Long-term cement study seeks nuclear waste solution

[hunter]

By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent, Washington DC

UK scientists say they have produced a new mix of cement that should be much more effective at containing nuclear waste in a deep repository.

The material develops mineral phases that readily trap radioactive isotopes trying to pass through it.

Investigations at the atomic scale indicate the cement ought to retain this ability for at least 2,000 years.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35571793

Whether you are for nuclear power or against, there's already plenty of nuclear waste to deal with, so this is optimistic news.

Now, if only we knew what to do with fossil fuel waste...

[Tikki]

1. Should, could, ought to and in development....We hear those words a lot buzzing around...

the pools and pools of nuclear waste.

Meanwhile contractors and scientist make an obscene amount of tax payer money and fight
back and forth over the final solution.

ps with all that said...I hope it is real. Whether or not you believe it...lives and health are at stake.
Tikki

[Gregorian]

2. So instead of leaking in 2016, it'll leak in 4016.

2000 years is a blip on the time scale of the planet.

I don't have answers. Were we supposed to live outside of nature's equilibrium? As upsetting as pollution is, perhaps we were meant to grow and learn and live the way we are. But if not...we're really messing up.

[6chars]

3. better to buy 2000 more years to figure it out

as for whether we are supposed to live outside of nature's equilibrium? no, not this far out.

[Gregorian]

4. Right. No doubt about that.

And with the price of solar dropping, it shouldn't end up being that we rely on nuclear much longer. Buying time now is important. Thanks. I often get lost in my purism.

[6chars]

5. progress on solar has been amazing

but the crash in oil prices has set back its adoption. carbon tax reflecting the risk of co2 would put solar right back on track.

[hunter]

6. In 2000 years it's not much worse than it was when it was dug up.

The Native Americans in New Mexico and Arizona will tell you what the original uranium ores and existing mine tailings are like.

"I never knew where all the crooks from East Texas went until I got into the uranium business and they all turned up again" -- Dean McGee, of Kerr-McGee, quoted in Secret Riches by John Masters

The "half-life" narrative is a false one. Most toxic wastes from our high energy fossil fueled industrial society have a "half-life" of forever and are already everywhere. As a long-lived animals like whales, our own bodies are full of these toxins.

Toxic chemicals found in beached pilot whales in Scotland

Scientists find levels of mercury and cadmium in the whales’ brains increased with age

Severin Carrell
Thursday 11 February 2016 11.52 EST

Scientists have found clear evidence that whales are absorbing high levels of toxic heavy metals, with cadmium found in the brains of pilot whales which washed up in Scotland.

Chemists at the University of Aberdeen said they had found cadmium in all the organs of adult long-finned pilot whales which stranded in 2012, including their brain.

The research shows for the first time that cadmium – known to pass into the brains of infant and unborn whales - had also passed across the so-called blood-brain barrier in adult whales.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/11/toxic-chemicals-found-in-beached-pilot-whales-in-soctland

Unlike fossil fuels, nuclear wastes can be dealt with in a believable manner. Yeah, Fukushima will be an expensive mess to clean up, but it's negligible compared to the ongoing catastrophe of fossil fuels.

The basic problem isn't the means of power generation, the basic problem is overpopulation and the high energy industrial society itself.

Part of that is consumerism, but another part, at least in the U.S.A., is our faith that with ultra-high energy high technology war machines we can continue to dominate the world and support the U.S. dollar's intimate relationship with oil. The war in Vietnam ought to have taught us that theory was rubbish.

[Gregorian]

7. Excellent.

Everything you said I couldn't have said better. The one about nuclear is really new to me, and interesting. And the comparison to fossil fuel is true. I'm usually good at seeing the forest for the trees, but that one got away from me. A crazy climate disaster, or poison concentrated in a bunch of locations. I'll take not having the oceans rise.

What I find so interesting is the time in which we live. It's a transition, and only after a century or so of modern living. So people still think in terms of primal stuff, yet they're living in a world made of digital controls and surface grinders.

And population is the heart of it all. After all of the energy solutions have succeeded, and we manage to somehow bring our CO2 back to 280ppm, there's still the problem with fish, trees, medical. I mean, you just can't go over a couple of billion without the damage happening at a fast rate. No one said this planet was going to last forever.

And then there's the thought that perhaps this is all disposable, and we're here to love and learn and create. Fuck it, just have fun. I don't know. Once again I end up with not knowing. Well, we got tired of sleeping on rocks in cold caves, and who can blame us.

[phantom power]

8. The more radioactive it is, the faster it's becoming less radioactive.

this useful fact is generally lost in the noise.