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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is a good

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Speaker 2: old fashioned episode of Stuff you Should Know.

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Speaker 1: D D.

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Speaker 2: Are you talking about the Green Gow? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I mean it's just hard not to think of Homer

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Speaker 1: Simpson when you're talking about nuclear power at all.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and nuclear waste in particular.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Like you know that little Rod flies right

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Speaker 1: into his hood, right.

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Speaker 2: This inanimate carbon Rod is the employee of the Year.

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Speaker 1: I think that's right.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, it turns out that nuclear waste doesn't really

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Speaker 2: look like that. It certainly doesn't glow green. Probably the

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Speaker 2: closest you could get to what the Simpsons depict, and

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Speaker 2: not just the Simpsons, I think the classic movie Men

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Speaker 2: at Work featuring brothers Melio Estevez and Charlie Sheen.

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Speaker 1: Never saw it.

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Speaker 2: It's good as far as eighties comedies.

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Speaker 1: Go, it's pretty good.

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Speaker 2: And they play a lot of two live crew too.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, there you go.

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Speaker 2: Because I think it takes place in Miami. I'm not sure.

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Speaker 2: But the closest you can get to that from what

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Speaker 2: I can tell, is a sludge toxic nuclear sludge that

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Speaker 2: is described as having kind of a peanut buttery consistency.

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Speaker 2: This is gross and dangerous, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not as sandwich you want unless you cut

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Speaker 1: the crust off.

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Speaker 2: So for the most part, though, nuclear waste is solid,

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Speaker 2: it's like pellets of solid essentially metal material made up

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Speaker 2: of a bunch of different elements and metals and all

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Speaker 2: sorts of crud pressed together to form essentially a uranium

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Speaker 2: fuel what it starts out as, but after it undergoes

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Speaker 2: nuclear fission for five or six years, it says, I'm spent,

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Speaker 2: get me out of here, and a new fuel assembly

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Speaker 2: sprought in.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And this is clearly the most dangerous

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Speaker 1: kind of nuclear waste We're going to go over, you know,

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Speaker 1: several different kinds of nuclear waste, but this is the

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Speaker 1: stuff that you really really got to take care of.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you got to take care of all it,

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Speaker 1: of course, but this is stuff that's super dangerous, right,

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Speaker 1: And these pellets are these little cylinders about the size

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Speaker 1: I guess it depends on your thumb, but you know,

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Speaker 1: like midway up your thumb, half a thumb.

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Speaker 2: Okay, half thumb anything but metric.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, not the thumb stump, like the actual thumb print

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Speaker 1: section of your thumb, the thumb sprout, Yeah, the thumb

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Speaker 1: sprout exactly. And you know, disposing of this stuff is

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Speaker 1: sort of the highest level of concern because we have

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Speaker 1: to do it, so we don't there's not a place

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Speaker 1: in the world that has a permanent solution for this,

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Speaker 1: even though Finland is pretty close to you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to put air scare quotes as you call them,

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Speaker 1: around a permanent solution, because who knows what permanent means,

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Speaker 1: you know, in fifty thousand years, and we were going

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Speaker 1: to build one of these in twenty ten, and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about why that didn't happen. But since the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: we've had a lot of different kinds of nuclear waste

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Speaker 1: to dispose of, and we've been getting rid of it

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Speaker 1: and storing it in a few different ways since then.

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Speaker 1: But there's a potentially a brighter future ahead with some

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Speaker 1: pretty ingenious ideas.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fingers crossed, because right now we're going down the

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Speaker 2: road that was proposed a long time ago, and it's

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Speaker 2: kind of a dumb, unnecessary road, and hopefully smarter heads

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Speaker 2: will prevail. But yeah, we'll get into that later. But

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Speaker 2: one thing I thought was fascinating is that there is

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Speaker 2: way less nuclear waste than you would think, right. I

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Speaker 2: think something like if you took all of the nuclear

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Speaker 2: power that you used, you Chuck used for your entire

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Speaker 2: lifetime moment of birth.

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Speaker 1: Yep, the moment you die in a couple of years.

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Speaker 2: All of it now far longer than that, I hope.

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Speaker 2: So all of that nuclear waste would be compressed to

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Speaker 2: about a hockey puck. So each of us in the

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Speaker 2: United States have a hockey puck worth of nuclear waste

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Speaker 2: assigned to us, and each of us has to figure

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Speaker 2: out what to do with that hockey puck individually. That's

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Speaker 2: the new standard.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And by the way, if people think I

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Speaker 1: do have Chuck Stradama's powers of the future, please do

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Speaker 1: not get concerned that I foretold my death in two years.

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Speaker 1: It's okay, okay.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that erased it for everybody, but

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Speaker 2: all right. It was a good attempt.

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Speaker 1: I could to hear someone out there being like, oh, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: Chuck said he's going to die in two years. That's

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Speaker 1: he shan't even say things like that, Lest we forget

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Speaker 1: Jared and Hugh Jackman.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I don't like you saying it, but you know,

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Speaker 2: I'm just I'm nervously laughing instead.

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Speaker 1: All right, so we should kind of quickly go over

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Speaker 1: how nuclear reactors work, even though we have a pretty

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Speaker 1: great episode on that.

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Speaker 2: But the upshot of all this is, even though each

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Speaker 2: of us just has a hockey pucks worth of nuclear

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Speaker 2: waste and it amounts to you, I think, like ninety

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Speaker 2: thousand tons, which is eye popping in the United States alone,

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Speaker 2: it's eye popping, but it's actually not that much. The

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Speaker 2: problem is, is it that it's very dangerous for a

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Speaker 2: very long time afterward, and you have to put it

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Speaker 2: in very very special places. And those special places are

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Speaker 2: essentially what we're gonna kind of go over today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, disposing of that stuff. Yeah, we have a pretty

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Speaker 1: good episode on nuclear energy. I can't remember what it

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Speaker 1: was called, do you happen? Did you check that? I know?

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Speaker 2: The only one I can think of where we really

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Speaker 2: talked about what happens in nuclear reactors was Fukushima.

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Speaker 1: That kind of like I thought, we did one just

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Speaker 1: on creating nuclear energy.

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Speaker 2: Now I don't know, man, I don't think so.

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Speaker 1: All right, well we'll go over quickly again just how

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Speaker 1: it works, because it works how creating energy works at

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Speaker 1: a coal plant or a natural gas plant, because what

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Speaker 1: you're essentially trying to do is boil water to produce steam,

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Speaker 1: and that steam turns a turbine. But in this case,

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Speaker 1: the fuel is not coal or natural gas. It's these

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Speaker 1: little uranium two thirty five pellets, like I said, the

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Speaker 1: sort of a half of a thumb size. And you

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Speaker 1: mentioned fuel assembly, a fuel assembly, Well, you get these

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Speaker 1: little pellets, you put them inside these long fuel rods,

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Speaker 1: and then you bundle together those fuel rods and those

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Speaker 1: are the fuel assemblies. And depending on the size of

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Speaker 1: the reactor and the type, there's anywhere from one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty to about eight hundred of those bundled up

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Speaker 1: cylindrical fuel as fuel assemblies in the reactor.

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Speaker 2: Core, right, And they're kept underwater. And the water does

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Speaker 2: a couple of things. One, it actually helps carry out

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Speaker 2: the nuclear chain reaction that produces the heat that boils

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Speaker 2: the water, that produces the steam that turns the turbine

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Speaker 2: that creates the electricity, right, But it also keeps it

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Speaker 2: from going critical. It also cools it, so there's a

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Speaker 2: constant flow of water in and out to maintain it

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Speaker 2: at a fairly constant temperature at like one hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifteen fahrenheit or something like that. And what's great about

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Speaker 2: this is this is a it's a self contained process,

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Speaker 2: unlike burning natural gas or coal. There's no emissions. And

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Speaker 2: everybody says, hooray, no emissions, and then they say, yes,

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Speaker 2: but we also have this nuclear waste as a resultant,

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Speaker 2: and he says, oh, so that's where we stand. Nuclear

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Speaker 2: power has a lot of promise if done well, especially

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Speaker 2: with some of the advanced designs that are coming down

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Speaker 2: the Pike's not a bad energy source. It's just we

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Speaker 2: haven't figured out what to do with the nuclear fuel.

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Speaker 2: And that's such an understatement, Chuck that if you actually

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Speaker 2: once you start figuring out what we're doing with our

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Speaker 2: spent nuclear fuel, it's it's almost embarrassing that this is

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Speaker 2: what we're doing. We're just basically stashing it over here

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Speaker 2: until we can figure out what to do with it

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Speaker 2: in the long term. And we've been doing that for

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Speaker 2: half a century.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's been going on for a long time.

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Speaker 1: The thing is, you know, these things wear out, which

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Speaker 1: is why we have to remove you know, once you

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Speaker 1: spin that fuel, just like a lump of coal would

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Speaker 1: get spent. You got to do the same with the

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Speaker 1: nuclear stuff. So every I think five or six years

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Speaker 1: it can go before that's basically on empty. But it's

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Speaker 1: not on empty, as we'll see, because there's still a

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Speaker 1: little bit of juice left, just not enough to power

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Speaker 1: sort of the old school reactors. Right, So every year

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Speaker 1: and a half to two years, a nuclear reactor is

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Speaker 1: going to close the doors and they're gonna cycle through

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Speaker 1: about a third of their fuel assemblies and get rid

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Speaker 1: of those. And that is the really high level nuclear

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Speaker 1: waste that is the most concerning and the stuff that

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Speaker 1: we need to be the most judicious with.

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Speaker 2: Yes, very fortunately they don't just take these fuel assemblies

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Speaker 2: and toss them out back into an ever growing pile.

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Speaker 2: They kind of do, but there's a little more to it.

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Speaker 2: What they do initially is so remember these things are underwater,

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Speaker 2: and they're underwater for a reason, not just for to

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Speaker 2: carry out the chain reaction that produces power, but also

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Speaker 2: to keep them from going critical. So they're moved from

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Speaker 2: the reactor core to what are called spent fuel pools

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Speaker 2: I want to say spent fuel puels. Every time I

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Speaker 2: say that out loud, but can't. So they and they

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Speaker 2: never leave the water. They're taken down these special canals

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Speaker 2: that connect the core, the reactor core, to the spent

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Speaker 2: fuel pools. And just to add a little charm to it,

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Speaker 2: they actually attach them to the bottom of a gondola

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Speaker 2: that it through the canal. It is very cute. And

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Speaker 2: then once they get to the spent fuel pool, they're

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Speaker 2: basically dropped into this huge pool, stainless steel pool that's

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Speaker 2: about has about forty feet of water in it, and

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Speaker 2: there I don't know, I think about ten feet or

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Speaker 2: so tall. So they sink down at the bottom and

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Speaker 2: they've got twenty thirty feet of water over them and

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Speaker 2: they stay there for years because they're so hot and

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Speaker 2: they're so radioactive, it would be insane to do anything

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Speaker 2: else with them, but basically put them in the pools

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Speaker 2: and let them sit there for a while.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can look up a picture of a spent

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Speaker 1: fuel pool and it's really cool looking. And like you said,

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Speaker 1: I mean two to five years just for these things

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Speaker 1: to cool off. They decay a little bit as far

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Speaker 1: as the radioactivity goes, But you know, that's a process

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Speaker 1: that for the most critical stuff that takes you know,

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Speaker 1: thousands of years, so it's really just a blip of

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Speaker 1: radioactivity that decays in that two to five years. But

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Speaker 1: what they're really doing is cooling that stuff down, because

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Speaker 1: if they even pulled it out to transport it and

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Speaker 1: didn't do so in a canal, it seems like it

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Speaker 1: would just combust, right, isn't that the idea?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a fuel assembly, especially a bunch of fuel assemblies

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Speaker 2: exposed to air, would just produce so much heat that

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Speaker 2: they would blow up. And when they blew up, remember

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Speaker 2: these are fairly recent spent fuel rods, they would release

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Speaker 2: a lot of really bad stuff like sasium one thirty

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Speaker 2: seven that spreads in the air very quickly, It settles

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Speaker 2: into the environment very quickly, it enters the food chain,

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Speaker 2: and it causes all sorts of problems when it enters

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Speaker 2: the body and it sticks around for a while. It's

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Speaker 2: one of the big problems with nuclear waste. So you

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Speaker 2: want to keep those spent fuel assemblies underwater for basically

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Speaker 2: as long as you possibly can before you put them

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Speaker 2: into basically dry dock. And this is where essentially what

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Speaker 2: I was saying, where they just toss them out back.

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Speaker 2: That's what they do, but they put them into something

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Speaker 2: called the dry cask first, and it's at a little

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Speaker 2: more technical than just throwing it into a pile, but

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Speaker 2: it's imprinciple roughly the same thing.

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Speaker 1: That's very funny to me that you keep liking it

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Speaker 1: to throwing it out back in a pile.

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Speaker 2: Because that's what they're doing. Man. Like these dry casks.

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Speaker 2: It goes from a pool to a dry cask on

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Speaker 2: the same site and they just sit there in the

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Speaker 2: dry cask like, Okay, you stay here until we can

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Speaker 2: figure out what to do with you one hundred years

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Speaker 2: from now.

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Speaker 1: So for the first couple of decades that we had

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Speaker 1: this stuff, all of it was just in those cooling pools.

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Speaker 1: But those pools started to fill up. They're all on site,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's not like they have to transport them

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Speaker 1: except you know, very locally via canal. And then they said, hey,

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Speaker 1: these pools are filling up. We got to come up

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Speaker 1: with a better way. They started looking into the dry

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Speaker 1: cask method in the seventies and I think in eighty

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Speaker 1: six in the United States at the Surrey Nuclear Power

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Speaker 1: Plant in Virginia is where we had our first dry

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Speaker 1: storage facility and these casks are about twenty feet tall,

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Speaker 1: eight feet in diameter the way about one hundred tons,

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Speaker 1: and in that cask is several dozen of those fuel assemblies.

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Speaker 1: And again those fuel assemblies are made up of the

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Speaker 1: individual fuel rods that are holding the pellets, So several

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Speaker 1: dozen of those stacked together sealed inside a canister. They

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Speaker 1: bolt it shut, suck out the air, and replace it

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Speaker 1: with the inert gas. And then that steel canister is

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Speaker 1: surrounded by a thick concrete wall and they throw it

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Speaker 1: out back right.

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Speaker 2: They stand it up out back, and the inert gas

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Speaker 2: x as a coolant rather than using water, which would

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Speaker 2: corrode things. The inert gas can also absorb the radiation

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Speaker 2: and the heat. And then the concrete they use is

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Speaker 2: like very special concrete with polymer fibers and added boron

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Speaker 2: to make it even denser. And then they also mix

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Speaker 2: in magnetite and b baryte to essentially absorb radioactive particles.

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Speaker 2: So it's like the dry casks are pretty good as

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Speaker 2: far as I know, though they're only rated for about

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Speaker 2: one hundred years of storage. After that, they're like, we're

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Speaker 2: not guaranteeing anything. And so I think you said the

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Speaker 2: first one was sealed up in nineteen eighty six, So

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Speaker 2: we're at forty years essentially already ticking off the clock

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Speaker 2: for those earliest dry casks that were sealed, which, when

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Speaker 2: you start to think of it like that, like it

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Speaker 2: makes this like getting to a solution of what to

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Speaker 2: do long term permanent storage essentially how important it is

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Speaker 2: to do it as soon as possible, because if we

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Speaker 2: don't figure out exactly how to do it and then

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Speaker 2: start building it, that sixty years is going to come

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Speaker 2: and go quicker than we think. That's a long time

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Speaker 2: to design something that's one of probably the most persistent

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Speaker 2: problems that the world faces environmentally spent nuclear fuel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Right now, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission

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Speaker 1: NRC is looking at applications for a couple of larger

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Speaker 1: storage sites here in the US for those dry casts,

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Speaker 1: one in New Mexico and one in Texas. These are

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Speaker 1: called consolidated interim storage sites. Again because it's just you know, temporary,

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Speaker 1: and I think all over the world about seventy percent

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Speaker 1: of the fuel that's used up is in pools, about

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Speaker 1: thirty percent is in these dry casks, and you know,

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Speaker 1: these things supposedly are built to withstand natural disasters and

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Speaker 1: things like that. But like you said, like they're stored

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Speaker 1: either on or near the surface. It's not like they're

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Speaker 1: buried in bedrock, which is we'll see, is maybe a

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Speaker 1: more permanent solution. And in fact that's that's the one

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Speaker 1: that the US was working on inside the Yucka Mountain

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Speaker 1: and Nevada, and it had NRC and EPA approval, but

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Speaker 1: Nevada said, Nope, we don't want that here. Obama canceled

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Speaker 1: it in twenty ten, and so far we don't have

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Speaker 1: a new sort of again scare quote permanent solution here

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Speaker 1: in the US.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the big problem is in nineteen eighty seven, Congress

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Speaker 2: said Yucka Mountain is the only site that the DOE

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Speaker 2: and the NRC can use to dispose of nuclear waste.

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Speaker 2: You can't put it anywhere else geologically for long term storage.

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Speaker 2: And then they never went back and said, well, since

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Speaker 2: we're not going to put it Yucka Mountain, we'll do

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Speaker 2: it here instead. So it's just totally in limbo. So

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Speaker 2: in the interim literally, these interim storage sites, like you said,

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Speaker 2: in Texas and New Mexico, that's kind of the next

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Speaker 2: big hope after the dry casks. I think the one

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Speaker 2: in New Mexico will be capable of containing one hundred

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Speaker 2: and twenty thousand tons of spent nuclear fuel, which is

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Speaker 2: a lot, especially considering that the US has only about

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Speaker 2: ninety thousand tons of spent fuel total. But we're also

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Speaker 2: adding about two thousand tons a year, so in fifteen years,

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Speaker 2: New Mexico would be full up. So again, you kind

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Speaker 2: of see how this clock is ticking, because it's not

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Speaker 2: like anyone saying, well, let's wait on nuclear power any

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Speaker 2: further until we figure out what to do with this.

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Speaker 2: They're just it's just a go go go swinging kind

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Speaker 2: of industry.

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Speaker 1: You know, maybe we should go go go on a break. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I promised talk of Finland earlier, and maybe we'll

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Speaker 1: pick up with that right after this good look up

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Speaker 1: with Joe shoe on cho.

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Speaker 2: Stuff.

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Speaker 1: You shit, all right, So we mentioned Finland early on

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Speaker 1: as being kind of the only place in the world

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Speaker 1: now that is close to being done with a again

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Speaker 1: scare quote permanent solution. And the reason we keep saying

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Speaker 1: scare quotes is because you know, you sent me some

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Speaker 1: information that was like, hey, nobody knows what's going to

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Speaker 1: happen in thousands and thousands of years, so you can't

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Speaker 1: really call it permanent when there's climate change and potential

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Speaker 1: like asteroid impacts and things like that that like, we

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Speaker 1: just don't know what's coming our way, so you can't

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Speaker 1: really say it's permanent, but they're calling it permanent even so.

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Speaker 1: This one is called on Collo, which means cavity or pit,

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Speaker 1: and it's the first on planet Earth a geologic repository

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Speaker 1: where supposedly, you know, they say that you can store

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Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, close to fifteen hundred feet down

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Speaker 1: under the earth in the bedrock, and that stuff's been

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Speaker 1: there for millions of years, so this stuff should be

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Speaker 1: pretty good down there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean they're like in the bedrock. They're

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Speaker 2: talking about fourteen hundred and thirty feet down, which for reference,

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Speaker 2: is two hundred and twenty times deeper than the depth

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Speaker 2: of an Olympic swimming pool. The spent fuel assemblies are

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Speaker 2: put into steal canisters and then just to show off,

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Speaker 2: Finland surrounds them with a two inch thick layer of

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Speaker 2: copper because copper won't corrode in the anaerobic conditions down

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Speaker 2: fourteen hundred and thirty feet under the ground. They're putting it.

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Speaker 2: Once they get to that fourteen hundred and thirty feet depth,

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Speaker 2: they go into shafts that are another thirty feet deep,

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Speaker 2: which is four point six times deeper than an Olympic pool,

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Speaker 2: and then they stack the canisters one on top of

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Speaker 2: each other. Finally they top off that thirty foot deep

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Speaker 2: shaft and then they fill them with bentonite, which is

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Speaker 2: a clever thing to add because it's it's compressed clay

355
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Speaker 2: that essentially remember those little dinosaur sponges that were really

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Speaker 2: tiny and then you drop water on them and they

357
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Speaker 2: turn into like a full size Tyrannosaurus rex. It's like that,

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Speaker 2: but it's the clay version of that. When it makes

359
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Speaker 2: contact with water, it expands, and as it expands, it

360
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Speaker 2: will form a seal around the canisters. And we just

361
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Speaker 2: have to hope that they did the math correctly and

362
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Speaker 2: it doesn't pop the cannisters open from the surrounding pressure.

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Speaker 1: Sure, I did not get the memo that we have

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Speaker 1: abandoned Big Max in favor of I guess Olympic pools.

365
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Speaker 1: What happened pool means nothing to me.

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Speaker 2: I just you know, it's just six and a half

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Speaker 2: feet deep.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, So they know it means something to me,

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Speaker 1: a big mac.

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Speaker 2: I know it does, but I don't know. Okay, I'll

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Speaker 2: bring back the Big Max.

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Speaker 1: Well we don't. We can't pause for you to do

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Speaker 1: that mass.

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Speaker 2: No, No, I mean in the future. Okay, okay, I'll

375
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Speaker 2: bring it back for you here there, all right, Okay.

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Speaker 1: It's just a little worried. I thought maybe an email

377
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Speaker 1: got by me.

378
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Speaker 2: Well, Jerry commanded I leave the Big Max alone. I

379
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Speaker 2: think you were so really on that. Yeah, she said,

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Speaker 2: it's old Josh and tired.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, and you how about Olympic pools?

382
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Speaker 2: She said, I don't care as long as it's not

383
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Speaker 2: Big Max.

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Speaker 1: So that side in Finland can store three thousand canisters,

385
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Speaker 1: which is enough to handle Finland. They have five nuclear reactors,

386
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Speaker 1: and they said, hey, hey, the whole operational life of

387
00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:05,280
Speaker 1: these things, and we'll get to operational life of the

388
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:10,680
Speaker 1: whole reactor site. Because you know, you can't make those

389
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Speaker 1: go forever either. You've got to shut those things down eventually.

390
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Speaker 1: But Finland can take care of all their business. They

391
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Speaker 1: said one hundred and twenty years or so to fill

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Speaker 1: that thing completely. It'll last one hundred thousand years, and

393
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Speaker 1: after one hundred thousand years. The idea is that it's

394
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Speaker 1: no longer radioactively dangerous.

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Speaker 2: Right, which is just wrong. It depends on what source

396
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:34,080
Speaker 2: you go to, and it's not clear like ones from

397
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:37,119
Speaker 2: one side and ones from another side. It really depends

398
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Speaker 2: on the source. Some people say nuclear waste is really

399
00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:44,080
Speaker 2: just dangerous for the first few decades, right. Other people

400
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 2: say one thousand years. Other people say tens of thousands

401
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:50,440
Speaker 2: of years. Other people point out that an isotope of

402
00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 2: uranium I think two thirty six or eight has a

403
00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:58,199
Speaker 2: half life of four point five billion years, So it

404
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:01,359
Speaker 2: depends on who you talk to just how long the

405
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 2: stuff is really toxic for. But it seems like the

406
00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:07,400
Speaker 2: stuff that the people are most concerned of are things

407
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 2: like iodine one twenty nine, which has a half life

408
00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:13,960
Speaker 2: of fifteen million years. It's not good. But then on

409
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 2: the other hand, you have caesium one thirty one. I

410
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:21,919
Speaker 2: think I mentioned earlier that that is really easy to

411
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 2: get into the environment, so it causes a lot of problems.

412
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 2: So does iodine one twenty nine, but it has a

413
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Speaker 2: half life of I think like thirty years, so as

414
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Speaker 2: long and a lot of the worst stuff actually goes

415
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:34,879
Speaker 2: away while it's in those pools for the first few years.

416
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Speaker 2: So it really kind of depends on what element or

417
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:43,760
Speaker 2: isotope you're worried about, whether it's safe after however many

418
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Speaker 2: years or not, or if it ever will be safe

419
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Speaker 2: under anything but geological deep time. You know.

420
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if they just said, I don't know,

421
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:55,639
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand years sounds like a long time. Just

422
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Speaker 1: put that down.

423
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Speaker 2: You know. You get the impression on some of this

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Speaker 2: that they are saying that because no one will care,

425
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Speaker 2: Like you would think that, I mean, this is some

426
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 2: really studied science, so you would think that it would

427
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 2: be like figures bandied about everywhere, like, oh, this is

428
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:14,199
Speaker 2: how long nuclear waste is dangerous for, you know, and

429
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Speaker 2: this is why it's just all over the place. And

430
00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 2: that actually is a little bit unnerving. So I think,

431
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:21,679
Speaker 2: if anything, you should err on the side of caution,

432
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Speaker 2: which is I think what they're doing with the geological

433
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 2: repositories essentially is saying, put it as deep in the

434
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Speaker 2: earth as we possibly can, cover it up, walk away,

435
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 2: dusting your hands off, and pretend that it never even happened.

436
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Speaker 1: You know. What I bet they do is they say

437
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Speaker 1: how many years in the future. Do you think people

438
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: no longer care about their future family line? Yeah, that's

439
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:47,360
Speaker 1: like one hundred thousand years. Yeah, that's great. Put that down.

440
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 2: I think it was one hundred and they just multiply

441
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:50,880
Speaker 2: it to buy a thousand.

442
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:54,120
Speaker 1: All right, So we should talk a little bit about

443
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:57,159
Speaker 1: other kinds of nuclear waste. We were talking about the

444
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: high level waste again, the most problematic obviously, that is

445
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 1: just three percent, though of total nuclear waste, but contributes

446
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:09,719
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of the total radio activity. More than

447
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: ninety percent of nuclear waste is low level, and this

448
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 1: is stuff that you know, it might be like the

449
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:18,399
Speaker 1: protective clothes that you wre on site. It's got a

450
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 1: little radioactive dust on it, maybe some tools, maybe some

451
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: disposable materials. We have four locations in the US for

452
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: disposing of this low level stuff, one in South Carolina

453
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: and one in Washington State, one in Utah, and one

454
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 1: in Texas. And this stuff is not nearly as problematic.

455
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:39,640
Speaker 1: It decays to safe levels in about again, who knows

456
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: for sure, but about twenty to thirty years. Well, I

457
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: guess in that case they can test it out at

458
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:48,400
Speaker 1: this point. But that's treated almost like a landfill. It's

459
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:51,200
Speaker 1: in case in concrete and covered with backfill.

460
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, we don't really have to worry too

461
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 2: much about low level waste, I think is the upshot

462
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,680
Speaker 2: of that, right. Yeah, there's also transuranic waste, which has

463
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: incredibly long half lives, and these are often called defense

464
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 2: wastes because they are produced when we produce plutonium for

465
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons. So sometimes plutonium grabs on to some of

466
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 2: the neutrons we've bombarded with and says, oh, let me

467
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,400
Speaker 2: form some neptunium, which has a half life of two

468
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 2: point one four million years, or how about some americium

469
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 2: or plutonium two thirty nine itself has a half life

470
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 2: of greater than twenty four thousand years. So this stuff

471
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 2: is really it's really dangerous, But at the same time,

472
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 2: it also is really fissile, meaning it's ready to go.

473
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 2: It's hit me with some more neutrons and let's split

474
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 2: some more atoms so we can release some more energy.

475
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 2: So it's not necessarily a problem if we can figure

476
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,400
Speaker 2: out what to do with it. It's just that we

477
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 2: haven't quite figured out how to use it yet, so

478
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: in the meantime it gets dropped into the waste isolation

479
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 2: pilot play and for longtime listeners of the podcast, we're

480
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 2: those curious enough to go through the back catalog, which

481
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 2: is really great. We did an episode on nuclear semiotics,

482
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 2: remember that, oh yeah, which is essentially trying to figure

483
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 2: out how to communicate with people ten thousand years in

484
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 2: the future that the waste isolation pilot plant is really

485
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 2: dangerous and to steer clear of it. That was probably

486
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 2: one of my favorite all time episodes.

487
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, And you know, I'm glad you mentioned

488
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: that real quick, if we could just quickly say we

489
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: have many, many, many hundreds up to how many episodes

490
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 1: do we have a couple of thousand.

491
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 2: If you include the short stuff it's coming up on

492
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 2: like twenty three hundred.

493
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, a lot of people like the reason

494
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: we mentioned this is we get emails every single day

495
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: where people like, you should do an episode on like

496
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: these five things, and we've done four of the five

497
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: of those, and so I think a lot of people

498
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: don't realize that. You know, we've been at this for

499
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: close to eighteen years, and so we have a vast

500
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: repository of things. And if you go to your podcast player,

501
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 1: I know on Apple podcasts, there's a little button you

502
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: can click at the bottom that says show all episodes. Yeah,

503
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: so go forth and listen. And in fact, we did

504
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 1: have one from twenty fourteen called can nuclear fusion Reactors

505
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: Save the World?

506
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was a good one too. I love

507
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 2: that one. That's different than this.

508
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's different than this anyway. Lots of good back

509
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: catalog episodes, so we encourage you to seek them out.

510
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 1: A little googling can go a long way as well.

511
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, and our webmaster, Brandon Reid, has put together a

512
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 2: world class search engine on our site, stuffyshould know dot com.

513
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 2: So if you type in any keyword of something you're

514
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 2: looking for, it's probably going to bring up bad episode,

515
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 2: maybe some other episodes that we cover that in, and

516
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 2: then you can listen to it right there on the

517
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 2: site too. So yeah, we do have a very deep

518
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 2: back catalog. It's almost geologic in its stretch.

519
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: How many Olympic pools deep? Is it?

520
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 2: At least ten to fifteen million? I would say.

521
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: Okay, so back to the waste isolated pilot plant in

522
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: New Mexico. Here they bury this transuranic Is that how

523
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: you said it?

524
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 2: Yeah?

525
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: Okay inside a salt layer. That's a couple of thousand

526
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 1: feet below the surface, and salt doesn't have any maybe

527
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: a little bit, but basically no groundwater flow. And you know,

528
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,479
Speaker 1: water's your enemy as far as a corrosive agent with

529
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But the salt is going to form

530
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 1: a seal, just sort of like that clay did around

531
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: those canisters. And that's what we do with that stuff.

532
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: And I mentioned, you know, decommissioning entire nuclear power plants

533
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: and reactors. That's something that you have to do because,

534
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: like I said, these things, you can't just keep tightening

535
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: the bolts on these and expect it to keep running.

536
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,959
Speaker 1: I think, in fact, in the United States, sixty years

537
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: is like the maximum limit before they say shut this

538
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 1: thing down.

539
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, And strangely I did not realize this, but most

540
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 2: of the contaminated stuff is low level waste, like you know,

541
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 2: hazard suits and stuff like that. And even the concrete

542
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 2: that the whole power plan is made from. I saw

543
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 2: that only about one percent of it is radioactive. The

544
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 2: rest can just be treated as construction waste. Essentially. I

545
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 2: saw a proposal saying like, don't do that, like reuse

546
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 2: this stuff as the concrete, like recycle it as the

547
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 2: concrete that seals in the dry casks and stuff like that.

548
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 2: So there's actually there seems to be much more of

549
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 2: a push to recycle all this stuff, as we'll see.

550
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 2: But there's a whole process to decommissioning, and one of

551
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 2: the parts of this process is making sure all those

552
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: fuel assemblies spend or otherwise end up in the cooling

553
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 2: pool and then when it's their time to dry casks.

554
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 2: So what's interesting is a whole power plan will be

555
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 2: taken offline decommission. It's not producing power any longer, but

556
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 2: it still has all those fuel rods, and it's spent

557
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 2: fuel pool, it still has dry casks out back, and

558
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 2: there's still people watching over that stuff because we don't

559
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 2: have anywhere to put it. We're literally leaving them in

560
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 2: spent fuel pools after we turn the power off on

561
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 2: the nuclear power plants. That's what we're doing with our

562
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 2: nuclear waste right now.

563
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's that water in the pools. Like let's

564
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: say you finally get all of them out of the

565
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: pool and in dry cask, then you got a big

566
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: pool of I imagine, very soothing nuclear water that was

567
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: used as a coolant, and you got to do something

568
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: with that and what we do with it, And I

569
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: guess you know what's basically done with it all over

570
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: the world is it's cleaned and then dumped into a waterway,

571
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: an ocean or a river or a lake. And most

572
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: of these plants are by a body of water for

573
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,959
Speaker 1: this reason. And you know, we'll talk a little bit

574
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: about how this is done, the two main processes. But

575
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: I'm not like a conspiracy guy or hugely cynical, but

576
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: I just don't see how that water can ever be

577
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: good enough to dump into an ocean or a lake.

578
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: The only thing I've seen is dilution that full first

579
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 2: of all, so they filter out as much of the

580
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 2: radio nuclides as possible, right, Yeah, and there's whole processes

581
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 2: for separating those things out from the water, but there's

582
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 2: still some left. But their premise is that they're adding

583
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 2: so much fresh water to it. Yeah, before they dump

584
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 2: it into the ocean. It's fine. But I think that's

585
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 2: a very valid point. Like we're talking about nuclear science here,

586
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 2: and this is how far behind the environmental part of

587
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 2: nuclear science is lagging that we're just like, it's fine,

588
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: forget about it, We're just gonna dump it in the

589
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 2: ocean and yes, it's not so bad that they're not

590
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 2: treating it first and diluting it first, but it's still

591
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 2: it's like, really, that's what we can do. That's the

592
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 2: best we can do right now. And the answer is.

593
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean that's Uh, if I don't mention

594
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: the three eyed fish on the Simpsons, we're gonna get emails.

595
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: I guess that we have to mention that, right you bet?

596
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 2: Man.

597
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: Did that fish have a named blinky?

598
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 2: I think, Oh really, I'm pretty sure.

599
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: Didn't it blink? In sequence? Yeah, like pink pink pink. Yeah,

600
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: that's very funny.

601
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 2: That was a pretty cool fish.

602
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. So that's that's what happens to the water.

603
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: So maybe we should take our second break here and

604
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: talk about a bit of a brighter future with ideas

605
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: for recycling and more. Right after this, goods.

606
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 2: Up with jaw shoe on chow out stuff fish. Okay, check.

607
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 2: So I think I said that there's kind of a

608
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: new spirit of recycling that's kind of starting to sweep

609
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 2: the nuclear industry as far as environmental aspects are concerned.

610
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, like you can recycle this stuff.

611
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because there's a couple of things. One is where

612
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 2: when a nuclear fuel rod is spent, it still has

613
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 2: like like a lot of energy left in it. It's

614
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 2: just like you said, not enough energy to power an

615
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 2: old school nuclear reactor. So one solution is to develop

616
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 2: more advanced reactors that can use those same things as fuel.

617
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 2: They're just much more sensitive. Another thing is to take

618
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 2: those and recycle them, like extract the usable stuff out

619
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 2: of it, form new pellets and just start the cycle again.

620
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 2: And you're doing a couple of cool things here. One,

621
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 2: you're taking out the most dangerous part of the radioactive

622
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 2: nuclear waste and leaving behind far less dangerous waste that

623
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 2: you still have to figure out what to do with,

624
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 2: but it's not nearly as bad as the stuff that

625
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 2: you took out of it. And then you're also reusing

626
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 2: power that otherwise under the current plans of just bury

627
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 2: and forget it, you're burying all of that energy. There's

628
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 2: so much energy. There's a startup called oakloh and they

629
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 2: they estimate that the unused spent fuel that we're talking

630
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 2: about just burying thousands of feet under the ground could

631
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 2: power the United States, the entire United States for the

632
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: next one hundred and fifty years, just with the spent

633
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 2: nuclear fuel we have right now, and the idea is

634
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 2: to just bury and forget about it. And it's so

635
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 2: stupid that it actually could be considered a lucky break

636
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 2: that Yucca Mountain didn't work out back in twenty ten,

637
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 2: and it's in limbo because it bought time for people

638
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 2: to come up with other ideas rather than just bury

639
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 2: the stuff that's just such a total waste.

640
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oaklo says they can recycle and reuse ninety four

641
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: percent of uranium in those spent fuel assemblies, and they're

642
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: just one of ten companies. I think they got a

643
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: license from the Department of Energy to build a recycling

644
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: plant in Oakridge, Tennessee. Shout out to the boys. Sure,

645
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: and they're one of ten companies that the Department of

646
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: en selected as part of their reactor Pilot program to

647
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: build these new reactors that can be powered by recycled uranium.

648
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: So that seems like a great way forward. One of

649
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: the concerns here is that you know there is a

650
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: security risk even though like that stuff is again, like

651
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: you said, spent, if you can recycle it to use again,

652
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: even in that small quantity of unspentness, you could also

653
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: make a dirty bomb. Or something for that, so it

654
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 1: needs to be pretty pretty locked down.

655
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 2: And the same fear, except even worse, is associated with

656
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 2: extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel to use that because

657
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 2: that is the core of a nuclear weapon, and that's

658
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,439
Speaker 2: the kind of thing that a foreign country that doesn't

659
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 2: have a nuclear program but really wants one has the

660
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 2: resources to steal from some startup that is refining and

661
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 2: extracting their facility in Tennessee. That's a huge that's actually,

662
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 2: from what I can tell, the number one obstacle to

663
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:12,800
Speaker 2: recycling nuclear waste that security concern.

664
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they could fix that though.

665
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 2: I guess. I mean, we keep our nuclear stockpile safe,

666
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 2: or we have for this long, so why can't we

667
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 2: apply some of that same security to these recycling plants.

668
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 2: I don't understand. It just seems like, a yeah, that's

669
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 2: a huge risk, but it's not something we can't figure out,

670
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 2: you know.

671
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:33,840
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like it probably have to be in

672
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: working in concert with the government and not just saying

673
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 1: like all right, Oaklow, you got your security team. I

674
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 1: see those people with the black eyes odds on, It's

675
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: all good.

676
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. So one of the other things we should say,

677
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 2: I think that people are kind of wary about is

678
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 2: that these startups that are talking about new ideas for

679
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 2: nuclear power are typically doing it to get government buy

680
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 2: in to help fund them to build nuclear plants to

681
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 2: power their AI. So these are like like I think

682
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 2: Oaklo is backed by Sam Altman from Open AI. Essentially

683
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 2: humanity would benefit as a side effect from new advanced

684
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 2: designs for producing nuclear power with less waste. That'd be great,

685
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 2: But the intent, the immediate intent by the people who

686
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 2: are doing this is typically to produce cheaper power to

687
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 2: power their increasingly massive artificial intelligences. That's I think makes

688
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 2: some people wary, including me.

689
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean combining those businesses is a little it's

690
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 1: a little worrisome.

691
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 2: It is. And I can't let an opportunity pass to

692
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 2: shout out. If anyone builds it, everyone dies. By Eliezer

693
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 2: Yukowski and Nate Sores, it's so good where they just

694
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 2: lay out a very straightforward example of how AI could

695
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 2: just get out of control and how we humans would

696
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 2: be in big trouble. And yet it's it's not like

697
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 2: they're AI haters. They're just basically saying, like, we're going

698
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 2: at this at such a terrible pace so recklessly that

699
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 2: we need to put the brakes on globally and figure

700
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:12,359
Speaker 2: out how to do it safely and then do it

701
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 2: and then humanity can benefit from it. So they're not

702
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 2: like lightites or anything like that, and they know what

703
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 2: they're talking about. It's just a good book.

704
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, with things how things are going

705
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: these days, I could use little pick me up, so

706
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: maybe a little light reading. Maybe I'll start that again.

707
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 2: It is like you could read it in a day, man.

708
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: A very depressing day.

709
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 2: It's good though. It's really interesting too because it's also

710
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,439
Speaker 2: a peek inside the current state of the AI industry too,

711
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 2: Like they're insiders, they know what's going on all right.

712
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: So I mentioned earlier these deep geological repositories that they've

713
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: almost finished in Finland, Like those aren't the best idea

714
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,399
Speaker 1: because who knows what's going to happen long term here

715
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:56,359
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. But they are, you know, extracting the

716
00:38:56,400 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: most highly radioactive parts of this waste from everything else else.

717
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 1: Seems like that's headed toward a pretty a pretty good solution.

718
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:08,760
Speaker 1: So they don't know quite what to do with it afterward.

719
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: But one way of doing it is something called transmutation, right.

720
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought this was kind of genius. So essentially

721
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 2: it's taking the extracted most radioactive parts of nuclear waste

722
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 2: and tossing it into a particle accelerator and bombarding it

723
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 2: with neutrons, and by doing so you actually either you

724
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 2: either change them a neutron knocks them proton or some

725
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 2: something off of one of these off of each of

726
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 2: these atoms and converts it into something far less radioactive

727
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 2: that might decay much more quickly, or they grab onto

728
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 2: a neutron and they transform in that way and become

729
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 2: something that might be much more stable that isn't radioactive

730
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,800
Speaker 2: at all. And so you're taking the really radioactive stuff

731
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 2: and you're degrading it really quickly in a particle accelerator,

732
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,280
Speaker 2: and if you do it correct Flea, I guess in principle,

733
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 2: I think all of this is theoretical right now, Yeah,

734
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 2: you could actually produce energy while you're doing this, So

735
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 2: while you're getting rid of waste, you could be producing

736
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 2: energy from the bombardment bombardment.

737
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: I love this thought process. Another one that holds a

738
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 1: lot of promise is actually glass and ceramics. Glass and

739
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: ceramics can both trap those radio nuclides that you were

740
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 1: talking about, and for like a long period of time,

741
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 1: and you know, the idea is that you store this

742
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: stuff in these like like glass logs or ceramic logs. Basically,

743
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:43,320
Speaker 1: glass doesn't degrade very easily, forms a very tight bond

744
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 1: that's kind of like a force field that says nothing's

745
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: getting in or getting out. It's a process called vitrification.

746
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: But it's not just regular old glass. It's like, you know,

747
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,240
Speaker 1: sort of heavy duty nuclear containing glass.

748
00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's cool about it is the glass law

749
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 2: uggs don't act as like container that you put waste in.

750
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 2: You melt the glass, making minerals and the waste together

751
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 2: and it forms the glass log together, so like you're

752
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 2: actually trapping the radioactive particles in glass, not inside glass

753
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 2: as part of glass. It's really genius.

754
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I thought that was clear. But yeah, it's

755
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 1: thanks for clearing that up.

756
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 2: You're welcome. And you can also do the same thing

757
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 2: with ceramics too, apparently.

758
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, ceramics work just as good. We can also re

759
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: recycle the fistle material we're trying to you know, the

760
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: gold there is to recover uranium and plutonium, the main

761
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 1: materials main fissle materials and again separating out the most

762
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:46,879
Speaker 1: radioactive parts of the waste product. Is what you're doing,

763
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 1: is you're trying just to make it all less bad,

764
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:52,439
Speaker 1: less radioactive for.

765
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 2: Sure, and then hopefully doing something with it, like turning

766
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 2: it back into pellets like I saw to make a

767
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: mixed uranium plutonium oxide MOX fuel, you can use eight

768
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:06,760
Speaker 2: old pellets to create one new one, so it actually

769
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 2: is pretty efficient, and you can keep doing that over

770
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:13,399
Speaker 2: and over again until essentially you just don't have enough

771
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 2: left to actually produce any energy. And one of the

772
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 2: other points that I saw, Chuck, is that even if

773
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:24,839
Speaker 2: we can't figure out how to reuse the fuel that

774
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:29,320
Speaker 2: we've isolated and extracted from the spent nuclear fuel waste,

775
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 2: just being able to do that would reduce it by

776
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 2: so much that it would take a huge amount of

777
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 2: our problem for figuring out what to do with the

778
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 2: waste off of the table. So like, if that stuff

779
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,240
Speaker 2: is one percent of all nuclear waste and the United

780
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,359
Speaker 2: States has ninety thousand tons of it, that would drop

781
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 2: it down to just nine hundred tons of really problematic

782
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 2: stuff that we had to figure out how to get

783
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,319
Speaker 2: rid of ninety thousand so there's I mean, aside from

784
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:58,359
Speaker 2: that security risk thing, there's really no reason not to

785
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,439
Speaker 2: process nuclear ways to get the high energy stuff out

786
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 2: of there for one reason or another.

787
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I think that's it.

788
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:06,879
Speaker 2: Man.

789
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:11,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, go forth and recycle your uranium pellets in your home.

790
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:17,319
Speaker 2: That's right, Chuck. And since Chuck talked about recycling uranium pellets,

791
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 2: obviously it's time for listener man.

792
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: This is from Kelly Gizmondi. Hey, guys, I'm a lawyer

793
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: in Louisiana, started listening to Stuff You Should a few

794
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:30,439
Speaker 1: years ago and currently working my way through the back

795
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: log and enjoying every minute. Just got done listening to

796
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 1: your solitary confinement episode and was thrilled to hear you

797
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: talk about the Angola Three. I have represented folks from

798
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: Angola and one of the most interesting stories from Angola

799
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: that was recently published by Calvin Duncan, who was wrongfully convicted.

800
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: By the way, It's called The Jailhouse Lawyer, which is

801
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:53,400
Speaker 1: a deep dive into what life is like for inmate counsel.

802
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 1: Inmate counsel or a group of incarcerated folks who learn

803
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 1: and then teach others the law, draft motions and legal

804
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: islings for others who are incarcerated and help advocate for

805
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 1: those incarcerated as a whole. This is an essential service

806
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: for the incarcerated community because there is no right to

807
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 1: precuncel for post conviction relief, and many people who have

808
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: been convicted of crimes cannot afford legal fees for post

809
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: conviction relief. Man Essentially, if you are poor and have

810
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: been wrongfully convicted of a crime, or if there's another

811
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: legal issue with your conviction, often the only way to

812
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: get legal help is to work with inmate counsel. They're

813
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: incredibly effective and have helped get thousands of incarcerated folks

814
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 1: across Louisiana home to their communities. Would love to hear

815
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,800
Speaker 1: an episode on this. Thanks for all you do for

816
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:41,280
Speaker 1: my brain. That is sincerely from Kelly GISMONDI and Kelly,

817
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: that may be a good short stuff. There's not a

818
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,959
Speaker 1: ton out there, but I bet you we could find

819
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes easy.

820
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it, man, because that is definitely as

821
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,800
Speaker 2: far as I'm concerned, and overlooked issue and the justice

822
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 2: system for sure.

823
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: Yep.

824
00:44:57,360 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 2: Well, God bless you Kelly for what you're doing, your

825
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,359
Speaker 2: work helping people who may have gotten screwed over by

826
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 2: the system. And if you want to be like Kelly

827
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 2: and email us to let us know what you're doing

828
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 2: to help your fellow person we want to hear about that.

829
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 2: You can send it to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

830
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

831
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

832
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.