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Article #133Re: Disposal of Radioactive Waste
From: Fred McGalliard
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 00:00
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 00:00
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Quarks like a duck wrote: > > You're way behing on this discussion. The thermal load alone of the > current nuclear waste in the US would overwhelm Yucca Mnt by 4 times. > The fissures and leaks that are caused by the heat are an enourmous > difficulty. There is a chance of nuclear explosion. Woopsy! Sorry bud. No nuclear explosion. The decay products can include hydrogen, and the radiation can produce free hydrogen and oxygen by interacting with the water, but nuclear explosion is not even possible if you just pour the plutonium rich spent fuel into a big tub. Since this is way too stupid for anyone but a mentally deficient Japanese reprocessing plant, I don't see that we should be worried about it as a mater of principal. As for the heat. This is dropping rapidly for the first few years, and the power density level is quite low by the time we get the PU out of it and get around to consolidating it. A natural design would put the glass boules into an iron or copper matrix, so the heat is easily sucked out. We are, I think, talking about power levels of a few hundred watts for several liters of material. A lot if it is suspended in a very good vacuum, but not much if it is in intimate contact with the rock wall around it. Try this one on for size. We drill into a good rock strata, drop a drill head down that drills angular holes in, and then fills each hole with one boule, steps up and to the side, drills the next hole and inserts the next boule. This would distribute the heat very nicely and allow a lot of boules to be inserted with very little disruption of the rock wall. Frankly, I think we have a lot more to worry about than the carefully disposed of waste.
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 10ecc0,76584cf5b626f783 X-Google-Attributes: gid10ecc0,public X-Google-Thread: 107e5d,76584cf5b626f783 X-Google-Attributes: gid107e5d,public X-Google-Thread: 10df0c,76584cf5b626f783 X-Google-Attributes: gid10df0c,public X-Google-Thread: fb19c,76584cf5b626f783 X-Google-Attributes: gidfb19c,public X-Google-Thread: 102359,76584cf5b626f783 X-Google-Attributes: gid102359,public X-Google-Thread: 10c480,76584cf5b626f783 X-Google-Attributes: gid10c480,public From: Fred McGalliard <frederick.b.mcgalliard@boeing.com> Subject: Re: Disposal of Radioactive Waste Date: 2000/06/01 Message-ID: <3936C0FA.3B142CFE@boeing.com> X-Deja-AN: 630028351 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: nntp@news.boeing.com (Boeing NNTP News Access) X-Nntp-Posting-Host: e715588.knt.boeing.com References: <8f1vof$fas$1@possum.melbpc.org.au> <8f2n6g$61p$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net> <39162523@news.rivernet.com.au> <957754941.595999@server.tarms.com> <shf6v3i05uh22@corp.supernews.com> <39186F24.9D1EBB6A@tcac.net> <957915161.274368@server.tarms.com> <8fa92n$f2i$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net> <8F30661E4bnesheimonlineno@148.122.208.74> <_RcS4.38598$Xk2.139664@tor-nn1.netcom.ca> <8F3097C58bnesheimonlineno@148.122.208.74> <OQdS4.38606$Xk2.139672@tor-nn1.netcom.ca> <958003425.891133@server.tarms.com> <8fcukc$ <391C48E0.27163060@boeing.com> <N4mT4.40348$Xk2.143903@tor-nn1.netcom.ca> <hlVX4.6296$Ym2.167177@typhoon2.ba-dsg.net> <8h0paj$dqu$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net> <39345a3a.58079449@news.bigpond.com> <8h3kjd$h2l$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net> <39362a95.176972890@news.bigpond.com> <8h63nj$2aj$1@slb2.atl.mindspring.net> To: your@boeing.com, mom@boeing.com X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: D&SG Parts Failure Analysis Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.engineering.nuclear,aus.environment.misc,aus.politics,sci.energy,sci.engr.mining,sci.environment.waste