https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/07/tuscany-nuclear-waste-dump-plan-protest/
Scenic region once occupied by ancient Etruscans is wildlife haven and centre for organic farming
Yes that's the one counter example. But you don't want a coal power plant on your balcony. Or a highway or railway or power line or aircraft runway...
I’ve lived right up against a railway before. Really not that bad, plus you’re more likely to be near a station which is excellent. Agree on the highway/runway examples, though. Turns out the problem is usually burning shit nearby. (And rubber tyres)
The choice of location is weird, but the article also cravenly feeds into the anti-nuclear alarmist sentiment. It fails to describe how the storage facility would be built and operated, choosing to call it a "dump site" instead.
Safe storage of nuclear waste is a solved problem. Bad science communication is unfortunately not.
You are not really linking a video from a YouTube channel that features videos like "Can Nuclear Fallout Create Ghouls?", "One-Punch Man Breaks Physics AGAIN", "The government let me kiss nuclear waste." and "How to Defeat Roko's Basilisk"?
I've watched a couple of his videos (none of those you mentioned) and it's pure edutainment. That is neither an insult nor a compliment, but you definitely should not link to channels like this as proof of anything
If you actually took the time to watch those videos, you'd realise that the farcical titles and presentation are just "illustrated book covers" for serious topics on the mutagenic effects of ionizing radiation, a tour inside a long-term nuclear waste storage site, and a thought experiment concerning the development of AI.
Hill is an educator, it's his job to explain complex and/or obscure topics in ways that will catch the attention of the layperson.
If you actually took the time to watch those videos
I've better things to do than to watch some dude on YouTube that lives of sensationalist video titles
And: The problem of nuclear waste disposal seems not to be solved. There is active R&D ongoing.
Source (not some Dude on YouTube):
Although many countries with nuclear power plants have programmes to develop spent fuel or HLW disposal, these programmes are at very different levels of maturity, especially as concerns the siting process and the selection of a site. Three countries, Finland, France and Sweden, have selected a site and are progressing towards licensing and construction. Other countries have time schedules to begin operation of repositories in the 2050s and 2060s and have started an active siting process. The general trend is to site such a facility in a willing and informed volunteer host community
IAEA Nuclear Energy Series; Status and Trends in Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management (PDF)
Sensationalist titles and thumbnails are the norm.
Almost impossible to survive on YouTube without it.
So I wouldn't hold it against any channel.
Safe storage of nuclear waste is a solved problem
Is it though? It is maybe for a couple of generations but after that? What happens in case of an earthquake? When the storage facility is not taken care of? When nuclear lobbies force the adoption of the solution?
And is the actual implementation of the solution aligned with the defined needs? The solution proposed in France is a shitshow for instance. Is the risk really taken seriously in the long term? Or is it another case of 'future generations will take care of it?' (See climate change)
Yeah, the way of communication in science is not Youtube. I don't see a nuclear waste storage for a few hundred years anywhere. Only plans or temporary solutions.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Safe storage of nuclear waste is a solved problem.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yeah people see nuclear waste disposal like in the Simpsons, just barrels in the water and three eyed fishes. I'm not saying it never happened (wild deposit of nuclear waste, not three eyed fishes), but it's small and rare enough to make the headlines. Safe storage in geologically stable places is safe enough for the foreseeable future.
How far is the "forseeable" future? It has to be safe for longer than mankind has existed. Since we don't even know very much about civilisations as recent as the stone age, I don't trust today's storage people.
If you're speaking about the stable place of storage itself, it should be on a geological timescale, so more than likely more than enough (as far as we know about geology). If you're talking about the storage facility itself, it's more variable obviously. But also keep in mind that nuclear waste storage has multiple levels of danger, not everything is depleted or enriched uranium.
Pretty much anything that comes into contact with ionising radiation is considered nuclear waste. It goes from medical equipment used around radioactive sources, to a wrench used inside a radioactive part of a nuclear power plant, to actual fuel rods.
Because radioactivity decays over time, and we know the half life of all known elements we can calculate how long they need to be stored for.
Low level radiation items and short lived intermediate level radiation (for up to 30 years) items are usually stored overground or at near surface underground caves for some time until safe to be disposed of. These represent around 90% of nuclear waste.
Long lived intermediate level radiation and high level radiation are stored deep underground (between 250 and 5000 meters) in stable and safe materials (clay, salt, etc) and are also contained in man made canisters made stuff like copper, concrete and bentonite. These are to be stored over geological times.
There are obviously issues to be aware of, like how to communicate the presence of nuclear waste to future generations 10000 years in the future, or human error in handling the waste. But it's still safe enough to not be a major issue.
Yeah not sure about that. Politics always plays a huge part in choosing the waste-facility location. In Germany, that for decades, used to be a former salt mine. And for decades we've seen pictures of rusting and leaning barrels of radioactive waste, again and again and again.
Nuclear material going missing and small scale accidents with it happen all the time even just with sources used in medical devices and other uses for elements with relatively low radioactivity. And people already don't know how to recognize the signs of radiation poisoning today.
How much worse would it be in a society that forgot a storage site was there?
To reach a long term nuclear waste disposal you'd have to take some massive conscious effort. We're talking about at least 500m deep mines. Definitely not something you'll stumble upon on your Sunday walk.