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Re; depositories. I have read the design specs on the Finnish and Swedish proposals. They are overkill. They are also no going to run over, because.. well, Sweden. Rockworks is not exactly an unknown engineering discipline. Also read the specs on yucca, which really, really fracking ought to be used. The critique points are along the lines of "If the yucca desert sees a 3 order increase in average rainfall, waste may escape in 500000 years"... at which point, it would have decayed to harmlessness. And because of that risk, currently, waste is getting left at reactors. Which is so much better. Arrgh. Harry Reid is a menace.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
Thomas, in what "civilized" lands are hospitals allowed to dispose of "high-activity isotopes" in the sewers? Even low-level waste? What are all those specialized containers (and procedures) for then?
In fact, and i don't know if it's still the case, decades ago many sensitive stands to hold stuff which couldn't move had lead-shielded U-isotopes as heavy weight in their support frames, just as fighter-bombers used to have, and may still have, as trim weight. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
the point is noone gives half a darn
How much of a point is that anyway? What major nuclear accidents show is that the risks are very considerable, insuring against them isn't possible, and even (as may be the case with Fukushima), the costs may rise to such a level no entity, private or public, is going to face them (ie things will be left to go to hell). Whether people's fears about radioactivity are ignorant or not is a red herring.
This is what the world looks like when you move 300 years along the time line in the opposite direction.
I don't doubt that the geology behind these repositories (the Finnish one at least) is OK. But, humanity is a geological force already today, and a lot less predictable than the natural ones. I have no problem with nuclear technologies as such -- they are impressive engineering feats. But, before basing our planet's energy economy on them, we should perhaps get ourselves a new humanity to go with it.
However, that is not the solution in the proposed end waste facility outside Forsmark, where instead the waste is to be stored in copper containers, wrapped in bensonit mud (which increases in volume when wet) and stored 500 meter down in rock. This is called the KBS-3 model, and the waste will be retrievable be design. The main point of debate in Sweden is at what speed the copper layer will corrode under the planned circumstances.
I do not know precisely why the KBS-3 was chosen over deep holes, which includes not knowing if deep holes were judged more expensive or unsafe. If guessing, I would say that an organisation running continuos improvements over the foreseeable future suits Swedish policy makers better then a final technical solution. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
One is retrievability, even if this isn't talked about much. The other is risks. What do you do if something goes wrong while you're lowering the canister into the borehole? What if it gets stuck, or the cable breaks, or something else happens? Basically, you're screwed then. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
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