A clarification was added to that article: ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage. The comparison is to radioactivity released to the environment, not the total amount created, nor the amount in nuclear waste.
The issue is what to do with the waste in the fuel pools. Not how much gets into the environment from day to day operations.
The plants had some place to ship it once in casks. The prospect of the local NPP becoming a waste storage site would of course cause screaming and yelling, even though that is exactly what they already are, but less safe. West Texas seems gung ho about it, now accepting "temporarily" the Los Alamos stuff that was headed to WIPP for now.
The SFPs are vulnerable. Here too. They are by far the riskiest aspect of the whole show. Not some little bit that some idiot might try and steal. 20,000 Hiroshioma, ready to burn baby. In everyone's backyard, everywhere. And many more people know about them, due to Fuku. Stanford fellow isn't going to broadcast this, but the men doing the dance know, and they better sweat about it.
US plants need to get that stuff into cask storage. Yesterday.
They won't, just like we still don't have some form of On Star in airplanes. One would have logically thought that would have been the first step after 9/11? Nah.
turning math class into a medium for theorizing about social justice as a group process to reach consensus
“mathematics educators must be pushed to grapple with the complexity and particularities of race, marginalized status, and differential treatment by providing a lens for examining social, institutional, and structural inequities that contribute to differentials in the opportunities to learn mathematics.”
I suspect Elon is also quietly thinking about home setups. Store the juice from solar/wind arrays. Combine this with efficient choices in everything, from refrigeration, lighting, etc. It would be very hip and trendy, pricey at first, like the Model S.
The tech would enable a trend of folks moving to undeveloped areas, no grid needed. Even at $30,000, someone looking to build in isolated spots where running poles, wires would cost that. I think that is the number for even long, spiffy driveways?
This in turn could combine with building desire to have the Fed Gov't loosen its hold on the half of the US land it is currently sitting on. 21st century homesteading. Hideouts for the 1%ers at first. Then spread to the mainstream as costs fall, and folks see that it works. Huge social costs of the grid, centralized power plants etc are saved. Save the world from CO2, live on your own private Idaho.
Pre- existing conditons are long term storage and handling of the existing radioactive stockpile, and the vulnerable Spent Fuel Pools, earthquake resistance in the coolant subsystems, and Fukushima..
Want more? Fine.
1) Agree to move the waste from the vulnerable storage pools to proper on site cask storage.
2) Do earthquake resistance improvements instead of studies.
3) Fukushima. Get an International plan in place to wall, corral, and cap it.
Then talk about more nuclear waste producing power plants to make the world safe from carbon dioxide.
1) Agree to move the stuff from the NPP's vulnerable storage pools to on site cask storage.
2) Do actual earthquake resistance NPP improvements instead of studies.
3) Fukushima. Get an International plan in place to wall, corral, and cap it.
The casks can eventually be moved to the safe nuclear waste burning place, of course.
A reason to proceed promptly to step one? Until step one is done, one explosive projectile gadget could force the permanent evacuation of NYC
New York, New York was a random example. One of a lot. Every western City, pretty much. There are currently around 430 NPP's in the world. Got one within 50 miles of you? Lucky you, you the good reader is included in this acceptable risk set, The smartest guys in the room have deemed it probabilistically not probable. Plus, a trillion or three dollars rides on this. It is important! repeat after me to be happy healthy and terriffic: Nuclear Waste producing plants are needed to make us safe from the ravages of carbon dioxide
Problems are storage, handling of existing radioactive stockpile, Spent Fuel Pools. Many hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive waste already piled up, in SFPs in the Nukes.
Existing Spent Fuel Pools are filled, vulnerable. No containment. GE BWR Mk I design has them on the fifth floor of the building. Unit 4 at Fukushima SFP has radioactivity of 14,000 Hiroshima. (Low by US standards, Indian Point has five times that) ((24 miles from NYC)) Unit four SFP is the one TEPCO is emptying, moving to cask storage. It is not possible to enter units 1, 2 and 3. Issue? Another quake drops building, fuel is scattered, not cooled, uncontrollable spontaneous combustion of radioactive fire.
72 years since Fermi, there is no "long term" storage solution. 24,000 to 2 million years. 72 years since Fermi's magic trick, 72 years for the smartest guys in the room to think of something, and there is no answer. So I am not the smartest guy even in this room, but I have to conclude there will be no answer. Water, earthquakes, human error. 24,000 - 2 million years? Not Possible. Time to accept that all solutions are temporary, this is our single eternal legacy.
The Industry's "permanent solution" is getting it off their property, relief from liability.
Deal?
1) Agree to move the stuff from the vulnerable storage pools to on site cask storage.
2) Do actual earthquake resistance improvements instead of studies.
3) Fukushima. Get an International plan in place to wall, corral, and cap it.
72 years since Fermi's trick, 60 years since the smartest guys in the room told us this was all good. Do the three steps above. Show you are in fact serious, that you can be trusted. Take responsibility, show accountability, prove that it is not just about your cash flow. *** Then build some more nuclear waste producing power plants to make us safe from carbon dioxide.
Slashdot shares a place with instapundit, drudge, reddit, google's search page. Simple, functional, not broken. very influential. I cannot think of any more in this class? Slashdot is alone in that it is driven by the comments. The people who come here are the site, the people who comment here are the draw.
Dice crew perhaps needs a timeout to spend the weekend researching Digg to fully understand the emotions of the people, to not write off the aggressive anger as trolling. Digg is I believe, the highest profile failure. There are too many others, a theme fro m AOL, Yahoo and scattered to the Gizmodo's of the web. So we are familiar with the drill.There is always some corporate agenda that takes away what we love, so the anger. But none I would argue none ever had the status, importance of this site.
That Dice seems entirely unconscious of the culture here does not lend confidence. The threat of this may be enough to generate a clone site and a mass migration. Certainly the need for this is demonstrated.
But for now, Open or fail. Maybe Monday, a thread on What next?
Open, or fail.
From Sharp minds come... pointed heads. -- Bryan Sparrowhawk
