We Solved Nuclear Waste Decades Ago

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Yeah, when I was on the USS Eisenhower back in 1982 (a nuclear aircraft carrier) we had a device in the engine room that could detect very tiny amounts of radioactive particles in the air. The only times I ever saw the detector needle rise much above zero was pulling into Naples, Italy -- and it did that almost every time we pulled in...as soon as we'd get out to sea the needle would drop back. I was told that there was a temperature inversion layer over Naples and what we were reading was Carbon 14 isotopes from coal-burning powerplants.

I really appreciate that a method of impact testing is literally just "hit it with a train".

One of the weird things you learn looking into this matter is that the part of the process of handling nuclear waste that is most damaging to the environment is... The production of all that concrete.

its bizarre that we even need deep isolation. it's not a solution to issue of waste,as you said, it's solved, its a solution to public perception.

I think what freaks people out is all the precautions. Fossil fuels are worse but we just throw them up into the air so "How bad can they be right?". But nuclear waste needs these concrete tombs and all these security precautions, so even if they're way safer, it freaks people out and makes them think "What if something goes wrong tho?". The only way to fix this is educating people.

"Fossil fuel IS the invisible scurge that people imagine nuclear waste to be" Perfectly stated!

The Yucca Mountain repository is exactly why the plants I've worked at, focus so much on what they call "social license" because the public's opinion has the same power to kill a nuclear project, as any stamp/license from any nuclear regulatory body. They strive so hard to maintain a good image in the mind of the local community, the worst thing that's happened at either plant was when they went to test the emergency notification system once, they forgot to add "this is just a test" to the message, and NO ONE was even remotely worried. In fact: I think the company just got roasted on social media for a few weeks. (To be fair, there is an evacuation plan in place for if something were to go wrong, so the fact authorities weren't rolling out busses and pulling people from beds, kinda tipped everyone off that it was a false alarm.)

I was a maintenance electrician for a company that had a patent on a specific aluminum alloy used to line the casks for storing nuclear waste. Their main customer was Chernobyl. The alloy contained the waste for a longer portion of its halflife requiring fewer times to replace the cask.This was in the early 2000's, I'm sure they've made improvements.

Nuclear waste is safer than political waste. You can't just dig a six foot hole for politicians as the environmental damage is too high.

30 years ago as a sophomore in physics we did a study and found higher radio activity in the fly ash pile outside a coal plant than outside a nuclear powerplant.

I think it would be really cool if you cite your sources in the description so its easier to navigate for my more academically-inclined friends

I live next to one of Finland's biggest nuclear plants, and tbh it's kinda chill here most of the time. The only issue is that we sometimes get weird marine life near the exhaust ports, since their wastewater is naturally warmer than our seas tend to be in the winter. Means that species that couldn't usually live at these latitudes keep turning up with cargo ship ballast waters and chilling there.

My step father was a trucker with every certification you could imagine. I remember him coming home one night with a flatbed full of those transportation containers. I was surprised they were allowed to stay outside of some facility or another and on truck overnight. He did inform me that they were practically indestructible and far to heavy to steal to boot. Also that they emitted no radiation at all as they were perfectly stable. I haven't feared nuclear power since.

Something isn't talked about much is that Chernobyl had other reactors that didn't melt down. They kept the power plant operational, generating electricity until the reactors were deactivated in the 90s and early 2000s.

Most of the years I was growing up my home town had a coal-fired power plant. I think that it was putting out 40x the radiation of a fission plant. Of course, it was just a fraction of the background radiation.

I don't know why but the "big uranium" gag had me dying every time, especially 1:36 and 2:46. Thank you.

When I worked in a power plant, most of our "nuclear waste" was used contaminated clothing like rad suits or scrubs that get crated up, shipped out for decontamination, and recycled.

The more I learn about nuclear power the more pissed off I become that we haven't used it to its fullest potential

I think the reason the masses are afraid of nuclear waste is because of what people have seen with nuclear weapons and meltdowns and think it's also the same with anything that's a byproduct of nuclear energy. I don't know the full history of fossil fuel discovery (yet) but my theory is it was accepted by people when it was first introduced because it solved a problem (or rather acted as a fuel to solve a problem or make something easier/faster) while the first introduction of nuclear to the masses was destruction.