Basically the title, spent nuclear fuel radiates immense amounts of heat, so what if you just dropped a bunch into an ocean
A few different scenarios: using them to provide initial energy to catalyze the genesis of biological compounds
Or take a world where life is still new, only some simple multicellular organisms or early fish things and hoping they can take advantage of the new energy and really start diversifying
Perhaps as anchors for seeding a new ecosystem then, a new planet doesn’t have thermal vents but we want to recreate earth so we use them to do the same job for all the tube worms and crabs we bring along
The ocean is big. The amount of spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste produced is small. Water is a good radiation shield. Can't we just dump all of that in the middle of Pacific?
For the purpose of this question, please let's ignore all political implication. I'm interested in environmental and public health impact.
One possible issue is that water is a good radiation shield, but various ions dissolved in water can be activated, spreading radiation further. But still, at the scale of the ocean it shouldn't be a big deal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYpiK3W-g_0
Interesting Video Explaining How Finland Deals With Spent Nuclear Fuel!
It's pretty hard to find unbiased figures but I'm very curious just how much spent nuclear fuel the whole world has generated in more than half a century of nuclear energy production.
Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Mike Levin [D-CA49]
This bill was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.
Hi All, I just watched this: (Finland Might Have Solved Nuclear Power’s Biggest Problem):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYpiK3W-g_0
As a nuclear-energy skeptic but an advocate of environmentally-friendly energy sources, I am encouraged by this. I think if a natural disaster of such a monstrous magnitude is going to project these into the surface or the atmosphere, the nuclear radiation is probably would be the least of concerns.
That said, we don't have a track record of planning for hundreds of thousands of years. I always wonder why we don't "dilute" the spent nuclear fuels though. If the uranium was taken from nature in very low concentrations anyway, can we not mix it with lots of other impurities and bury it in much lower concentrations over much wider ranges.
Also, the density of spent uranium is about 19.1 g/cm^3, which is more than 6 times the density of magma (about 3.1 g/cm^3 on the surface of the earth). So why don't we cover them with some melting-resistant shield (to survive melting on the surface) and drop them nicely in magma of a calm volcano to be sent to the lower mantle (its density is 4.4 ~ 5.6 g/cm^3) and there it can freely melt and dilute and become part of the earth again!
I am not an expert AT ALL. So if someone with more knowledge can help with my naivete, will be much appreciated!
Something I have never seen a lot of buzz about when people are talking about Zombie Survival, are the spent nuclear fuel rods from nuclear reactors. Even if the reactor themselves have auto-shut down mechanisms or other safety features in case of a loss of power, spent fuel rods have to be kept in pools of cooled water for several years to prevent the radiation from melting any holding containers and leaking radiation into the environment. Something like 1/3 of Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor, but how many know whether they're close to a spent nuclear fuel holding facility?
How many people are taking these kinds of things into account with their survival plans?
i read a post saying you can hold nuclear fuel in your hand without getting a lethal dose of radiation but spent nuclear fuel rods are more dangerous
I read an article in phys.org about crystallizing spent nuclear fuel using nitric acid, and that doing so introduced a single step solution to nuclear fuel recycling. How does crystallizing spent nuclear fuel make reuse or refinement of the uranium easier? The article points out that the build-up of heavy waste elements is one of the factors of nuclear fuel depreciation. Since the process still captures plutonium, americium, and neptunium in the lattice, how does this process make nuclear fuel recycling easier?
Edit: link to article - https://phys.org/news/2020-05-reveals-single-step-strategy-recycling-nuclear.html
