Searching for Green Nuclear Waste Disposal

Yucca Mountain: it’s nice to look at, but green it ain’t. The thought of endless nuclear waste barely contained inside a seismically-active mountain is enough to give anyone the chills. That’s why nuclear design engineer Dean Engelhardt started Permanent RadWaste Solutions, a company that proposes to send nuclear waste to the surface of Earth’s inner core.

According to Engelhardt, waste is contained in a Submarine Transport Vessel (STV)–similar to a nuclear submarine–that travels into a 75-foot deep hole in the sea at a Pacific Ocean subduction fault (earthquake fault at the edge of the continental crust).

The details get a little fuzzy after that, but Engelhardt claims his solution is “permanent, zero maintenance, less expensive, and terrorist proof.” Since the STV moves slowly into the fault, nuclear waste will be rendered harmless by the time it reaches magma. The goal, he says, is not to bring the waste to Earth’s core. It is only to subject it to the increasing pressure of descent for a million years.

It’s a a far-out solution, to say the least, but so far I haven’t seen any better ones.

Ed S.

Please relegate editorial commentary to your personal blog. We all appreciate the work you do to report on clean technology developments, but lets make sure to keep out your personal views.

Also, to see what can happen when a truster reported violates that trust with their readers, see Timothy Noah’s peice about Yucca Mountain in Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2212792/

Reader backlash can be read here, in the comments section:

http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/2603/ShowForum.aspx?ArticleID=2212792
Ed S.

Please relegate editorial commentary to your personal blog. We all appreciate the work you do to report on clean technology developments, but lets make sure to keep out your personal views.

Also, to see what can happen when a truster reported violates that trust with their readers, see Timothy Noah’s peice about Yucca Mountain in Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2212792/

Reader backlash can be read here, in the comments section:

http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/2603/ShowForum.aspx?ArticleID=2212792
Brennan

Haha I would hate to see what would happen if we did drill all the way to the core and start dumping nuclear waste. I think we can come up with a way to dispose of it responsibly but as of now there doesn’t look to be a way.
Brennan

Haha I would hate to see what would happen if we did drill all the way to the core and start dumping nuclear waste. I think we can come up with a way to dispose of it responsibly but as of now there doesn’t look to be a way.
Joffan

Brennan, we have come up with several ways of disposing of or transmuting spent nuclear fuel. The problem is that political decisions are often driven by rhetoric rather than science, and the scaremongers will sometimes win.

Swedish disposal scheme:

http://www.skb.se/upload/publications/pdf/Djupfor_eng.pdf
Joffan

Brennan, we have come up with several ways of disposing of or transmuting spent nuclear fuel. The problem is that political decisions are often driven by rhetoric rather than science, and the scaremongers will sometimes win.

Swedish disposal scheme:

http://www.skb.se/upload/publications/pdf/Djupfor_eng.pdf
nix

Nuclear waste is not waste.

It can, and should be used.
nix

Nuclear waste is not waste.

It can, and should be used.
Joffan

“The thought of endless nuclear waste barely contained inside a seismically-active mountain is enough to give anyone the chills.”

Well, I don’t suppose you’ll let the science sway your opinion on that one. But just in case, Yucca Mountain is not especially seismically active, but it does have an interesting advantage in understanding the impact of earthquakes. The nuclear weapons tests at Yucca Flats produced more ground-shaking than the biggest feasible earthquake. The impact on nearby mine tunnels in the same geology as Yucca was observed and incorporated into the knowledge about how such underground structures would react to tremors. The answer is that they survive well. It’s slightly unexpected perhaps, but true, that earthquakes do less damage to deep tunnels than to surface structures.

I applaud the imagery of a “barely contained” monster, struggling at its feeble chains, but nuclear waste is a mineral, not a Balrog or a virus. Geology can and does accurately predict how it would interact with the other minerals around it, and that does not include making any bid for escape from Yucca.
Joffan

“The thought of endless nuclear waste barely contained inside a seismically-active mountain is enough to give anyone the chills.”

Well, I don’t suppose you’ll let the science sway your opinion on that one. But just in case, Yucca Mountain is not especially seismically active, but it does have an interesting advantage in understanding the impact of earthquakes. The nuclear weapons tests at Yucca Flats produced more ground-shaking than the biggest feasible earthquake. The impact on nearby mine tunnels in the same geology as Yucca was observed and incorporated into the knowledge about how such underground structures would react to tremors. The answer is that they survive well. It’s slightly unexpected perhaps, but true, that earthquakes do less damage to deep tunnels than to surface structures.

I applaud the imagery of a “barely contained” monster, struggling at its feeble chains, but nuclear waste is a mineral, not a Balrog or a virus. Geology can and does accurately predict how it would interact with the other minerals around it, and that does not include making any bid for escape from Yucca.
Uncle B

Hang on to nuclear waste! The Chinese will soon be buying it to mix into the Thorium bed reactors, likened to those currently found in India. With more post- graduate students with IQ’s of 130+ than the U.S. has high school students, American drop outs included, what appear as insurmountable problems with no Microsoft answers, are child’s play to these people! The fact that fission is dangerous and expensive, and the fuel for it, Uranium, is not abundant on earth but relatively rare, may deter them, and they might just jump directly to Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydro, Tidal and Geothermal processes, the renewable ones, Like, you know, “When was the last time you heard of a shipment of expensive fuel for the Hoover Dam? Even our own scientists, the ones we never listen to, say Wind is more than adequate to solve our energy problems, SEE:

There is as much wind power potential (900,000 megawatts) off our coasts as the current capacity of all power plants in the United States combined, according to a new report entitled, A Framework for Offshore Wind Energy Development in the United States, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and General Electric. http://www.capecodtoday.com/news246.htm01/01/09

The Indians will soon need more power and might consider our wastes for starter for their Thorium bed reactors, but they too, being vegetarian and all, are fairly health conscious, economical lot, and will probably go renewable, or perpetual, as you wish. We may have to stick our waste into reactors and re-burn it, along with all our nuclear warheads, making a less potent waste, and send that mess to a remote desert area, but a remote desert area will soon be considered ideal for nation-saving Solar power installations and dumping nuclear waste there would be akin to filling in the Hoover Dam! Not Bloody likely – Did anyone think of burying it at George Bush’s farm in Texas? I kind of like that idea don’t you?
Uncle B

Hang on to nuclear waste! The Chinese will soon be buying it to mix into the Thorium bed reactors, likened to those currently found in India. With more post- graduate students with IQ’s of 130+ than the U.S. has high school students, American drop outs included, what appear as insurmountable problems with no Microsoft answers, are child’s play to these people! The fact that fission is dangerous and expensive, and the fuel for it, Uranium, is not abundant on earth but relatively rare, may deter them, and they might just jump directly to Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydro, Tidal and Geothermal processes, the renewable ones, Like, you know, “When was the last time you heard of a shipment of expensive fuel for the Hoover Dam? Even our own scientists, the ones we never listen to, say Wind is more than adequate to solve our energy problems, SEE:

There is as much wind power potential (900,000 megawatts) off our coasts as the current capacity of all power plants in the United States combined, according to a new report entitled, A Framework for Offshore Wind Energy Development in the United States, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and General Electric. http://www.capecodtoday.com/news246.htm01/01/09

The Indians will soon need more power and might consider our wastes for starter for their Thorium bed reactors, but they too, being vegetarian and all, are fairly health conscious, economical lot, and will probably go renewable, or perpetual, as you wish. We may have to stick our waste into reactors and re-burn it, along with all our nuclear warheads, making a less potent waste, and send that mess to a remote desert area, but a remote desert area will soon be considered ideal for nation-saving Solar power installations and dumping nuclear waste there would be akin to filling in the Hoover Dam! Not Bloody likely – Did anyone think of burying it at George Bush’s farm in Texas? I kind of like that idea don’t you?
Ariel Schwartz

@russ I never said I believed him, but I do admire his creativity.
russ

You believed this yoyo? A special one way path to the magma layer that only he knows about.

Wait a minute I saw a docudrama about that – ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ I believe it was called. Did he give out special glasses or anything?
russ

You believed this yoyo? A special one way path to the magma layer that only he knows about.

Wait a minute I saw a docudrama about that – ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ I believe it was called. Did he give out special glasses or anything?