the whole idea that there is such a thing as "nuclear waste" is a bit of a misconception. More than 98% of the material in a spent nuclear fuel rod is being recycled in other parts of the world. About 97% of spent fuel is uranium: 2% is fissionable U-235 isotope, the fuel that powers the reactor and the other 95% is good old U-238, the same non-fissionable isotope that comes out of the ground. It can't be used for bombs. Sure, it has a half-life of four billion years (that's why environmentalists think they have to sit and watch it for a million years) but this is the same stuff that's in granite. No, the isotope everybody really worries about is plutonium-239, which is formed when small amounts of U-238 absorb neutrons during the three-year cycle. It makes up 1% of spent fuel. Separating it and putting it back in a reactor as "mixed oxide fuel" (uranium plus plutonium) is no problem. Unfortunately, back in 1976, Jimmy Carter decided that if we extracted the plutonium, somebody might run off with it and make a bomb. Therefore he cancelled fuel recycling. That created the problem of "nuclear waste."* France recycles all its fuel rods and has never had any plutonium stolen. As for the remaining 2% of the fuel rod -- the highly radioactive transuranic elements and fission byproducts -- it is all stored in a single room in Le Havre*.
No, the isotope everybody really worries about is plutonium-239, which is formed when small amounts of U-238 absorb neutrons during the three-year cycle. It makes up 1% of spent fuel. Separating it and putting it back in a reactor as "mixed oxide fuel" (uranium plus plutonium) is no problem.
Unfortunately, back in 1976, Jimmy Carter decided that if we extracted the plutonium, somebody might run off with it and make a bomb. Therefore he cancelled fuel recycling. That created the problem of "nuclear waste."* France recycles all its fuel rods and has never had any plutonium stolen. As for the remaining 2% of the fuel rod -- the highly radioactive transuranic elements and fission byproducts -- it is all stored in a single room in Le Havre*.
Carter's concern was about the need to carefully guard Plutonium because it is used in bombs. He was looking at the problem from the non-proliferation viewpoint. The WSJ looks at it from the pro-nuclear viewpoint.
France has a similar difficulty to that of the United States with high-level waste. The technocrats have proposed a solution, but are having difficulty selling it to the people who have to live near by. A "final decision" about where to store it is due in 2006.
The original story here, "How Sweden deals with nuclear waste" is the pro-nuclear story. It needs to be read carefully to sort out what "could" be done with the high-level waste from what "is" being done, i.e., it's being stored in "temporary" above-ground sites just like it is everywhere else.
Then they used PUREX to extract pure Pu from irradiated uranium. PUREX is a messy process, but it is needed to get pure weapons grade Pu. If you only want to recycle it in breeder reactors, there's no need for PUREX, the far cleaner PYRO-A would do. Sometimes, reprocessing is not the same as reprocessing.
Finally, even PUREX can be run without dumping liqid radwaste into the sea. Dumping is just the easiest thing to do, and do I really need to explain that the military doesn't care much for a few people additionally killed? Sellafield has been operating much cleaner since about 1995, when the process was changed somewhat.
Btw, did you know that about every fifth person in the civilized world dies of cancer? If the cancer rates grew tenfold, then everybody died of cancer... twice. You may want to reconcile this with the common sense notion that everybody dies exactly once.
Now if most cancers were curable and people could get more than one cancer in their lifetime (more than two on average, see above), then the ten-fold increase could be true. But if cancer is usually not deadly, it somehow doesn't all that bad anymore, does it?
"Shut off all nuclear plants! A ten-fold increase in the common cold has been found near an obscure research reactor! We're all gonna die unless we switch them off immediately!"
You want me to believe that life expectancy near Sellafield is down to 35 years?! Repeating the calculations with realistic numbers, it shrinks to just 27 years.
Unbelievable.
Regarding the simultaneously comment: that would mean, most people recover from their cancer, wouldn't it? So cancer isn't all that deadly after all, is it? So what's your point, really? Are you maybe just spreading FUD, with invented figures nonetheless?
A lot of your other calculations are sound, but your [lack of] grasp of what it meast to multiply the death rate due to cancer by 10 is worrying.
Now we can discuss whether or not it is a fact that the cancer rates grew 10-fold, but not whether that is physically possible because everyone would have to die twice [as you have claimed]. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
Anyway, since Gaianne is not gracing us with a reference, I decided to go fishing for one.
New Scientist: Science: Leukaemia and nuclear power stations ( 17 June 1989)
Subsequent investigations confirmed an excess of leukaemia and other cancer among children living near Sellafield, the complex British Nuclear Fuel runs in northwest England. ... Depending on which statistics are quoted, the excess represents up to a tenfold increase in the number of cases expected on the basis of conventional dose/risk models.
Depending on which statistics are quoted, the excess represents up to a tenfold increase in the number of cases expected on the basis of conventional dose/risk models.
Anyway, for anyone interested there is the COMARE 10th Report: The incidence of childhood cancer around nuclear installations in Great Britain (10 June 2005). Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
(On a side note: I cannot confuse "cancer rate" with anything, because that term is basically undefined and left to interpretation by individuals. It is only used by anti-nuke-kooks when applying statistical trickery.)
You'll note that a "ten-fold increase in the incidence of leukaemia in children" is quite something different than "ten-fold increase of cancer rates"
"standard dose/risk models underestimate the expected number of additional child leukemia cases by a factor of up to 10". A far cry from "cancer rates increased by a factor of 10".
But not simultaneously. We do have a lifespan of about 80 years, don't we? Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
