Storing nuclear waste in the ground?

Question

I heard they store it in concrete casks in the ground surrounded with lead, is that true?

Answer 1

That's somewhat true, they don't just put it anywhere, they put them in lead/concrete/steel/copper barrels and bury them deep, where shifts in plates will not affect them. Most of the stuff is stored above ground in very,very strong barrels and in pools of water on the reactor site.

P.S. Joya, that's not true, used fuel cannot be "reused." Not with current tech anyways. Reactors split atoms down, creating lighter atoms, once we reach that point we get cessium and other lesser known isotopes, none of these are easy to handle, nor are they fissionable. Even small diffrences in a single elemet won't work, naturaly occuring uranium for example, cannot undergo fission in a reactor, only uranium 238 can be used as fissile mateial, not so with the more abundant 235.

Answer 2

After fuel is removed from a reactor, it is moved to a cooling where it sets and cools. After a number of year the fuel is removed from the cooling pool and put it a dry storage cask. Depending on the plant this storage cask is sometime dug into the ground but not always.

The current plan is to take all these storage casks at plants around the US and bury them in Yucca mountain. This is a very controversial issue. But the are some who advocate reprocessing and reusing spent nuclear fuel. When when fuel is pulled out of a reactor only ~5% of the fuel has been used. (Its material damage that makes us remove the fuel). When can reprocess this fuel and re-burn it.

Answer 3

Well...if the U.S. were to drop the hysteria about nuclear energy, we would re-adopt the reprocessing capacity we used to have, and recycle the waste, which is not really waste, because it has, like, a gazillion isotopes in it, that could be used. Then, it wouldn't have to be stored someplace, in whatever configuration it currently is in.

Other countries like France and Japan, have been recycling the "waste", for years!

Answer 4

As all nuclear proper concerns are heavily regulated and inspected by employing the federal government one would desire to easily carry them accountable. If it grow to be a self-regulated/inspected marketplace then it is going to be the owner of the disposal facility. nevertheless would desire to be, reckoning on the circumstances.

Answer 5

yah, they got to store it somewhere and I would rather in the ground than in the air.
Of course it would also be nice if the containers didn't leak, like at hanford.

Answer 6

No they put it in grain shipments to be used for beer production in Russia.

Answer 7

Yep...

Answer 8

I hope not.