WEBVTT - What To Do With All This Nuclear Waste? 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.520 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.759 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is a good 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.119 old fashioned episode of Stuff you Should Know. 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:21.840 D D. 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.200 Are you talking about the Green Gow? Yeah? 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:31.280 I mean it's just hard not to think of Homer 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:33.720 Simpson when you're talking about nuclear power at all. 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.000 Yeah, and nuclear waste in particular. 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.000 Right, Yeah, Like you know that little Rod flies right 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:40.800 into his hood, right. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.000 This inanimate carbon Rod is the employee of the Year. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:46.040 I think that's right. 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.000 So, yeah, it turns out that nuclear waste doesn't really 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.640 look like that. It certainly doesn't glow green. Probably the 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.880 closest you could get to what the Simpsons depict, and 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.160 not just the Simpsons, I think the classic movie Men 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.440 at Work featuring brothers Melio Estevez and Charlie Sheen. 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:06.440 Never saw it. 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.720 It's good as far as eighties comedies. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:11.200 Go, it's pretty good. 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:13.680 And they play a lot of two live crew too. 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:15.039 Oh well, there you go. 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.479 Because I think it takes place in Miami. I'm not sure. 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.880 But the closest you can get to that from what 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:26.800 I can tell, is a sludge toxic nuclear sludge that 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.440 is described as having kind of a peanut buttery consistency. 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.040 This is gross and dangerous, you know. 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.880 Yeah, it's not as sandwich you want unless you cut 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:37.520 the crust off. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.440 So for the most part, though, nuclear waste is solid, 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:49.680 it's like pellets of solid essentially metal material made up 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:54.160 of a bunch of different elements and metals and all 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:59.440 sorts of crud pressed together to form essentially a uranium 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.760 fuel what it starts out as, but after it undergoes 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.920 nuclear fission for five or six years, it says, I'm spent, 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.639 get me out of here, and a new fuel assembly 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:11.359 sprought in. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.400 Yeah, that's right. And this is clearly the most dangerous 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.600 kind of nuclear waste We're going to go over, you know, 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.639 several different kinds of nuclear waste, but this is the 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:23.760 stuff that you really really got to take care of. 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:25.720 I mean, you got to take care of all it, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.520 of course, but this is stuff that's super dangerous, right, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:34.040 And these pellets are these little cylinders about the size 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.200 I guess it depends on your thumb, but you know, 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.880 like midway up your thumb, half a thumb. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.000 Okay, half thumb anything but metric. 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:48.040 Yeah, not the thumb stump, like the actual thumb print 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.200 section of your thumb, the thumb sprout, Yeah, the thumb 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:56.320 sprout exactly. And you know, disposing of this stuff is 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.520 sort of the highest level of concern because we have 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.919 to do it, so we don't there's not a place 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.000 in the world that has a permanent solution for this, 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:12.840 even though Finland is pretty close to you know, I'm 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.000 going to put air scare quotes as you call them, 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.080 around a permanent solution, because who knows what permanent means, 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.920 you know, in fifty thousand years, and we were going 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:23.920 to build one of these in twenty ten, and we'll 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.880 talk about why that didn't happen. But since the nineteen forties, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.400 we've had a lot of different kinds of nuclear waste 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.000 to dispose of, and we've been getting rid of it 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.720 and storing it in a few different ways since then. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.480 But there's a potentially a brighter future ahead with some 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.080 pretty ingenious ideas. 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.720 Yeah, fingers crossed, because right now we're going down the 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.600 road that was proposed a long time ago, and it's 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:53.320 kind of a dumb, unnecessary road, and hopefully smarter heads 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.760 will prevail. But yeah, we'll get into that later. But 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.560 one thing I thought was fascinating is that there is 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.920 way less nuclear waste than you would think, right. I 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.960 think something like if you took all of the nuclear 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:10.240 power that you used, you Chuck used for your entire 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.720 lifetime moment of birth. 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.000 Yep, the moment you die in a couple of years. 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.039 All of it now far longer than that, I hope. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.520 So all of that nuclear waste would be compressed to 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.479 about a hockey puck. So each of us in the 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.600 United States have a hockey puck worth of nuclear waste 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.120 assigned to us, and each of us has to figure 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.080 out what to do with that hockey puck individually. That's 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:36.080 the new standard. 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:38.880 That's right. And by the way, if people think I 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.360 do have Chuck Stradama's powers of the future, please do 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.760 not get concerned that I foretold my death in two years. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:47.440 It's okay, okay. 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:49.479 I don't know if that erased it for everybody, but 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:50.760 all right. It was a good attempt. 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.040 I could to hear someone out there being like, oh, no, no, no, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:54.760 Chuck said he's going to die in two years. That's 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.719 he shan't even say things like that, Lest we forget 0:04:57.800 --> 0:04:58.880 Jared and Hugh Jackman. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:01.359 I mean, I don't like you saying it, but you know, 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.719 I'm just I'm nervously laughing instead. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.640 All right, so we should kind of quickly go over 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.320 how nuclear reactors work, even though we have a pretty 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:12.560 great episode on that. 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.040 But the upshot of all this is, even though each 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.440 of us just has a hockey pucks worth of nuclear 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.919 waste and it amounts to you, I think, like ninety 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.800 thousand tons, which is eye popping in the United States alone, 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.359 it's eye popping, but it's actually not that much. The 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.520 problem is, is it that it's very dangerous for a 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.360 very long time afterward, and you have to put it 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.359 in very very special places. And those special places are 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.039 essentially what we're gonna kind of go over today. 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.679 Yeah, disposing of that stuff. Yeah, we have a pretty 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:52.320 good episode on nuclear energy. I can't remember what it 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.960 was called, do you happen? Did you check that? I know? 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.360 The only one I can think of where we really 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.560 talked about what happens in nuclear reactors was Fukushima. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:04.880 That kind of like I thought, we did one just 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.279 on creating nuclear energy. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.599 Now I don't know, man, I don't think so. 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.520 All right, well we'll go over quickly again just how 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:16.280 it works, because it works how creating energy works at 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.920 a coal plant or a natural gas plant, because what 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.520 you're essentially trying to do is boil water to produce steam, 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.039 and that steam turns a turbine. But in this case, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:30.360 the fuel is not coal or natural gas. It's these 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.360 little uranium two thirty five pellets, like I said, the 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.400 sort of a half of a thumb size. And you 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:41.039 mentioned fuel assembly, a fuel assembly, Well, you get these 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.440 little pellets, you put them inside these long fuel rods, 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.320 and then you bundle together those fuel rods and those 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.400 are the fuel assemblies. And depending on the size of 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.679 the reactor and the type, there's anywhere from one hundred 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.159 and fifty to about eight hundred of those bundled up 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.600 cylindrical fuel as fuel assemblies in the reactor. 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.040 Core, right, And they're kept underwater. And the water does 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.480 a couple of things. One, it actually helps carry out 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:14.360 the nuclear chain reaction that produces the heat that boils 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.000 the water, that produces the steam that turns the turbine 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.880 that creates the electricity, right, But it also keeps it 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.880 from going critical. It also cools it, so there's a 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.360 constant flow of water in and out to maintain it 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.480 at a fairly constant temperature at like one hundred and 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.880 fifteen fahrenheit or something like that. And what's great about 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.480 this is this is a it's a self contained process, 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:44.160 unlike burning natural gas or coal. There's no emissions. And 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.880 everybody says, hooray, no emissions, and then they say, yes, 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.400 but we also have this nuclear waste as a resultant, 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.400 and he says, oh, so that's where we stand. Nuclear 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:57.120 power has a lot of promise if done well, especially 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.080 with some of the advanced designs that are coming down 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.080 the Pike's not a bad energy source. It's just we 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.560 haven't figured out what to do with the nuclear fuel. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.880 And that's such an understatement, Chuck that if you actually 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.360 once you start figuring out what we're doing with our 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:17.920 spent nuclear fuel, it's it's almost embarrassing that this is 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.000 what we're doing. We're just basically stashing it over here 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:22.720 until we can figure out what to do with it 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.440 in the long term. And we've been doing that for 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:25.280 half a century. 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:27.920 Yeah, yeah, it's been going on for a long time. 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:30.560 The thing is, you know, these things wear out, which 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.840 is why we have to remove you know, once you 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.720 spin that fuel, just like a lump of coal would 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.480 get spent. You got to do the same with the 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.920 nuclear stuff. So every I think five or six years 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.640 it can go before that's basically on empty. But it's 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:50.400 not on empty, as we'll see, because there's still a 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.800 little bit of juice left, just not enough to power 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.360 sort of the old school reactors. Right, So every year 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.920 and a half to two years, a nuclear reactor is 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.319 going to close the doors and they're gonna cycle through 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.839 about a third of their fuel assemblies and get rid 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.360 of those. And that is the really high level nuclear 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.080 waste that is the most concerning and the stuff that 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.839 we need to be the most judicious with. 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.600 Yes, very fortunately they don't just take these fuel assemblies 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.360 and toss them out back into an ever growing pile. 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.640 They kind of do, but there's a little more to it. 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.400 What they do initially is so remember these things are underwater, 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.240 and they're underwater for a reason, not just for to 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.640 carry out the chain reaction that produces power, but also 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.600 to keep them from going critical. So they're moved from 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:43.200 the reactor core to what are called spent fuel pools 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.000 I want to say spent fuel puels. Every time I 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.560 say that out loud, but can't. So they and they 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.800 never leave the water. They're taken down these special canals 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.520 that connect the core, the reactor core, to the spent 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.760 fuel pools. And just to add a little charm to it, 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.120 they actually attach them to the bottom of a gondola 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.440 that it through the canal. It is very cute. And 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.520 then once they get to the spent fuel pool, they're 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:15.200 basically dropped into this huge pool, stainless steel pool that's 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.800 about has about forty feet of water in it, and 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:20.960 there I don't know, I think about ten feet or 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.079 so tall. So they sink down at the bottom and 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.760 they've got twenty thirty feet of water over them and 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.360 they stay there for years because they're so hot and 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.600 they're so radioactive, it would be insane to do anything 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.520 else with them, but basically put them in the pools 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:36.959 and let them sit there for a while. 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.040 Yeah, you can look up a picture of a spent 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:45.120 fuel pool and it's really cool looking. And like you said, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.280 I mean two to five years just for these things 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.320 to cool off. They decay a little bit as far 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.920 as the radioactivity goes, But you know, that's a process 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.120 that for the most critical stuff that takes you know, 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.600 thousands of years, so it's really just a blip of 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.240 radioactivity that decays in that two to five years. But 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.280 what they're really doing is cooling that stuff down, because 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.240 if they even pulled it out to transport it and 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:11.520 didn't do so in a canal, it seems like it 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.880 would just combust, right, isn't that the idea? 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.160 Yeah, a fuel assembly, especially a bunch of fuel assemblies 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.080 exposed to air, would just produce so much heat that 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.840 they would blow up. And when they blew up, remember 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:28.320 these are fairly recent spent fuel rods, they would release 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.840 a lot of really bad stuff like sasium one thirty 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.760 seven that spreads in the air very quickly, It settles 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.280 into the environment very quickly, it enters the food chain, 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.160 and it causes all sorts of problems when it enters 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.640 the body and it sticks around for a while. It's 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.679 one of the big problems with nuclear waste. So you 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:51.079 want to keep those spent fuel assemblies underwater for basically 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.960 as long as you possibly can before you put them 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:59.120 into basically dry dock. And this is where essentially what 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.000 I was saying, where they just toss them out back. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:03.760 That's what they do, but they put them into something 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.520 called the dry cask first, and it's at a little 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.000 more technical than just throwing it into a pile, but 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.800 it's imprinciple roughly the same thing. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:16.560 That's very funny to me that you keep liking it 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:18.319 to throwing it out back in a pile. 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.240 Because that's what they're doing. Man. Like these dry casks. 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.440 It goes from a pool to a dry cask on 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.679 the same site and they just sit there in the 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.480 dry cask like, Okay, you stay here until we can 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.240 figure out what to do with you one hundred years 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:31.680 from now. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.000 So for the first couple of decades that we had 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.440 this stuff, all of it was just in those cooling pools. 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.880 But those pools started to fill up. They're all on site, 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:43.800 you know, it's not like they have to transport them 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.840 except you know, very locally via canal. And then they said, hey, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:50.760 these pools are filling up. We got to come up 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.400 with a better way. They started looking into the dry 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:56.679 cask method in the seventies and I think in eighty 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.760 six in the United States at the Surrey Nuclear Power 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.440 Plant in Virginia is where we had our first dry 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.520 storage facility and these casks are about twenty feet tall, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.640 eight feet in diameter the way about one hundred tons, 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.480 and in that cask is several dozen of those fuel assemblies. 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.920 And again those fuel assemblies are made up of the 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.640 individual fuel rods that are holding the pellets, So several 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.839 dozen of those stacked together sealed inside a canister. They 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.800 bolt it shut, suck out the air, and replace it 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.440 with the inert gas. And then that steel canister is 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.760 surrounded by a thick concrete wall and they throw it 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:35.120 out back right. 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.679 They stand it up out back, and the inert gas 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.160 x as a coolant rather than using water, which would 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.600 corrode things. The inert gas can also absorb the radiation 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.720 and the heat. And then the concrete they use is 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.679 like very special concrete with polymer fibers and added boron 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.079 to make it even denser. And then they also mix 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:59.840 in magnetite and b baryte to essentially absorb radioactive particles. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.839 So it's like the dry casks are pretty good as 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.240 far as I know, though they're only rated for about 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.720 one hundred years of storage. After that, they're like, we're 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.600 not guaranteeing anything. And so I think you said the 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.640 first one was sealed up in nineteen eighty six, So 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:22.440 we're at forty years essentially already ticking off the clock 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.600 for those earliest dry casks that were sealed, which, when 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.440 you start to think of it like that, like it 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.960 makes this like getting to a solution of what to 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:40.760 do long term permanent storage essentially how important it is 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.400 to do it as soon as possible, because if we 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.560 don't figure out exactly how to do it and then 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.360 start building it, that sixty years is going to come 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.600 and go quicker than we think. That's a long time 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.680 to design something that's one of probably the most persistent 0:14:55.800 --> 0:15:00.920 problems that the world faces environmentally spent nuclear fuel. 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:06.040 Yeah, for sure. Right now, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:10.600 NRC is looking at applications for a couple of larger 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.520 storage sites here in the US for those dry casts, 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.600 one in New Mexico and one in Texas. These are 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:21.400 called consolidated interim storage sites. Again because it's just you know, temporary, 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.640 and I think all over the world about seventy percent 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.520 of the fuel that's used up is in pools, about 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:35.320 thirty percent is in these dry casks, and you know, 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.880 these things supposedly are built to withstand natural disasters and 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.720 things like that. But like you said, like they're stored 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.320 either on or near the surface. It's not like they're 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:46.880 buried in bedrock, which is we'll see, is maybe a 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.360 more permanent solution. And in fact that's that's the one 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.920 that the US was working on inside the Yucka Mountain 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.800 and Nevada, and it had NRC and EPA approval, but 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:03.760 Nevada said, Nope, we don't want that here. Obama canceled 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.840 it in twenty ten, and so far we don't have 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:11.720 a new sort of again scare quote permanent solution here 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:12.320 in the US. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.560 Yeah, the big problem is in nineteen eighty seven, Congress 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:19.960 said Yucka Mountain is the only site that the DOE 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.520 and the NRC can use to dispose of nuclear waste. 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.280 You can't put it anywhere else geologically for long term storage. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.360 And then they never went back and said, well, since 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.160 we're not going to put it Yucka Mountain, we'll do 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:37.000 it here instead. So it's just totally in limbo. So 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.560 in the interim literally, these interim storage sites, like you said, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.200 in Texas and New Mexico, that's kind of the next 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.080 big hope after the dry casks. I think the one 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.080 in New Mexico will be capable of containing one hundred 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.960 and twenty thousand tons of spent nuclear fuel, which is 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.560 a lot, especially considering that the US has only about 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.760 ninety thousand tons of spent fuel total. But we're also 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.440 adding about two thousand tons a year, so in fifteen years, 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.080 New Mexico would be full up. So again, you kind 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.520 of see how this clock is ticking, because it's not 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.280 like anyone saying, well, let's wait on nuclear power any 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.480 further until we figure out what to do with this. 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.760 They're just it's just a go go go swinging kind 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:18.400 of industry. 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.040 You know, maybe we should go go go on a break. Yeah, 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.800 and I promised talk of Finland earlier, and maybe we'll 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:36.679 pick up with that right after this good look up 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.439 with Joe shoe on cho. 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:41.439 Stuff. 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:48.239 You shit, all right, So we mentioned Finland early on 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:50.360 as being kind of the only place in the world 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:55.040 now that is close to being done with a again 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.760 scare quote permanent solution. And the reason we keep saying 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.040 scare quotes is because you know, you sent me some 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.600 information that was like, hey, nobody knows what's going to 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.080 happen in thousands and thousands of years, so you can't 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.440 really call it permanent when there's climate change and potential 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.679 like asteroid impacts and things like that that like, we 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.160 just don't know what's coming our way, so you can't 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.200 really say it's permanent, but they're calling it permanent even so. 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.600 This one is called on Collo, which means cavity or pit, 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:29.760 and it's the first on planet Earth a geologic repository 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.800 where supposedly, you know, they say that you can store 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.360 this stuff, you know, close to fifteen hundred feet down 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.199 under the earth in the bedrock, and that stuff's been 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:42.920 there for millions of years, so this stuff should be 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:43.840 pretty good down there. 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.760 Yeah, And I mean they're like in the bedrock. They're 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:51.400 talking about fourteen hundred and thirty feet down, which for reference, 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.119 is two hundred and twenty times deeper than the depth 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:58.479 of an Olympic swimming pool. The spent fuel assemblies are 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.600 put into steal canisters and then just to show off, 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:05.800 Finland surrounds them with a two inch thick layer of 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.560 copper because copper won't corrode in the anaerobic conditions down 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.840 fourteen hundred and thirty feet under the ground. They're putting it. 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.760 Once they get to that fourteen hundred and thirty feet depth, 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.280 they go into shafts that are another thirty feet deep, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.560 which is four point six times deeper than an Olympic pool, 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.320 and then they stack the canisters one on top of 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.600 each other. Finally they top off that thirty foot deep 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.280 shaft and then they fill them with bentonite, which is 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.119 a clever thing to add because it's it's compressed clay 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.200 that essentially remember those little dinosaur sponges that were really 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.080 tiny and then you drop water on them and they 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.639 turn into like a full size Tyrannosaurus rex. It's like that, 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:48.720 but it's the clay version of that. When it makes 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.800 contact with water, it expands, and as it expands, it 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.239 will form a seal around the canisters. And we just 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.199 have to hope that they did the math correctly and 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.000 it doesn't pop the cannisters open from the surrounding pressure. 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.600 Sure, I did not get the memo that we have 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.760 abandoned Big Max in favor of I guess Olympic pools. 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.760 What happened pool means nothing to me. 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.720 I just you know, it's just six and a half 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:16.160 feet deep. 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.199 Oh okay, So they know it means something to me, 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:19.840 a big mac. 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.720 I know it does, but I don't know. Okay, I'll 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:24.119 bring back the Big Max. 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:26.280 Well we don't. We can't pause for you to do 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:27.160 that mass. 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.280 No, No, I mean in the future. Okay, okay, I'll 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.040 bring it back for you here there, all right, Okay. 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.439 It's just a little worried. I thought maybe an email 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:35.720 got by me. 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:39.399 Well, Jerry commanded I leave the Big Max alone. I 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:41.600 think you were so really on that. Yeah, she said, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:42.959 it's old Josh and tired. 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.920 Oh no, yeah, and you how about Olympic pools? 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:48.760 She said, I don't care as long as it's not 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:49.399 Big Max. 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:55.640 So that side in Finland can store three thousand canisters, 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.200 which is enough to handle Finland. They have five nuclear reactors, 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:01.800 and they said, hey, hey, the whole operational life of 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.280 these things, and we'll get to operational life of the 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:10.680 whole reactor site. Because you know, you can't make those 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.160 go forever either. You've got to shut those things down eventually. 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.679 But Finland can take care of all their business. They 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:18.880 said one hundred and twenty years or so to fill 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.240 that thing completely. It'll last one hundred thousand years, and 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.080 after one hundred thousand years. The idea is that it's 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:27.600 no longer radioactively dangerous. 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:31.080 Right, which is just wrong. It depends on what source 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.080 you go to, and it's not clear like ones from 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:37.119 one side and ones from another side. It really depends 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.639 on the source. Some people say nuclear waste is really 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.080 just dangerous for the first few decades, right. Other people 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.760 say one thousand years. Other people say tens of thousands 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.440