How to disposal of nuclear waste?

Question

what are the many methods of disposing of nuclear waste

Answer 1

sell to asian country`s from dirty bombs

Answer 2

pikey's will do it cheap enough for you

Answer 3

In New Mexico near there is a deep salt mine where they do just that and then they seal it in the deep mine and most of that salt has been there 100,000 years .

Answer 4

Not all nuclear waste is the same. Not all can be treated the same way. Some is low level waste, but lots of it, like contaminated soil, old disused reactors, that kind of thing, not much more reactive than natural uranium ore, but more reactive than you want in your kitchen.  This is generally just stockpiled in remote, dry, geologically stable areas. Away from underground water sources so that it won't contaminate ground water etc.  Then there is 'hot' waste, containing very reactive but short lived isotopes. This is stored in tanks, vats and barrels. some well looked after some less so. The idea is to keep it for a few years till most of the activity has died down. Then to process it into 'glass', or 'synthetic rock' for burial. This stuff is not a huge problem because in a relatively short time the radio activity will have dropped to just above normal levels. (couple hundred years at most).

Then there is the last group, long lived isotopes. With halflives (half of it is left after 1 halflife) in excess of 100,000 yrs. This means they have to be stored for million years. That is a long term committment. Given that our knowledge of the world is not so great, that is a big promise to keep! So far no human political group, ever (empire, nation, whatever) has lasted more than a thousand years or so.

The idea is again to make it into a syn rock or glass with activity not much different than natural substances and bury/store it in geologically stable sites. Used uranium mines might not be such a bad idea as the waste would just be returning as much radiation as was taken away. Salt deposits and stable granite domes are other ideas.

It has been suggested that it be dumped in deep ocean trenches. The idea beingthat as the sea floor is pulled undr the crust in these places to be returned to the magma deep under the surface, that would dispose of it once and for all.  Great if it works. The concern is that the ship carrying it might sink before it got to the site, or they might miss when dumping. Or the containers could crush and spill their contents before getting to the bottom of the trench. That kind of issue. (or before it is subsumed).  

As the trenches are mostly in international waters, or those of non-nuclear nations, no one has got permission to try it yet.

Waste disposal is an issue, and it needs to be taken seriously.

It is not the main reason Nuclear should not be over used though.

The issue of political problems, terrorism, nuclear poliferation and economics rate much higher.

A lot of the activities of the nuclear industry are government subsidised, otherwise the reactors simply cant compete with other energy resources. If non nuclear renewables were recieving the same subsidies they would be competitive also.

If nuclear becamewidely adopted, as the main source of energy, would we allow unpopular governments to have access? Who would decide?

Eventually there would be a need to ship thousands of tonnes annually of fuel and spent fuel around the globe. Even as is, there are leaks in the system where little bits get lost, are unaccounted for. As it only takes a kilo or so of spent fuel to make a nice nasty dirty bomb, it is to be expected that that would become common place!

Do we really need that?

A solar mirror, wind turbine, or drum of bio fuel is a lot less use to a terrorist.

Answer 5

They put them into big metal boxes and bury them under sea!

Its true :]

Answer 6

It is vitrified, which means it is processed into a glassy substance that does not dissolve in water and is not dangerously radioactive, and then buried in a deep place that has no history of earthquakes. At least that is the plan. Political pressure by people who refuse to believe the vitrified material is really safe and that there could be earthquakes in areas that haven't had one for thousands of years are blocking the opening of the facility. So the waste just sits in holding tanks at the nuclear power plants where it is produced. Just sitting there, in a dangerous form in a populated area. So stupid.

Answer 7

eat it!

Answer 8

I dont know any,Im not an expert but i do know its not easy.