Why don't we dump nuclear waste into volcanos?

An actual question sent to the website - and voted by readers as the "best" question of 2007

http://www.slate.com/id/2181280/

Same reason you don't feed a baby chili, it would make a horrible mess that noone wants to clean up.

Are you kidding? Look what happened last time!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu

[Mr.Phil]

You'd be better off ejecting it into space, sending it beyond the solar system (although that wouldn't be an economically viable option).

Nuclear technology (although not the best solution) has made great progress in efficiencies over the years. One example would be an "Advanced Burner Reactor" which would take recycled nuclear fuel to produce electricity. The end product is still radioactive but it produces shorter lived isotopes.

[Skeptic]

Disposal of nuclear waste is not a technical problem. It is political.

It takes 10,000 years before waste is sufficiently 'safe' to dispose of in normal landfill. If the world continues to generate it at the current rate, then 10,000 years worth will full a hole of several kilometres across and one deep.

Such a hole needs to be a an arid place (desert), to prevent corrosion of containers and transport of toxic waste by water, and in a place that is geologically stable, and in a place where there are no people.

Guess what? Lots of such sites exist. For example, both South Australia and Western Australia have thousands of square kilometres that would do. Ditto the deserts of Southern Africa.

A nation with the appropriate conditions could make billions of dollars selling disposal space. The problem is political. No-one in power has the foresight and political guts to actually do it, and make their citizens rich.

[Deathridesahorse]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

Disposal of nuclear waste is not a technical problem. It is political.

It takes 10,000 years before waste is sufficiently 'safe' to dispose of in normal landfill. If the world continues to generate it at the current rate, then 10,000 years worth will full a hole of several kilometres across and one deep.

Such a hole needs to be a an arid place (desert), to prevent corrosion of containers and transport of toxic waste by water, and in a place that is geologically stable, and in a place where there are no people.

Guess what? Lots of such sites exist. For example, both South Australia and Western Australia have thousands of square kilometres that would do. Ditto the deserts of Southern Africa.

A nation with the appropriate conditions could make billions of dollars selling disposal space. The problem is political. No-one in power has the foresight and political guts to actually do it, and make their citizens rich.

Don't you ever suggest Australia bury the worlds High Level Nuclear Waste again.

This industry does not deserve any get-out-of-jail-free cards.

Australia will never give them this! The Nuclear-Genie is to be shunned, and shunned it will be, by the truest of the bluest Australians.

[Mr.Phil]

We could always send all the nuclear waste to Easter Island. There is no way we could possibly decimate an entire microcosm twice.

[Skeptic]

The response I got from Deathridesahorse rather epitimises the unthinking hysterical reaction that so many anti-nuclear types demonstrate.

Radioactivity is a natural part of the world. People living in Colorado are exposed to about 100 times as much radioactivity as those who live in Kansas, due to the fact that the granite in the Rocky Mountains is slightly radioactive. Colorado people live a little longer on average than those who live in Kansas. This shows that small doses of radioactivity are not harmful.

If we were to dig a hole (or use an abandoned hole from an old open cast mine) of suitable size - meaning at least 1000 metres deep - and fill it with nuclear waste, then cover it over with about 100 metres depth of soil, then build a house on top - I would happily live in that house for a year or more - for suitable financial remuneration. I would have no problem doing that because I know that the increase in background radioactivity would be no more than that I would receive by moving to Colorado.

Australia is rather a big place! A suitable hole to fill with nuclear waste in the desert could be sited so as to be hundreds of kilometers from the nearest large population centre. No Australian would receive the slightest harm from the site, and the country would receive multiple billions of dollars in dump fees.

To object to something so harmless and so lucrative is simply irrational.

[Wowbagger]

Once we get our space elevator...

[nemesis9]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

The response I got from Deathridesahorse rather epitimises the unthinking hysterical reaction that so many anti-nuclear types demonstrate.

Radioactivity is a natural part of the world. People living in Colorado are exposed to about 100 times as much radioactivity as those who live in Kansas, due to the fact that the granite in the Rocky Mountains is slightly radioactive. Colorado people live a little longer on average than those who live in Kansas. This shows that small doses of radioactivity are not harmful.

If we were to dig a hole (or use an abandoned hole from an old open cast mine) of suitable size - meaning at least 1000 metres deep - and fill it with nuclear waste, then cover it over with about 100 metres depth of soil, then build a house on top - I would happily live in that house for a year or more - for suitable financial remuneration. I would have no problem doing that because I know that the increase in background radioactivity would be no more than that I would receive by moving to Colorado.

Australia is rather a big place! A suitable hole to fill with nuclear waste in the desert could be sited so as to be hundreds of kilometers from the nearest large population centre. No Australian would receive the slightest harm from the site, and the country would receive multiple billions of dollars in dump fees.

To object to something so harmless and so lucrative is simply irrational.

I don't think he was being "unthinking", you are proposing putting the waste in his backyard, I think his response was very rational. You did not propose putting the waste in your backyard as you seemed willing to do in theory.