Chernobyl

[Red Dead Redemption]

makes you wonder what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to let people continue to live there after those bombings. is an industrial nuclear accident that much worse than an actual bomb burst?

Short answer: the reactor had a lot more radioactive material than the bombs (tons vs. pounds), and it happened at ground level instead of high in the air, so it is more concentrated.

[NUtopia]

Maybe the Mayans actually had developed nuclear power and there was a major accident on the Yucatan Peninsula and that's why they abandoned their cities.

There are doc films on YouTube and what not that basically say the Mayans/Aztecs and the like ran outta water because their population became too great and they had some droughts that couldn't sustain the large scale agriculture they had developed. Part of why they were sacrificing humans was to appease the "Rain Gods"--but it didn't work, as usual, the Gods don't deliver. So, people were starving, there were water wars, alotta folks got killed and the remainder disbanded back into small, sustainable tribes, like they had before.

 

makes you wonder what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to let people continue to live there after those bombings. is an industrial nuclear accident that much worse than an actual bomb burst?

The immediate impact is obviously far worse when it's a bomb but probably dissipates faster though the effects linger--mainly via those who were exposed and survived. The average danger radius for a bomb is ~6 miles if I'm not mistaken. A meltdown is worse long term, since it's ground level and there's no good way to stop it. From what I gathered, the victims of Hiro/Naga suffered the effects of radiation induced birth defects, cancers, etc, maybe even to this day. I knew one Japanese woman who grew up in Hiro after the bomb and she died, somewhat before her time, of cancer about 15 yrs ago. Not sure if there was a connection.

 

Not sure if they still do, but they used to do all the early nuke bomb tests in Utah and there were numerous bad effects on livestock and people(cancer rates increased), all of which the gov't denied for a long time, but finally the people got some lawsuits to stick against the testing.

[ZRod]

Just FYI the US effectively adheres to a ban on all nuclear explosion testing.

[cm husker]

It's unfortunate that Chernobyl (mainly) has impeded what should have been a movement to nuclear energy that could have been a fantastic compromise in the climate change debates.

[cm husker]

 

Is there a time table as to when it can become habitable again?

Yeah, 1/2 million years or so, should be back up to snuff. Fukishima should be good to go a few 100 thousand years after that.

 

And this brings us back to the ongoing problem of, "WTF do we do with all the nuke waste from nuke plants, anyway?!", a problem which has yet to be adequately solved. Last summer I heard a podcast about a ginormous "nuke waste bunker" they were designing in Finland, I think it was, and they just couldn't figure out how to make it fail safe since nuke waste takes 100s of 1000s of years to decay to a safe level and there is no substance on earth--not even titanium--that they could build the bunker out of that they could guarantee wouldn't fail well before that. It's a head scratcher.

 

I guess some of those nuke waste bunkers out in Cali and what not have been cracking/leaking in recent years, much to the chagrin of the surrounding populations. Suffice it to say, nobody anywhere wants a nuke dump anywhere near their same area code, so It's a big problem.

 

 

I'd have to listen to that podcast, but there seems to be an obvious answer:

Replace the bunkers as necessary.

 

Where's my reward money for solving this intractable problem?

 

 

I'd be interest in the actual volumes involved, but it shouldn't be that difficult to locate waste sites far from populations (provided you have a means for transporting waste to such sites).

[NUtopia]

 

 

Is there a time table as to when it can become habitable again?

Yeah, 1/2 million years or so, should be back up to snuff. Fukishima should be good to go a few 100 thousand years after that.

 

And this brings us back to the ongoing problem of, "WTF do we do with all the nuke waste from nuke plants, anyway?!", a problem which has yet to be adequately solved. Last summer I heard a podcast about a ginormous "nuke waste bunker" they were designing in Finland, I think it was, and they just couldn't figure out how to make it fail safe since nuke waste takes 100s of 1000s of years to decay to a safe level and there is no substance on earth--not even titanium--that they could build the bunker out of that they could guarantee wouldn't fail well before that. It's a head scratcher.

 

I guess some of those nuke waste bunkers out in Cali and what not have been cracking/leaking in recent years, much to the chagrin of the surrounding populations. Suffice it to say, nobody anywhere wants a nuke dump anywhere near their same area code, so It's a big problem.

 

 

I'd have to listen to that podcast, but there seems to be an obvious answer:

Replace the bunkers as necessary.

 

Where's my reward money for solving this intractable problem?

 

 

I'd be interest in the actual volumes involved, but it shouldn't be that difficult to locate waste sites far from populations (provided you have a means for transporting waste to such sites).

 

Much easier said than done.

 

Onkalo, Finland, they want to develop a no maintainance series of bunkers and tunnels:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/11/12/finland.nuclear.waste/

[ZRod]

 

 

Is there a time table as to when it can become habitable again?

 

Yeah, 1/2 million years or so, should be back up to snuff. Fukishima should be good to go a few 100 thousand years after that.

 

And this brings us back to the ongoing problem of, "WTF do we do with all the nuke waste from nuke plants, anyway?!", a problem which has yet to be adequately solved. Last summer I heard a podcast about a ginormous "nuke waste bunker" they were designing in Finland, I think it was, and they just couldn't figure out how to make it fail safe since nuke waste takes 100s of 1000s of years to decay to a safe level and there is no substance on earth--not even titanium--that they could build the bunker out of that they could guarantee wouldn't fail well before that. It's a head scratcher.

 

I guess some of those nuke waste bunkers out in Cali and what not have been cracking/leaking in recent years, much to the chagrin of the surrounding populations. Suffice it to say, nobody anywhere wants a nuke dump anywhere near their same area code, so It's a big problem.

I'd have to listen to that podcast, but there seems to be an obvious answer:

 

Replace the bunkers as necessary.

 

Where's my reward money for solving this intractable problem?

 

 

I'd be interest in the actual volumes involved, but it shouldn't be that difficult to locate waste sites far from populations (provided you have a means for transporting waste to such sites).

Google says for the US in 2002 it was 47,000 metric tonnes of high level waste (essentially spent fuel). A lot of that furl can be refine and recyled for use in other reactors though.

 

 

In terms of safety and the environment I don't know why we don't push for Molten salt reactors. They are more expensive, and there are technological hurdles, but the upsides are so much better. They are safer in many ways, they can't have a runaway meltdown, and the waste is only hazardous for about 300 years (not tens of thousands).

[cm husker]

Interesting. I'm not familiar with that technology. Will need to look it up.

[BigRedBuster]

When I was younger, I heard a lot about adopting Nuclear Fusion in stead of Fission energy. Supposedly, it created much less waste which is understandable. I haven't heard about that for a long time. Must have given up on trying to figure out how to make it work.

[cm husker]

I saw that movie. One of the last good ones before Val Kilmer ate Val Kilmer.

 

Elisabeth shue was a smoke show.

[commando]

did some reading on those molten salt reactors. was very interesting to see that 1 design actually would "eat" some of the waste of our current plants. they still need to be developed but the concept is interesting.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

Oddly enough I couldn't sleep this morning and the show River Monsters had him fishing in Chernobyl and then there was a show after that called "Life After Chernobyl" it was interesting to watch. There are actually around 100 people living there according the show that I watched. Crazy......

[VectorVictor]

When I was younger, I heard a lot about adopting Nuclear Fusion in stead of Fission energy. Supposedly, it created much less waste which is understandable. I haven't heard about that for a long time. Must have given up on trying to figure out how to make it work.

 

No, they still are, and they're making strides towards fusion...but it's really tough and requires a significant energy expenditure at the beginning of the process to make it happen, not to mention harnessing and maintaining the plasma. If we can figure this out, we've figured out (to a degree) how to recreate and harness the sun.

 

But here's an example from November 2015 where folks are still working on this:

 

http://www.sciencealert.com/first-of-its-kind-german-stellarator-could-revolutionise-the-way-we-use-energy

 

Extending the life of plasma from seven minutes to 30 may not seem like a big deal, but it would be a revolutionary step should it happen, and progress for an energy form that has eluded us for a while now.