha emitter, so as long as you don't eat it is relatively harmless.

[@KAlpha09]

Am not against this idea. I believe this is the most plausible way to do it. What concerns me is building the site close to a coastline. While this solution is suppose to last several thousands of years. Rising water levels wont wait that long, we could see this place under water in next 200-250 or maybe after 500 years and we could witness water seeping through those concrete or am I missing something?

[@rasvatissi580]

Finland is rising up faster than water rises. Because of ice age pushed this area down. Same reason dutch is sinking slowly. They have figured it all out i promise

[@DWPlanetA]

What are your main concerns regarding nuclear waste storage?

[@gabrieldsouza6541]

None. Nuclear waste storage is safe.

[@ashithvalleriyan463]

No real concern! Underground nuclear waste storage is a proven and safe method of nuclear waste storage.

[@illuminate4622]

That I won't stop hearing mumbling about its danger from Germans. The actual waste is handled safely here.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

Deep geologic burial is totally unnecessary and too expensive. It's a concession to the irrational and bad-faith demands of anti-nuclear activists. We WANT the waste nearby for future reprocessing.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

@@illuminate4622 The fact that we're even talking about a deep geological waste repository is a stealth-concession to the bad-faith demands of anti-nuclear activists. We don't want deep burial. We want the waste nearby for reprocessing.

[@NkoKirkto]

0:31 No Nuclear Fle is stored in an Yellow barrel like this.

[@sweeseen9577]

Japan discard nuclear waste water into sea recently. Any discovery or news on it ? Need deep study that scrutinize this matter. Thank you.

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! The last news is that Japan is conducting tests currently.

[@argentrestorations]

this "waste" is treated water with some Tritium in it. It isn't much Tritium... at most a few grams of Tritium (an isotope of Hydrogen with one proton and two neutrons) in just over a million tonnes of water which will be diluted into the ocean where there will be significantly higher levels of radiation from Potassium and Uranium, all naturally occurring. This is not an issue. Much larger amounts of Tritium are released from nuclear waste reprocessing facilities around the world, and that is still not a problem.

[@lukacsnemeth1652]

That nuclear waste water is less radioactive than the actual ocean.

[@sweeseen9577]

@@lukacsnemeth1652 if it is really less radioactive, why don't they discard to their ponds, farm land, etc ? they discard it at a concentrated place, is that place safe ?

[@Hypn0s2]

The water is processed before being put into the sea. The only thing they have trouble removing is tritium (hydrogen 3). The tritium is in low concentration and already exists in the oceans. Look at videos from people like Kyle Hill and T. Folse Nuclear.

[@YuppiBum]

As a Finnish person I can tell you one thing: if a Finnish company says anything about any structure being safe (anything built after the 80s), they are exaggerating or they are flat out lying. Hopefully at least THIS ONE is an honest man, because otherwise, we are FUCKED! 😬😬😬

[@teemukustila]

Uhm, okay? I think you are confusing Russian and Finnish statements somehow 🤪

[@Artivule]

Digging a tube for each container might not be the best solution. As there are numerous containers, even a mountain will not be able to accumulate all. It's expensive too. Although it's a time consuming process.

[@Adamus70]

They will have to put up warning signs "Do not dig here. Nuclear waste underground" at the site for 1.000.000 years. And what if there is a war and the site is forgotten? All warning signs removed and the waste site completely forgotten? What if Finland is unihabitated for 100 years for some unknown reason (pandemics, war) and then some completely different people come to the region, people unable to read Finnish language and unable to read English, thus unable to read the warning signs.... No, no, this is not save, never!

[@castform57]

So once it's sealed up and cleared off, someone might come around and excavate OVER 400 METRES INTO THE BEDROCK by accident?

[@MTobias]

This is completely ridiculous. Who accidentally digs hundreds if meters in the ground and hits this comparetively tiny spot? This is so uncredibly unlikely that it's ridivulous. Also, after 500 years the waste is already mostly harmless, so even if that happened, nobody got hurt.

[@Adamus70]

@@MTobias How do you want to know, what someone does during 10.000 years? They might want to build a new deposit for a different kind of waste. Or a bunker, whatever. Or they might just be curious to find out what is in that strange tunnel they found. Humans are curious, aren*t they? And: It is not a tiny spot. It might be a tiny spot on the surface, but below, the tunnels spread several miles. And, no, the waste will not be harmless, but less radioactive. Even the lower dose will be a considerable one, because there are tons of waste. The big amount of the waste will have the consequence, that the dose of radiation emitted will still be harmful in 500 years......

[@MTobias]

@@Adamus70 That's such a convoluted set of circumstances that it's just ridiculous to consider them as credible events. We have lots of such geologic repositories for other kinds of toxic waste, yet nobody cares about them because people are just unduly scared of radioactivity. After 500 years, you'd essentially need to eat the waste to get harmed by it because only longer lasting alpha emitting isotopes are left, which are stopped by the first layer of your skin and which also can't travel far through the air. That's also why it doesn't matter how much waste is buried there (which then still will be encased in concrete, so the actual dose standing next to it will be near zero anyway) because anything that's more than a few meters away won't give you a dose.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

How are post-apocalyptic cavemen going to be able to drill through kilometers of solid granite? And if they develop advanced technology to dig, they would have the presence of mind to know that the civilization that preceded them was capable of burying nuclear waste. Your premise is ridiculous.

[@jessesea77]

Thank you for doing a video on nuclear!

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! We did more videos on nuclear. Check them out: Germany´s nuclear exit 👉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4jYeIOVlqeij8k Is nuclear power needed to stop climate change? 👉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4mTYZSiZqumoK8 Thorium nuclear energy 👉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZ6ZnKSvoL1sZpI

[@JamesSchmidt-g3k]

Hats off to Finish scientists and people.. Hats off to Finish scientists and people..

[@smug_cat1]

Why dont we use it to make energy

[@lyndontizzard2514]

Just spray coat the capsules with line-x they should stay protected from possible ground water and remain safer for longer

[@tinkot]

To be fair, I think the fins would protest too if they would want to put it in an old salt mine

[@PeterMilanovski]

Wow! They are back filling with bentonite clay! Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? In a tunnel that will be affected by water, bentonite clay will expand to at least 3 times it's own size! With possibly enough energy to cause uplift and fault lines to develop, providing a nice pathway for the waste to come back up from below... There's also the possibility of the waste entering the ground water... Why didn't they just concrete the lot with something that doesn't expand to 3 times it's own size!!!! Bloody hell! What are they thinking?

[@aaroncosier735]

he idea is that any crack admitting water would be filled and plugged by the expanding bentonite. This is intended to work at a very small scale. The bentonite will also flow a little with geological movement, maintaining a flexible barrier where concrete would crack. The copper containment has a similar consideration: it will deform rather than crack, especially at geological rates of movement.

[@chesterolson9242]

CANDU reactors can burn waste as fuel would seem obvious to get as much use out it as you can

[@samisaarinen8498]

future people are going to hate us when they discover good use for that material and have to dig it up

[@aaroncosier735]

Hardly. If they really want it, they'll be able to get it.

[@rivaldioctora]

can they just use somekind of rubber / plastic around the copper capsule.

[@smokeonthewater5287]

Genius way to combat the earth core cooling caused by ground-warm extracting systems.

[@SoFreshSoClean2024]

Why not use it for renewable energy? Make a technology that can use radioactive waste and spend it completely into energy.

[@jonasduell9953]

2:45 negative meters underground means she's actually 400something meters above sea level but yeah...

[@offgridwanabe]

If water can get in it can get out and contaminate the water table.

[@aanchaallllllll]

0:54: 🌍 Finland has built a deep underground storage facility called Onkalo to store nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years, solving the nuclear waste problem. 3:39: 🗑 Nuclear waste is categorized into low-level, intermediate, and high-level waste, with the latter being the most problematic due to its long-lasting radioactivity and potential for leakage. 8:06: 🏭 Finland's nuclear waste storage facility, Onkalo, is designed to protect against the escape of radionuclides through multiple layers of protection, including bentonite clay and 420 meters of rock. 10:54: 🌍 Different countries have different approaches to storing nuclear waste, with Sweden likely to be the next country to start construction. Recap by Tammy AI

[@Indianloppan]

And 50 years from now they come up with an idea how to reuse the waste, and all this is an Gold Mine, this is also very radioactive approx 300 years and after that can be handed with gloves and mask