Could nuclear waste from power stations be disposed of by dropping into the mouth of an active volcano?

Answer 1

if you want to pollute the volcano. for real we make it into glass. now if you wanted to use non fuel waste send it to the sun or into a volcano. remember volcano's release radiation

Answer 2

Your concept is a good one sequestering spent nuclear waste somehow into the Earth's already radioactive mantel is an ideal solution, the problem is that you picked the wrong geologic location. Volcanoes are zones where mantle material is rising. The best way to sequester nuclear waste is to entomb the waste inside the crustal subduction zones. [First link] These are areas where the earth's crust is being pushed into the mantle. I suspect in about 100-200 years we will have the tech necessary to drill into this zone and place the waste into this tectonic 'Highway to Hell'. It takes tens of millions of years for it to emerge from a volcano. [See link #2 on Carbon cycle]. By then it's radioactivity will have been absorbed.

Answer 3

Heat has no effect whatever on radioactivity so the waste would not be converted to something safe.

Active volcanoes spew things out so you are in the wrong place.

There are places where the earths crust is being sucked down into the interior of the earth as the tectonic plates meet each other. Putting nuclear waste in this area could cause it to be buried miles deeper than any man-made mine shaft could possibly achieve.

Answer 4

The active volcano will just spew it out and spread it into the air. The nuclear waste has radioactivity that can't be change through heat or chemical ways.

Answer 5

Turning nuclear waste into nuclear fallout is hardly the answer. you may certainly be turning the volcano into the equivalent of the Chernobyl reactor explosion, no longer an incinerator. using fact the previous answer mentioned, radioactive isotopes can not be incinerated, a minimum of on the temps you will get in a volcano.

Answer 6

Here's a patent for that TOTALLY bad idea:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6846967.PN.&OS=PN/6846967&RS=PN/6846967

And, a story (dated) about a Russian with said notion:
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/566/5393.html

Answer 7

That would be one way of spreading it around so all of us would get a share.