What are the best methods/ideas of handling/storing spent Nuclear Fuel?

Question

Remember nobody wants the nuclear waste in their own backyard!

Answer 1

Refine it and put it back into the reactor. Odd as it sounds there is very little out of the fuel that is waste. almost all of the nuclear isotopes are very valuable. After refining you end up with depleted uranium which is not radioactive and is used where extreme density of mass or hardness is desired(helicoptor rotor counter weights or armour piercing ammo for the military)
The vast majority of nuclear waste is garbage like contaminated coveralls, gloves or pieces of old scaffold planks that have radioactive material stuck into them. This is placed in sealed containers and stored. That is the stuff we do not know quite what to do with. It is hard enough to get rid of regular waste.

We take material that is to degraded to keep as nuclear bombs and burn it in our reactors, we actually end up with more fuel coming out of our reactors than we put into them.
As for other radioactive material it is all in high demand for things like food irradiation plants, xray examination of structures in construction and for some uses in medicine( x-ray machines use an electrical source though)

Now about the towels, rags, clothes and construction or lab equipment that is contaminated with traces of radioactive solids or liquids. It is truly hard to know what to do. There is not enough material in it to be worth refining it. It will be radioactive for a very long time. We can not incinerate it and we can not just dump it into the landfill.
Most of the radio active metals are more dangerous because the are very poisonous heavy metals than they are because of their radiation danger. A lb of plutonium is likely enough to cause sickness in everyperson in China if you could divide it evenly between them. Kind of like lead or mercury poisoning but thousands of times worse.
Proposals have been made to store it in abandonned mines, and in deep ocean trenches but these ideas have not been practical yet so we are still storing it in containers above ground in isolated guarded facilities.
If you get any ideas on how to deal with radioactive trash (waste is a good word for municipal garbage but it is misunderstood when dealing with atomic energy) let the atomic energy commission know.
At this time our biggest unregulated problem is radioactive americium-241 material going into landfills with all of the old smoke detectors.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/smoke_dispose.htm
http://www.arpansa.gov.au/pubs/rhc/sd_rhc_01.pdf

Answer 2

Use, conversion and isolation and containment.

The US generates more nuclear waste then it should because it ignores using breeder reactors. The policy is political and part of the nuclear deterrent program. A normal nuclear reactor uses uranium and it decays into other chemicals, which are still hostile metals. It is possible to take the remaining material, refine it to weapons grade material and then reuse in then a nuclear reactor. Clearly, if this is done then the risk of weapons grade nuclear material out into the public is increased. If you don’t create the weapons grade material then a nuclear reactor is safer since it won’t blow up, just melt.

Some of this material can be used to generate power in thermal plants. Most of the space probes that we have launched into the far reaches of our solar system rely on nuclear material for electrical power. A radioactive source generates heat, and if you heat two dissimilar materials then you can generate an electrical current. This allows a small package to be used to power the probe when the sun is too far away for solar panels to work. So you can convert some nuclear waste to power thermal reactors, but you can’t use them around people. They are still radioactive and dangerous. A space probe keeps the thermal reactor on a long boom so the radiation won’t hurt the spacecraft. Then if some of that material gets out in the public it can be used to create a dirty bomb.

The only other way to handle nuclear waste is to isolate and contain it; that is difficult. The plant in the Northwest US was used to create weapons grade material for use in the nuclear weapons of the US. It was established as part of the original Manhattan Project. The Hannover plant still stores some nuclear waste on site, because it has no other place to put it. This waste generates heat, because that is a side effect of radioactive decay, and that makes containment more difficult. If the waste isn’t cooled then it could melt the steel drums holding it, so they are submerged in a pool of water. Some of that radioactive water is escaping and entering the water table where it finds itself in the Colombia River.

The Deaf Smith nuclear waste mine is a good idea. Take an old salt mine and reuse it. The salt can’t be mined out any more or the mine will collapse so the mine was closed. Salt is very stable, and it will absorb water. So storing nuclear wastes in an old salt mine is a good place to put it. The problem becomes one of volume and time. The current plans will handle the current nuclear wastes and it won’t handle much waste of the future, so it is a short term solution. The nuclear waste has some long half-lives and some of it decays into other radioactive material which then continues to decay and generate heat and radiation. Therefore this waste must be stored on the scale of thousands of years. One project being worked on is what signs to use. How do you communicate to a civilization 1,000 to 2,000 years from now that entering this mine will mean death by radioactivity?

Shooting radioactive waste into space is useless, it costs over $50/lb to send something up to low earth orbit. To get it safely away from the earth, say on a collision course with the sun would be too expensive.

The waste could be dumped into subduction zones, areas where the land is being pulled underground; think reverse volcano. Subduction zones are where the continental plates meet and one plate is slipping under another; at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Doing this will get rid of the nuclear waste far under ground, but getting it there would be a major under taking and it would contaminate everything along the way.

In the end there is no safe way to handle nuclear waste. A glass coke bottle will decay to sand in 100 years. But, most nuclear waste will still be dangerous in a time that is 10 times that. We don’t use glass coke bottles much any more because we don’t want that waste. You can recycle almost anything except nuclear waste. Once it has become radioactive it stays that way and the storage material around it becomes radioactive as well; because it absorbs some of that radiation. Even burring is only a short term solution.

I used to support nuclear power; a little radiation won’t hurt you. However, I have since learned that radiation exposure is life long. It doesn’t matter how much radiation you are exposed to today as much as it matters how much you are exposed to over the years. The damage may or may not happen, but the chances of it happening are cumulative. The more radiation you are exposed to the stronger your chances of getting cancer from it. There is no way to change this formula so any radiation is potentially harmful.

A few years ago radon was found leaking from underground into people’s basements. Radon is a mildly radioactive gas. Long term exposure to it isn’t that bad, but like I said all of your radiation exposure mounts up and for each bit you have a chance of developing cancer from it. We can’t totally avoid radiation and we need some radioactive materials for medicine and industry, but long term use of nuclear reactors is a no win situation.

Answer 3

What the hell are you doing with spent nuclear fuel is what i want to know.

Answer 4

Had you told us what purpose would the spent fuel do, it would be better. Mail me with details.