How Dangerous are Nuclear Waste when compared with Ore Radioactive Materials?

Question

The main concern about Nuclear Power is Waste Managment.
But Nuclear Materials ALREADY EXIST in nature.
Assuming that:

Uranium is the main Fuel of Nuclear Reactors
and
Plutonium is the main Waste of Nuclear Reactors

If: Uranium Half Life << Plutonium Half Life.

What is safer for the environment?
to have ore Uranium or Stored Plutonium?

What is more environmentaly safe?

Considering that Uranium already exists in nature and that
its half life is much much longer than Plutonium

Answer 1

Radioactive waste is more dangerous than ore in the sense that there is much more radioactivity per kilogram waste than in uranium ore. However the amount of waste is much less than the total quantity of ore needed to produced reactor fuel.

Plutonium is not the main waste of reactors. It is not even a waste, in the sense that it can and is reused as fuel. Radioactive waste contains fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core. Some of these are very radioactive but short lived, others are less radioactive but have a long lifetime. It's the latter, mainly transuranic elements which are the main problem.

Answer 2

Nuclear waste is one concern that nuclear worry about, but its not the only and really people make it sound a lot worse than it is. We know how to deal with the waste, and the solutions does not included burying it for 10^6 + years.

For the first hundred years after fuel has been burned in an reactor the most dangerous isotopes in the waste are Cs-137 and Sr-90. After about 100 years these isotopes have mostly decayed and only then do the long lived isotopes like Pu play a major roles in the activity of the waste. However will can reuse Pu and some of these other long lived isotopes in a reactor. So ideally will could separate out these isotopes and reburn them. If we do this then we only have to worry about storing a small fraction of the waste for 100 years.

Answer 3

Yes Uranium ore is natural. Plutonium is created. There's also the matter of the level of radioactivity to consider let alone the half-life. That's why people are trying to come up with a form of communication that will still exist in 50 k years. To warn future people away from nuke waste sites...

Answer 4

Nuclear waste consists of many different radioactive isotopes, with widely varying half-lives, producing different types of radiation. Some products are also highly toxic (including plutonium). Naturally occuring uranium emits a relatively low level of radiation, as you can tell from its very long half-life. Some waste products are very much more radioactive, and have much shorter half-lives, although still long enough to need a long-term disposal solution. There is evidence in a number of places of ancient naturally occurring nuclear reactors. There are also questions over whether radiation is as harmful to people as has been thought, up to certain limits.

Answer 5

Several Problems.

The waste from reactors still produces heat and radiation, which invariably breaks down the container, so eventually you have to recontain it with the now radioactive original container.

In the case of leaks, plutonium and ciesium, which don't occur naturally in significant amounts, chemically act like calcium and potassium. Which your body uses a lot of. In the atmosphere, you'd eventually ingest them, and they'd make bones and muscle. Except they're radioactive!


I think we'll store it until it gets too expensive, and then it'll be cheaper to put it on rockets to the sun.

Answer 6

I am old once apron a time we were going to be barred in old tires or garbage or gees a hundred other things Pro-plain use to be a wast product,burned off on top of towers, POINT IS: any time their is sufficient wast Product that is FREE! some one finds way to make it into something we can use and sell it to us, I see why nuke wast would be any different, (except the amount of trouble and thought involved of course)

Answer 7

Chemical reactions like burning carbon (to make CO2) relies upon upon the reality that when mixed, the electrons of the blend very own extra potential which could acquire up as warmth (exothermic reaction). The nuclei of the carbon and oxygen atoms interior the CO2 molecule are unchanged. In nuclear reactions (the place nucleus stems from the word for 'nut' or midsection of the atom) the nut must be chop up (fission) or larger (fusion) to obtain extra potential. the surplus potential stems from the reality that the completed weight of the ensuing new atom (fusion) or atoms (fission) is way less that the unique weight. The misplaced weight (or mass) referred to as a mass disease is very small yet is converted to potential consistent with E = mc2 (it quite is a super multiplier using the sq. of the fee of light!). it quite is achieveable to evaluate nuclear reactions as dealing with protons and neutrons (that stay unchanged) and the 'glue' that holds them mutually which could be converted to potential. think of of a bag of marbles coated with sticky glue the place you may 'burn' basically the glue yet on condition that the marbles are easy (hydrogen or lithium) or very heavy and volatile (uranium or plutonium). not one of the protons and neutron could be burned (and iron can not be thoroughly used up in a reaction). demanding the 'nut' of an atom oftentimes produces an volatile isotope that needs to furnish off a particle including a neutron, electron or proton to become reliable. because of fact the ejected debris are lively and 'radiate' outward the atoms are referred to as radioactive.