Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Stay there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, I'm fixing
Speaker 1: a hole where the rain gets in. I'm Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. So you know, we talked a
Speaker 1: lot on this show about meeting our energy needs in
Speaker 1: various ways. We've talked about renewable energy. We've talked about
Speaker 1: alternatives to using petroleum based energy. We've talked about our
Speaker 1: old friend Cole, Yeah, we have. We've talked about fusion
Speaker 1: as a potential future energy source, should we ever really
Speaker 1: solve that problem there there are some promising scientific experiments
Speaker 1: that could lead to fusion one day being a real contender,
Speaker 1: but for now it's still very much in that sort
Speaker 1: of theoretical and and and experimental stage. But Jonathan, what's
Speaker 1: the opposite of fusion? Well, let's see, there's you mean,
Speaker 1: like jazz fusion. I'd say punk really is kind of
Speaker 1: the opposite of fusion. I don't know about that. The
Speaker 1: opposite of fusion is probably like country western music. That's
Speaker 1: that's a fusion of country and western Okay, guys, I
Speaker 1: think we're getting off topic. I think I think, well,
Speaker 1: I think what you what you meant was vision, right, vision,
Speaker 1: So it's a fusing, fusing two things to become a
Speaker 1: new one thing. You're taking one thing and splitting it
Speaker 1: up into two things. Although I think that that another
Speaker 1: episode in the future about the future of musical fusion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then have our discussion about jazz fusion and country Western music. No, today,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about vision. Nuclear fission, the standard,
Speaker 1: regular old vision, which is great because we already know
Speaker 1: how to do it. It works today. Yeah, in fact,
Speaker 1: we don't even have to be around for it to happen.
Speaker 1: But all so, why are we talking about it if
Speaker 1: it already works today? Specifically, because while nuclear power is
Speaker 1: certainly something we can tap into, it comes with a
Speaker 1: pretty big drawback. Yeah. So nuclear power has no direct
Speaker 1: carbon emissions, it's very productive, it's very powerful, and it's
Speaker 1: ready to go today. These are all really really great
Speaker 1: things about nuclear power. So really, why would anybody be
Speaker 1: opposed to nuclear power? There's essentially one main reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the stuff that's left over after you have created your
Speaker 1: nuclear reactions to heat up water to turn turbines. Because Remember, ultimately,
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about, is that the nuclear power
Speaker 1: is just used to generate it of generating heat, generate
Speaker 1: turbine spinning. Yeah, you're just making steam, is all you're
Speaker 1: really doing the same sort of thing is with steam engines.
Speaker 1: Is just now you're you've souped it up. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the problem here actually isn't always just what's left behind,
Speaker 1: but the fuel in general. It's people tend to have
Speaker 1: a problem with because, as it turns out, radioactive stuff,
Speaker 1: in addition to creating a lot of steam very efficiently,
Speaker 1: is not safe. Yeah, it's not good, not good for things?
Speaker 1: What are living? Juggle it? No, do not play with
Speaker 1: a super happy fun ball. No, do not do not
Speaker 1: look No. So this is the problem we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about today. Actually over the next two podcasts. This
Speaker 1: is going to be a two parter. Today is part
Speaker 1: one where we're going to talk about what's the problem
Speaker 1: with nuclear waste because it is very much a future problem,
Speaker 1: and then on the next podcast we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about proposed solutions what what are you going to do
Speaker 1: about it? Today, we decided to just devote this to
Speaker 1: talking about what the problem is and sort of looking
Speaker 1: at what it means for us. So what is radioactive
Speaker 1: waste and how is it produced? And are are there
Speaker 1: different kinds of radioactive waste? They are absolutely different kinds
Speaker 1: of radioactive waste. So now we're talking about radioactive stuff.
Speaker 1: This is stuff that specifically ionizing creation, stuff that is uh,
Speaker 1: potentially harmful because it can cause electrons to fly off
Speaker 1: of ados and eventually cause things like mutations and other issues.
Speaker 1: Will go into more about that in a little bit,
Speaker 1: but specifically, the type that most people are absolutely terrified
Speaker 1: of is called high level waste, which can sometimes also
Speaker 1: include spent nuclear fuel, although generally speaking they people tend
Speaker 1: to separate the two as two separate things. But they
Speaker 1: both are extremely dangerous, all right. The spent fuel is
Speaker 1: possibly even more dangerous, but yeah, it's it's but neither
Speaker 1: of them, again are things you want to juggle, right, So,
Speaker 1: spent nuclear fuel is exactly what it sounds like. It's
Speaker 1: it's when you have used these nuclear rods or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever format the nuclear fuel has come into, Uh, it
Speaker 1: has lost enough of its reactive nature, so there's no
Speaker 1: longer as efficiently heating up water to super high temperatures.
Speaker 1: So you need to replace it with new fuel. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's spent nuclear fuel is pretty dangerous. Now, some countries
Speaker 1: will end up trying to reprocess that spent nuclear fuel
Speaker 1: to recapture some of the uranium and plutonium that's in it, because,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, there's quite a bit of unused
Speaker 1: or unburnt fuel in those fuel rods. Uh. We're talking
Speaker 1: around of the fuel being unused. So the processing, the
Speaker 1: reprocessing of this ends up creating a mixture of uranium
Speaker 1: and plutonium. And then you have this leftover stuff. About
Speaker 1: three percent of it is completely left over that you
Speaker 1: can't do anything with. It's called high level waste. Uh.
Speaker 1: And while it only makes up three percent of of
Speaker 1: the actual volume of stuff, it makes up of the
Speaker 1: radioactivity of the nuclear waste that we generally talk about,
Speaker 1: like what are we going to do with this stuff?
Speaker 1: So this is the really super dangerous stuff. So what
Speaker 1: are the attributes of this this high level ways store
Speaker 1: spent nuclear fuel? If you're going to group them together,
Speaker 1: or we'll just today group them together because they're both
Speaker 1: there's the same sort of problem. Uh. They're both very
Speaker 1: radioactive and very hot, and we produce a kind of
Speaker 1: significant amount of it when you combine all of our
Speaker 1: nuclear facilities together, right especially we're mainly going to be
Speaker 1: talking about the United States in these podcasts, but keep
Speaker 1: in mind that, of course, the United States is not
Speaker 1: the only country using nuclear power. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of countries that do. And all of the countries have
Speaker 1: to consider what are they going to do with this
Speaker 1: nuclear waste once once it starts to accumulate, what do
Speaker 1: you do with it? Now? For the most part, the
Speaker 1: first thing we do is we end up using water
Speaker 1: to help shield, well, one to cool it and two
Speaker 1: to shield us from the radioactivity water. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's a really good shield if you have a lot
Speaker 1: of it. So it turns out that removing high level
Speaker 1: waste from uh spent nuclear fuel usually you have to
Speaker 1: do it underwater, and then you store it in a
Speaker 1: pool of water. And you're talking about for spent nuclear fuel,
Speaker 1: you would want to store it in water for about
Speaker 1: fifty years before you do anything else with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The high level waste can be stored for as little
Speaker 1: as only five yeah, and then put into dry cask containers.
Speaker 1: Usually the pools of water also contain some kind of
Speaker 1: shielding material like boron that will help help absorb any
Speaker 1: free right, any any free particles that are emitted through this,
Speaker 1: because keep in mind the nuclear reactions we're talking about
Speaker 1: the reason why this is a good fuel source is
Speaker 1: the fact that once you start a reaction, it helps
Speaker 1: sustain itself, right. It gives off the particles that continue
Speaker 1: to allow the unspent fuel to then react. It becomes
Speaker 1: a chain reaction. And in fact, if you do not
Speaker 1: control this chain reaction, that's when you go into something
Speaker 1: like a nuclear meltdown, which we have all pretty much
Speaker 1: agreed is what we would call a bad thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I'm good, um, but yeah, So after five years,
Speaker 1: you can take the high level wastes and store them
Speaker 1: in these dry ventilated steel containers that are filled with
Speaker 1: inert gases something like helium um and then you can
Speaker 1: place those in concrete containers. That's called your your dry containment.
Speaker 1: And uh, Ultimately, the idea that that most people came
Speaker 1: into agreement on several decades ago was that you would
Speaker 1: move the stuff to a geological repository, which essentially means
Speaker 1: a really deep hole in the ground where it would
Speaker 1: be safe from everything else. But we'll have more to
Speaker 1: say about that a little bit later, and just for
Speaker 1: the record, as of two thousand nine, each one of
Speaker 1: these dry casks cost about a million bucks to create. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's your high level waste. That's that's just
Speaker 1: one of several types of waste that we haven't even
Speaker 1: covered the other types yet we're about too. So keep
Speaker 1: in mind that that high level waste, that's the main
Speaker 1: thing people are worried about it. It is very radioactive,
Speaker 1: very dangerous. You don't want to get near it. But
Speaker 1: it's only about three percent of the volume of the
Speaker 1: total waste we create. So there's a there's a much
Speaker 1: larger group of things we create that are somewhat radioactive,
Speaker 1: the lower level waste. You've got intermediate level waste and
Speaker 1: low level waste. And this comes from the fact that radioactivity,
Speaker 1: uh you might say is sort of like cooties on
Speaker 1: the playground Dead. You certainly have said that, because it
Speaker 1: says it in the notes. So you take a very
Speaker 1: radioactive object like some plutonium core, okay, and then you
Speaker 1: expose that to a second object to just imagine it is,
Speaker 1: I don't know, a T shirt, okay. So that second
Speaker 1: object can then actually become dangerous in itself, even after
Speaker 1: you've removed it from the plutonium core. Why is that, Well,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of reasons. I think the main
Speaker 1: one is that tiny radioactive particles or radioactive dust can
Speaker 1: attach itself to this second object. So then, yeah, you
Speaker 1: might have particles that are so small you can't see them,
Speaker 1: but these particles are radioactive and they're still capable of
Speaker 1: shooting out these uh, these tiny you know, ionizing radiations
Speaker 1: that can do major damage to you. The other thing
Speaker 1: is that some types of objects, when they're bombarded with radioactivity,
Speaker 1: can become radioactive themselves, Like so some of the atoms
Speaker 1: within them will change to radioactive isotopes that can then
Speaker 1: turn around and start giving off their own radiation, and
Speaker 1: that's bad news. Also, though I think that's less often
Speaker 1: a concern than the previous The main one you're talking
Speaker 1: about is these radioactive particles that dust. So these secondary
Speaker 1: objects like this make up these lower level waste, this
Speaker 1: intermediate waste, low level wasts that represent the majority of
Speaker 1: what's produced by nuclear power generation. And these waste products
Speaker 1: can include all kinds of stuff, from like old parts
Speaker 1: of the reactor or of the cooling assembly, to tools
Speaker 1: or protective clothes and shieldings, masks, gloves, all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff that's been around other things that are radioactive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: general rule of thumb is the longer it's been in
Speaker 1: contact with the radioactive source, the more likely it's going
Speaker 1: to be an intermediary level waste rather than a low
Speaker 1: level waist. Whereas things that have had limited contact tend
Speaker 1: to fall into the low level waist. That's just a
Speaker 1: general rule of thumb. It doesn't necessarily apply in every case,
Speaker 1: but something like say a filter would be intermediary because
Speaker 1: it had more consistent contact with the source of radiation,
Speaker 1: whereas a suit that was worn by someone who had
Speaker 1: to do some maintenance within an area that had some
Speaker 1: radioactivity might be considered low level because while it had exposure,
Speaker 1: it was it was only on one occasion and it
Speaker 1: was limited. But you still have to classify its waste.
Speaker 1: That needs to be dealt with in a particular way,
Speaker 1: right because at a certain point, if you expose that
Speaker 1: T shirt to another T shirt, you've got another radioactive
Speaker 1: T shirt and then and eventually that's going to get
Speaker 1: exposed to somebody. Radioactive T shirts all the way down,
Speaker 1: probably through a T shirt cannon of some sort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's oh no, yeah, bring bring some pre show
Speaker 1: discussion into the show. That's what I'm doing right now, folks. Um.
Speaker 1: But that's actually not all, folks. There are other kinds
Speaker 1: of radioactive byproducts of this entire nuclear energy equation. You've
Speaker 1: also got basic stuff that was created when the raw
Speaker 1: nuclear materials were taken out of the ground. For example,
Speaker 1: uranium mill tailings, which is a sand like byproduct of
Speaker 1: mining uranium. It can contain flex of radium, uranium, thorium,
Speaker 1: and lots of other hazardous stuff and UH and and
Speaker 1: like all of this other waste, it can contaminate the
Speaker 1: local air, water, or nearby objects. It produces gamma radiation,
Speaker 1: and you know, generally it really does take some care
Speaker 1: and concern to be disposed of properly. But we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about that disposal process a little bit later, right.
Speaker 1: And one other type I want to mention, which is
Speaker 1: really only recognized by the United States is transuranic or
Speaker 1: transuranic waste, which is essentially waste that involves UH elements
Speaker 1: with atomic numbers higher than uranium. It's usually produced as
Speaker 1: a byproduct of UH nuclear weapons research or laboratory research.
Speaker 1: It can also come from nuclear power. We're talking mostly
Speaker 1: about man made elements at this point, but that's another
Speaker 1: type of nuclear waste that doesn't easily fall into these
Speaker 1: other categories. Seems like the right. Certainly, if there's some
Speaker 1: plutonium in it, isn't it technically transuranic? Uh? It's. It
Speaker 1: certainly can overlap it's And again it's one of those
Speaker 1: designations that we find in the United States but not
Speaker 1: in other countries. It's going to come into play when
Speaker 1: we talk about geologic reposite tories and whether or not
Speaker 1: we have any working ones currently. Yeah. Okay, so we've
Speaker 1: separated the nuclear waste down into these categories, but we
Speaker 1: should probably talk about how dangerous is it. Should we
Speaker 1: be worried? Well, all right, should we be worried in general?
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't need to lose sleep tonight day
Speaker 1: to day, You're all right, But let me try to
Speaker 1: approach that again. Um, let's say you walk into a
Speaker 1: room with some high level waste in it and you
Speaker 1: just stand there for ten minutes. Should you be worried? Yes?
Speaker 1: You should. You should. First of all, you should be
Speaker 1: worried about anyone who told you that was a good
Speaker 1: idea because that person does not like you. Um. The
Speaker 1: in fact, the the whole concept of the danger of
Speaker 1: radiation uh involves the level of radioactive material, the amount
Speaker 1: of time that you have spent an exposed to said material,
Speaker 1: and the distance between you and said material. Before we
Speaker 1: get into that, let's just let's just talk about plutonium,
Speaker 1: all right, Just using plutonium as an example, now, uh,
Speaker 1: there is uh, there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: say that plutonium is the most toxic substance on Earth.
Speaker 1: I kind of maybe take issue with that because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different ways you can measure toxicity
Speaker 1: and plutonium. I mean, there are different isotopes of plutonium.
Speaker 1: Someone much more dangerous. If someone were to give you
Speaker 1: a big old bowl of plutonium dust and say and
Speaker 1: a spoon, and say, do you want to ingust this
Speaker 1: or do you want to say that it's the most
Speaker 1: toxic stuff in the universe? I think you go with
Speaker 1: the second one. Well, what if somebody gave you a
Speaker 1: big bowl of plutonium dust and also gave you a
Speaker 1: big bowl of bochi linum toxin and and said what
Speaker 1: that you have to eat? Yeah, whichever is the least toxic.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it depends on whether or not
Speaker 1: there any marshmallows in either of them. At that point,
Speaker 1: that's usually how I make my decision on all serial
Speaker 1: based products. Okay, no, I'm sorry, my I should take
Speaker 1: my piddling objection aside. In any case, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you don't want to mess around with plutonium. Breathe in
Speaker 1: plutonium dust significantly increases your chances of developing lung cancer later. Now,
Speaker 1: when I say significantly increases your chances, keep in mind
Speaker 1: that does not mean you will definitely develop lung cancer.
Speaker 1: It also doesn't mean that if you do develop lung
Speaker 1: cancer that was specifically because you breathed in plutonium particles.
Speaker 1: There may be other contributing factors that lead to that,
Speaker 1: including inherited ones, whether or not you're a smoker, other
Speaker 1: issues like that. So the point being, the statistics are
Speaker 1: tricky things, and you have to keep that in mind
Speaker 1: whenever you're talking about any statistical increase. But it does
Speaker 1: mean that you are really bringing putting yourself in severe
Speaker 1: danger by being in contact with that stuff is not
Speaker 1: good for you. UM and uh yeah. Part of the
Speaker 1: problem there is how long how long these things last
Speaker 1: in the environment. UM. For example, plutonium two thirty nine.
Speaker 1: Half of any given bit of the stuff that we
Speaker 1: handle today will still be harmful in two thousand years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, obviously much worse than something like secondhand smoke.
Speaker 1: You know, this is something that is persistent and unless
Speaker 1: you have a way of containing it well away from humans,
Speaker 1: it's going to potentially cause some really big problems. Right,
Speaker 1: So you don't have to worry just about not being
Speaker 1: in the same room with it yourself. You have to
Speaker 1: worry about a thousand generations down the road not being
Speaker 1: in the same room. Yeah. Then there's radiation sickness, which
Speaker 1: not a fun thing to talk about. But the severity
Speaker 1: of radiation sickness depends upon how much radiation you have absorbed,
Speaker 1: and it's not common, but it is serious and often
Speaker 1: fatal depending upon the exposure. So in your example of
Speaker 1: walking unprotected into a room filled with high level waste,
Speaker 1: that exposure would be pretty severe specifically, and getting more
Speaker 1: severe every moment you spend in contact with that stuff.
Speaker 1: So the determining factors are, like I said, the strength
Speaker 1: of the radiated energy, which is quite high with high
Speaker 1: level waste. How much does since was between you and
Speaker 1: the radiation source. Some parts of our body are more
Speaker 1: sensitive to radiation than other parts of our body, like
Speaker 1: the gastro intestinal tract is really sensitive as his bone marrow.
Speaker 1: Early symptoms are really unpleasant. They include nausea and vomiting.
Speaker 1: Those symptoms will set up pretty much in a correlation
Speaker 1: with how much exposure you had, So the more exposure
Speaker 1: you had, the earlier the symptoms will show up. Um.
Speaker 1: If it was a really severe case, then you might
Speaker 1: be very sick within within an hour or two. At
Speaker 1: most other cases where you might have had exposure but
Speaker 1: it wasn't as severe, it may take a couple of
Speaker 1: days before any symptoms show up. Um. We measure these
Speaker 1: radiation dosages in a couple of different ways. There are
Speaker 1: units that we call grays. Uh. An X ray tends
Speaker 1: to be less than point one grays. It's also generally
Speaker 1: focused on a small area of the body and X
Speaker 1: ray is so it ends up being less of a
Speaker 1: of a threat than say an all body exposure of
Speaker 1: some powerful radioactive sources. So I give you that fancy
Speaker 1: lead bib. Yeah, So again it really limits the area
Speaker 1: that is exposed to this sort of thing. Um, and
Speaker 1: then your symptoms of radiation sickness will usually appear only
Speaker 1: after the entire body has absorbed one gray or more
Speaker 1: of radio radioactivity. Doses greater than six gray are usually
Speaker 1: not treatable and typically lead to death within two weeks. Now,
Speaker 1: there's also another unit called the sivert, which you may
Speaker 1: have heard of. Now. This is a unit of dose
Speaker 1: equivalent which is used to relate the different effects from
Speaker 1: various radiation types on the human body. So it accounts
Speaker 1: for a quality factor, which is the type of radiation,
Speaker 1: and a weighting factor, which was the type of tissue affected.
Speaker 1: It's a little more specific than grays. In other words,
Speaker 1: you should be getting the sense that not all radioactivity
Speaker 1: is the same and not all radioactivity exposure will have
Speaker 1: the same effect on your body right there. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to predict in certain cases what exactly
Speaker 1: is going to have happened to you. But with this
Speaker 1: high level waste, we know it is very dangerous. This
Speaker 1: is this is also why it's important to know the
Speaker 1: difference between ionizing radiation and non ionizing radiation. So high
Speaker 1: level waste, we're talking ionizing radiation. This is dangerous stuff,
Speaker 1: But there's other types of radiation that is non ionizing
Speaker 1: for example, radio waves. So radio waves like the kind
Speaker 1: that come from a cell phone tower are not ionizing radiation.
Speaker 1: It's a they both radiate energy, but they are two
Speaker 1: different types of radiation and should not be confused. All right,
Speaker 1: So we've established there are different types of radiation. That
Speaker 1: we have established are different types of radioactive waste, all
Speaker 1: of which we need to figure out what to do
Speaker 1: with them. So what do we do with them? What?
Speaker 1: What typically is done with the stuff? Well, fortunately we
Speaker 1: don't have to worry all that much when we we
Speaker 1: still do have to be careful, we don't have to
Speaker 1: worry all that much about the lower level wastes. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're not intensely dangerous. You can typically just sort of
Speaker 1: bury them in a what's called a civil nuclear waste facility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not that much different from say dump. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a pit or a trench. Basically it's covered with
Speaker 1: soil most of the time, so you you know, as
Speaker 1: long as I mean, you might put a sign up
Speaker 1: that's like, hey, don't eat the soil, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's generally considered to be safe within the realm
Speaker 1: of of safety. It's it's in there so it also
Speaker 1: I think typically what's considered lower level waste also has
Speaker 1: a shorter lifespan, right that it doesn't remain dangerous as long.
Speaker 1: And also, while while it's very common for us to
Speaker 1: see these in these these pits are trenches, particularly in
Speaker 1: the United States, some other countries actually put low level
Speaker 1: waste in depositories. So Finland and Sweden both have depositories
Speaker 1: where they put low level and intermediate level waste UM,
Speaker 1: which is that's going an extra mile for safety, or
Speaker 1: at least an extra several um mill might be generous,
Speaker 1: but it's uh, you know, it's it's going a step
Speaker 1: further closer to what has been proposed for a high
Speaker 1: level waste, but it's UM. It's interesting to me that
Speaker 1: there are countries that are taking that extra step instead
Speaker 1: of UH and stuff simply burying it, which from what
Speaker 1: we can tell, seems to be adequate. Going up a
Speaker 1: little bit from that, you've got the disposal of byproducts
Speaker 1: like tailings, which is somewhere in between this low level
Speaker 1: and what we're going to talk about in a moment,
Speaker 1: which is the high level UM now. Now tailings here
Speaker 1: in the United States of the uranium milling sites here
Speaker 1: are inactive and are currently the responsibility of the Department
Speaker 1: of Energy. Um so they are the ones that are
Speaker 1: taking all of these steps for us, rather than the
Speaker 1: private nuclear companies that may have opened the mind to
Speaker 1: begin with. So they set up these sites that use
Speaker 1: clay and rock to prevent seepage, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: put up signs and fences and legal land use restrictions.
Speaker 1: There's an actual ep A web page that recommends that,
Speaker 1: you know, really you should not misused tailings for construction
Speaker 1: material or backfill around buildings. Well, that's that's a good note. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um so so people aren't. People aren't highly concerned about them,
Speaker 1: is is all I'm saying. You know, like you can
Speaker 1: you can go a few steps below what we're about
Speaker 1: to talk about, which is that high level waste. Right, So,
Speaker 1: the high level waste. We don't want to be too
Speaker 1: much of a downer because there are certainly ways that
Speaker 1: people have talked about dealing with this. What are those ways? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about how when low level waste
Speaker 1: the solution was to bury it. Yeah, right, turn that
Speaker 1: up to eleven. And that's kind of the the most
Speaker 1: agreed upon method for long term solution to high level
Speaker 1: waste problems, And the reason why you need a long
Speaker 1: term solution is that twenty four thousand years or so
Speaker 1: that that's plutonium, and there's there are other ones that
Speaker 1: have that that could be potentially dangerous for like a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand years. That's a long time, right, and it's
Speaker 1: difficult to build something out, especially, I mean right now,
Speaker 1: most high level waste is stored I think we already
Speaker 1: mentioned on site at nuclear facilities around any given country. Yes,
Speaker 1: so if you have a nuclear plant that is an
Speaker 1: operation somewhere in that general area, is also their containment
Speaker 1: site for all the high level waste and spent nuclear
Speaker 1: fuel that they're now that they're not trying to to
Speaker 1: you know, repurpose in any way, right, But it would
Speaker 1: be highly impractical to build at each of these nuclear
Speaker 1: sites something so deep going and expensive that you would
Speaker 1: be able to more permanently house this dangerous materials. So overall,
Speaker 1: it is agreed upon that the best way to go
Speaker 1: about storing nuclear the high level nuclear stuff would be
Speaker 1: a centralized geological repository. And part of that is because
Speaker 1: one identifying such a site, it takes time and effort
Speaker 1: figuring out what sites are going to meet the requirements
Speaker 1: so that you know, in a hundred thousand years time
Speaker 1: it will still in theory be perfectly safe, or at
Speaker 1: least be safely containing the high level waste. Secondly, you
Speaker 1: have to figure out that it's much better to have
Speaker 1: a centralized location, especially for something that could be attempting target,
Speaker 1: for an organization that wants to get his hands on
Speaker 1: nuclear material, it would be better to have that all
Speaker 1: in a place where you could have the most maximum
Speaker 1: security possible in that one location, as opposed to a
Speaker 1: bunch of tempting targets that are all spread out all
Speaker 1: over the place where some of them may be more
Speaker 1: susceptible than others. This is a terrifying idea, but it's
Speaker 1: one that has to be taken into consideration. It's one
Speaker 1: of the things that factored into the idea of having
Speaker 1: the centralized geological repositories. So it would need to be
Speaker 1: buried really deep underground. We're talking several hundred meters several
Speaker 1: like a thousand feet or so maybe around that area.
Speaker 1: Some of them are deeper. Some of them are a
Speaker 1: little less deep than that, but that's generally speaking what
Speaker 1: we're looking at. Uh, it needs to have a lot
Speaker 1: of reinforcement. We're talking about some shielding like steel and concrete,
Speaker 1: maybe water even although that's very dangerous. You don't want
Speaker 1: you don't want this leaking into the groundwater, right, You
Speaker 1: don't want to contaminate any groundwater whatsoever. You don't want
Speaker 1: to irradiate the groundwater because that could then affect all
Speaker 1: sorts of life forms, right whether today or down the road.
Speaker 1: So you want to try and make sure that it's airtight,
Speaker 1: water tight. You don't want any radioactive dust to get
Speaker 1: out of it, you don't want any water to get
Speaker 1: into it. You want to make sure that it's really
Speaker 1: secure from all sorts of of intrusions, whether human or otherwise.
Speaker 1: And then there's there's the social factor, the social problem,
Speaker 1: the political problem of geological repositories. So you have all
Speaker 1: these considerations you have to make in order to even
Speaker 1: find a site that's going to look useful. Then you
Speaker 1: have to convince people that this is a good idea
Speaker 1: and it should be put there, which is very hard
Speaker 1: to do for the people who live in the general
Speaker 1: vicinity of said proposed site. Oh yeah, it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to even convince people to let you build a nuclear
Speaker 1: facility period in their generalized neighborhood. And that's like like
Speaker 1: you're going to get cheaper energy that will be awesome
Speaker 1: for you. And this is just like your fish could
Speaker 1: have three eyes. Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: an understandable fear in the sense that radiation is scary. Right.
Speaker 1: We cannot see it, but we know it affects us.
Speaker 1: You know, we cannot we cannot actually see little wavy
Speaker 1: lines coming out of this stuff that looks just like
Speaker 1: rocks to us, you know, or or just a canister
Speaker 1: of something or a big concrete container. We can't see
Speaker 1: anything from it, and yet it can kill us. So
Speaker 1: and it's it's really scientifically complicated. I mean, it kind
Speaker 1: of goes along the lines of stuff that we don't
Speaker 1: understand and is a lot scarier to us. And I
Speaker 1: think that people, you know, see things in pop culture
Speaker 1: about Godzilla, Mary Curry or you know, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and get extra freaked out. I mean, not that it's
Speaker 1: not something that deserves to be freaked out about. I
Speaker 1: think we had a big turnaround in our reaction. Like
Speaker 1: if you look at those early nineteen forties, things like
Speaker 1: the Miracle radiation and how it's gonna make you, well
Speaker 1: the better place. And then I feel like it's earlier
Speaker 1: in the forties with the I mean, when when were
Speaker 1: people drinking radium water? I don't know about that, but
Speaker 1: radiation was really that that became a popular thing in
Speaker 1: the forties. I'm googling. But by the by the fifties
Speaker 1: you get into the duck and cover stage. Hold on,
Speaker 1: Let's see, in the early nineteen hundreds, radioactive water was
Speaker 1: quite the rave. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure you got
Speaker 1: glowing reviews. Oh no, or are like painting the insides
Speaker 1: of your watch with radium something? They would glow, et cetera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of things where there
Speaker 1: was a sort of this sort of craze about the
Speaker 1: stuff until we start to more understand the potential hazards.
Speaker 1: So at any rate, it suffers from the not in
Speaker 1: my backyard problem also known as nimby, where people who
Speaker 1: people may even say, I completely agree that we need this,
Speaker 1: but I don't agree that we need it in my backyard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some somebody else do it. Yeah, Okay, so we all
Speaker 1: think pretty much agree nuclear power great, you know, at
Speaker 1: least potentially yeah, at the same time has this really
Speaker 1: really serious problem. So we let's just do something about it.
Speaker 1: Let's let's build all of the geological repositories we can.
Speaker 1: How many do we already have for high level waste? Zero? Yeah? Zero? That,
Speaker 1: by the way, that's that's around the world, that's not
Speaker 1: just the United States. So we got to start with
Speaker 1: the proposed geological geological repository for high level waste. There's one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Yucka Mountain in Nevada. That was the big one.
Speaker 1: And I say was because it's still kind of in
Speaker 1: limbo right now. We'll get into that in a moment.
Speaker 1: The mountains not in limbo. Mountains still in Nevada, but
Speaker 1: the proposed process of actually trying it into a repository
Speaker 1: limbo city could be like Welcome to night Vale, like
Speaker 1: a little bit in limbo. It might be right, So,
Speaker 1: um there, I do not know if there's an essentient
Speaker 1: glow cloud over yuck A Mountain wouldn't surprise me at
Speaker 1: this point. But it's been the intended repository for the
Speaker 1: US since the nineties. And the thing is that Nevada
Speaker 1: state representatives have really resisted this because the citizens of
Speaker 1: Nevada really don't like the idea of a giant nuclear
Speaker 1: waste dump in their state, no matter how you how
Speaker 1: you define it, whether you say, look, this is a
Speaker 1: facility that's meant to safely have all this, all the
Speaker 1: geological features are ideal for this kind of thing. It's
Speaker 1: a different story when you live a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: kilometers away. You know, Las Vegas is like within that distance.
Speaker 1: And at the time when it was proposed, Las Vegas
Speaker 1: was a smaller city than it is today. But now
Speaker 1: it's it's relatively large. So you've got a very powerful
Speaker 1: political resistance to putting it there. Um So meanwhile, to
Speaker 1: make matters more complicated, might as well say this, now
Speaker 1: you've got an equally powerful political uh push for it
Speaker 1: to be established there. Because you've got all these other
Speaker 1: nuclear power plants right across the United States, each of
Speaker 1: which has to have a containment facility for those high
Speaker 1: level wastes and spent nuclear fuel. They don't want to
Speaker 1: keep that indefinitely. They're not supposed to keep it indefinitely.
Speaker 1: That stuff is meant to go to a geological repository.
Speaker 1: So they put political pressure for yucka Mountain to become
Speaker 1: one of these things. So you've got the state of
Speaker 1: Nevada resisting, You've got other states with existing nuclear facilities
Speaker 1: saying no, we have to do this. That's what we
Speaker 1: agreed upon. That was the agreement. Let's do it, um
Speaker 1: And it's a big political nightmare, uh, for for very reasons.
Speaker 1: Like we said, I mean, people are afraid of the
Speaker 1: stuff because it's scary. So even if yuck a Mountain
Speaker 1: got total clearance for licensing of becoming a geological repository,
Speaker 1: we would not be using it until at the earliest.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's going to happen at all.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to see it ever be
Speaker 1: used as a repository. But okay, I looked into the
Speaker 1: full back story of the Yuka Mountain thing because it's
Speaker 1: such a interesting idea, and I think it's a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea. But I don't live in Las Vegas, so
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's it's a lot easier for
Speaker 1: us to say it because we live from in Georgia,
Speaker 1: a couple thousand miles away. Makes it a lot easier.
Speaker 1: But okay, So way back in three a bunch of
Speaker 1: private nuclear energy companies started working together to help create
Speaker 1: one of these permanent centralized disposal sites UM. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: on the political side, Congress approved research into placing a
Speaker 1: facility at Yucca Mountain among nine total potential sites in
Speaker 1: seven That whole thing kicked off this multi decade debate
Speaker 1: that Jonathan's been talking about about whether the good people
Speaker 1: of Nevada would actually want such a thing and whether
Speaker 1: we had the money to pour into a ten thousand
Speaker 1: years safe, ninety billion dollar site of this type. UM.
Speaker 1: In two thou To Yucco was designated as the best
Speaker 1: possible site for a disposal facility. But soon after, in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, the Obama administration started working to
Speaker 1: shut the whole thing down because of this whole not
Speaker 1: in my backyard and or funding debate stuff that was
Speaker 1: going on. Uh. And then in the Department of Energy
Speaker 1: stopped the entire process of attempting to license the site. UM.
Speaker 1: Then the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board said, Uh, you
Speaker 1: can't do that. By law, you can't just stop this.
Speaker 1: You have to actually pass legislation one way or the other.
Speaker 1: You can't you can't be doing something that you've been
Speaker 1: legally bound to do. And then say I'm not doing
Speaker 1: it anymore, so that essentially we're talking about different government
Speaker 1: offices fighting with each other, which always leads terrific things. Um. Finally,
Speaker 1: in the d C Court of Appeals, Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: That would be ruled that the process had to go
Speaker 1: forward legally speaking, being that the temporary thirty year safe
Speaker 1: facilities that are currently holding our nation's nuclear waste are
Speaker 1: insufficient um and cannot be extended for longer use without
Speaker 1: a really costly detailed analysis of the potential damage that
Speaker 1: doing so will cause. Right if we if you know,
Speaker 1: the facilities that nuclear waste isn't right now, those weren't
Speaker 1: meant to be permanent homes for that stuff, right. They
Speaker 1: were meant to be this little temporary holding ground until
Speaker 1: we had a centralized geological repository where everything would go,
Speaker 1: and it was meant to be there, uh, for ten
Speaker 1: thousand years. We'll talk more about that ten thousand year
Speaker 1: thing in a little it too, so not a little
Speaker 1: bit in the next in the next podcast, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, I'm sorry, um, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's certainly one of the big tripping points of
Speaker 1: this whole process is the idea of having a facility
Speaker 1: where you have to designate it being safe for ten
Speaker 1: thousand years. That's a tough thing. Uh. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's this is, like I said, a big political problem
Speaker 1: as well as a technical problem, as well as a
Speaker 1: health hazard. I mean, the multiple things coming into play here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, what are we gonna do? And
Speaker 1: we've got all these states that all have very different
Speaker 1: ideas about what needs to happen. You've got the states
Speaker 1: where the nuclear waste currently resides and cannot legally stay
Speaker 1: there because the facilities that were built for them were
Speaker 1: not meant to be permanent ones. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people honestly don't even realize it's there. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just have no idea that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people assume we already have facilities like yuck a MoU
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. Yeah, and uh we will talk
Speaker 1: more about all of that in our next episode, where
Speaker 1: we'll go into more detail about the repositories that do
Speaker 1: exist here in the world. Um, they're including one that
Speaker 1: exists in the United States but is not a high
Speaker 1: level waste repository. There are no high level waste repositories
Speaker 1: out there, not yet. Anyway. Some of them are under
Speaker 1: consideration in different parts of the world. Some of them
Speaker 1: are under construction in different parts of the world, but
Speaker 1: there are none existing yet. We will also talk about
Speaker 1: some alternative proposals. Yes, there are many alternative proposals out there.
Speaker 1: Some of them are bad, but some of them have
Speaker 1: lots and lots of potential. And and I'm excited at
Speaker 1: any rate about any of the work being done towards,
Speaker 1: you know, not killing us all some of the bad ones.
Speaker 1: Some of the bad ones have been considered and rejected.
Speaker 1: Some of the bad ones have been practiced and rejected
Speaker 1: once people caught onto what was going on. But we'll
Speaker 1: talk all about that in our next episod, which will
Speaker 1: be just as cheerful as this one was. So the
Speaker 1: reason why we even tackled this problem in the first
Speaker 1: place is that it's actually one we need to solve.
Speaker 1: And and while it is a certain certainly a huge challenge,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure I'll stress this again in our next episode,
Speaker 1: human beings are amazing at overcoming challenges when we put
Speaker 1: our minds to it. We have to put our minds
Speaker 1: to it, is the thing. So it doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: can just trust somebody to figure it out later. No, No,
Speaker 1: we have to. Yeah, let's not fall back on the
Speaker 1: someone smarter than me is working on this problem. No,
Speaker 1: but but I think that all three people here are
Speaker 1: pretty huge fans of nuclear energy, at least from among
Speaker 1: the current options. Sure, if it's if it's practiced, if
Speaker 1: it's practiced, uh, you know, responsibly, then certainly I think
Speaker 1: it's a valid means of powering a nation, which means
Speaker 1: that we need a valid means of taking care of
Speaker 1: this waste because we do have to acknowledge that the
Speaker 1: waste is an issue and we have to make sure
Speaker 1: we we meet that problem. So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: more about that in our next episode. Fear not, we'll
Speaker 1: be we'll be continuing this discussion, and if you guys
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future topics we can talk about
Speaker 1: on Forward Thinking, let us know. You can drop us
Speaker 1: a line on Twitter, Google Plus, or Facebook or handle
Speaker 1: at all three is f w Thinking and we will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. For more on this
Speaker 1: topic in the future of technology, visit forward thinking dot com,
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