Can spent nuclear fuel be disposed of by re-entry into earths' atmosphere?

Question

Is this viable in terms of cost/return?

Answer 1

Re-entry would just scatter fine radioactive dust in the atmosphere. Essentially a Dirty Bomb effect. Moreover it costs about ten thousand dollars a pound to put something into orbit. Not a very cost effective way to make hot powder.

The best method is to coat the metal in ceramic and bury it in a geologically stable area and forget about it. It will never hurt anything buried deep enough.

Answer 2

My goodness....That is a terrible idea!

Trying to dispose of nuclear waste by simply "burning it up" in the atmosphere doesn't actually solve anything, it is still there, but now it is spread over the entire globe, poisoning the planet.

You will not be able to actually get rid of the nuclear waste in this manner.....the radioactive nuclei of the atoms will still exist and will still be radio active. By releasing it into the atmosphere, it will contaminate the air supply, rain down and contaminate the water supply, and fall out as a a fine power all over the Earth, contaminating the ground.
All you have essentially done is take a barrel of highly toxic material and spread it around the entire Earth instead of keeping it tightly sealed and out of harms way until an acceptable number of half lives have passed and it is no longer dangerous.

Besides the suicidal health effects resulting from this plan,
it is not cost feasible to launch it into space. It is extremely expensive (not to mention energy intensive) to launch objects into space...it is far cheaper to bury the stuff under a mountain and hope for the best.

Answer 3

My text mentions that disposal of HLW (high-level waste) by sending it into the sun is an option, although it does have many disadvantages including the fact that the rocket may malfunction and re-entry would cause dispersal of radioactive material. So, disposal via re-entry doesn't seem viable. The waste vessel would have to be so heavily protected to guard against this possibility that solar disposal is not very feasible either.

Other options for disposal of HWL include burial in geographically stable areas, burial in the Antarctic ice (heat from the radioactive decay would cause the waste vessel to melt the ice and sink to the rock bed), and disposal by sinking in the ocean.

That was a good question though.

Answer 4

A better solution is to use a Fast Breeder Reactor, also called a Fast Neutron Reactor. It can use spent uranium as fuel and produces plutonium as a byproduct. These reactors are very expensive to build, and aren't economically justified at current uranium prices. I wish we could find a way to consider disposal of nuclear waste as a way to help justify them.

Answer 5

No. The material would not actually be destroyed, but would disperse throughout the Earth's atmospere, effectively irradiating the whole planet. Bad juju. On the same note, it is not feasable to launch the waste into space, or the sun, because the rocket might easily crash. Again, bad news.

Answer 6

The fuel used in rockets is Hydrogen. There's hydrogene pretty much everywhere: water H2O, Glucose C6H12O6... so what if it returns? the atmosphere is already full of it . A few more tons won't matter.

Answer 7

yes, when done over nations that support terrorism.
it will kill many of their residents, make surviors thick and their children mutants, all at the low cost of running a sander wheel for a few hours per ton of fuel.

Answer 8

That's very interesting, I'm eager to see what some knowledgeable people will have to answer!

I hope the answer is YES!

Answer 9

Ha ha... good one!