Nuke waste? Send it to the Sun?

Question

I'm all for getting off fossil fuels. Use nukes. Why can't we just point a modified ICBM full of nuke waste at the sun.

http://tinyurl.com/yw7h9

Answer 1

An ICBM can't get going 7 miles per second for escape velocity. Only 5 miles per second for orbital flight. 7 miles per second is twice the kinetic energy.

As far as what would happen on the sun, it's a great concept. There are sunspots much larger than Earth, throwing out radiation greater than humans have ever created. Sending all our nuclear weapons to the sun wouldn't make a difference, here, 93 million miles away.

BUT, launch accidents do happen.

AND, the cost per pound to launch to escape velocity are vastly higher than burying it in Nevada. I'm not saying that burying it is the right thing, but that it is so much cheaper, that is how it will be done.

And it could only ever deal with very high-grade materials like the spent fuel rods themselves. We generate so very much low-grade nuclear material (medical waste, reactor housings, shipping containers, etc) that our whole national economy would go into rocket production to get rid of it that way.

Especially for low-grade stuff, it might be more feasible to put it into geologic areas that are subducting into the Earth's crust for the next 100 million years.

Answer 2

Wouldn't that be crazy because you can't predict what the reaction would be. For example, if the sun omits UV and other types of radiation in it's particles that are scattered around the Universe as well as towards Earth and we send a vehicle that will be destroyed at a certain point before reaching the Sun, would the radioactivity of the cargo be collected in the particles and possibly sent back to us in such a way as to be able to breach the layers of atmosphere that currently protect us? I think it would be too great a risk to try. Perhaps a better idea would be to send it to a star in another galaxy, that has no planets of course so we don't destroy some other planets potential source of life. Even that would be risky for any number of reasons including that if there is some other form of life that is of a higher technical stage than we are and they perceive us as having tried to destroy their sun as an act of war and destroy us in turn. Far fetched...maybe but who knows. Or if the star we have been sending our waste to goes Supernova as a result of doing so and in the process destroys some nearby planet that breaks up into several asteroids one which is on a collision course with the Earth. Messing with such great unknowns could be very dangerous to us here on earth.

Answer 3

I used to think that was a good idea. After the Challenger (space shuttle) accident happened, I went "doh!" ... imagine a rocketload of nukewaste falling into the ocean or worse.

The sun IS a nuclear reactor. It's a great source of energy, handles it's own waste, and is a safe distance away. If we had invested the kind of $billiions in solar energy we've squandered on nuclear starting 60 years ago, we'd already be using the solution.

There are many natural, non-polluting alternatives. We don't have to put all the eggs in one basket, we can use the ones that are cleanest and will be around forever.

Answer 4

There is quite a bit of nuclear energy coming FROM the sun.

There's enough light falling on most homes most days to supply its energy needs. We just have to continue to develop the technology and get it out there cheaper.

We're in the early stages of a transition away from "dirty" energy, where many of the choices look unsavory.

It can only get better--unless we drag our feet so long that our planet is lost to global warning, or (God forbid) another Chernobyl happens.

Since your question comes just after the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, I should ask: Did you know that about 1/3 of the entire country of Belarus is contaminated with nuclear radiation, and the "exclusion zone" there and in the Ukraine is dozens of miles across?

The radiation released after the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor's core was nearly 200 times that of the combined releases from the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Thousands of children have been permanently hospitalized, critically ill with severe Leukemia, hyper plasma of the thyroid, and other cancer sicknesses.

The catastrophe also devastated villages, cities, farmlands, crops, and supplies in and around Chernobyl (Ukraine) and bordering Belarus. Scientists predict the lands in Ukraine and Belarus, particularly those in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, will be contaminated for over 24,000 years.

There is a renewed risk of radiation release from Chernobyl. The hastily-constructed "sarcophagus" intended to seal off the radiation after the accident is crumbling. Plans to build a new sarcophagus at a price tag of a billion dolllars are not yet implemented and won't be for several years.

Answer 5

it may do more harm than good, it may not do what you expect it to do, there could be repercussions from the explosion on the sun or it may hit a planet or asteroid and send something towards earth! too many variables at the present time, and there is the matter of all that weight! there is no icbm capable of handling that payload!

Answer 6

Too much crap could happen launching it and stuff, its not right to get all our waste and fling it off into space. We should stop polluting the planet and not keep polluting and even extending our dumps by polluting space too.governments should take stock of what we have and use it ( all our natural resourses ) to improve on solar wind and such like clean energies.

Answer 7

Not very cost effective.

Answer 8

problematic matter. seek onto a search engine. that can help!

Answer 9

i dunno. i think theres a risk it might not reach it and end up falling back on us