OT Tidal power.

[Tim Streater]

Bottom line: harry talking c*ck as usual.

[harryagain]

Because there is life at the bottom of the oceans. They are not divorced from us either.

[Tim Streater]

Eats glass does it?

[The Natural Philosopher]

STOP PRESS. Harry is married to an amoeba.

[Chris Hogg]

I think the first three paragraphs in the link put up by TNP* are relevant to Harry. He thinks that just because he hasn't got what it takes to understand what it's all about, nobody else has either.

• or

[harryagain]

That the best you can come up with?

[Tim Streater]

You said "Because there is life at the bottom of the oceans". That the best reason you could come up with? What if there is life down there - at the smokers at 300 or 400C? Why would it pay any attention to stainless steel canisters full of glass - unless it eats glass, that is.

[harryagain]

So they don't turn iy into glass, they mix it with glass. What effect has this on the glass and how is this the same as obsidian? How long does stainless steel last when buried? Why aren't they burying it?

ISTR this process was done to render the waste unusable for weapons, not for disposal. I notice you left out the last bit of the Wiki quote "The amount of fission products in the glass must be limited because some (palladium, the other Pt group metals, andtellurium) tend to form metallic phases which separate from the glass. Bulk vitrification uses electrodes to melt soil and wastes, which are then buried underground.[48] In Germany a vitrification plant is in use; this is treating the waste from a small demonstration reprocessing plant which has since been closed "

[harryagain]

I see you never read TNP's link. The half wit was proposing to sprinkle radioactive glass beads in the ocean. There is life in all parts of the abyss, not just round "smokers".

[Chris Hogg]

You haven't read what it says. Yes, the waste is mixed with glass and fed into an induction-heated furnace where it all melts together and forms a glass of different composition. Do you know anything about glass manufacture, for example window glass? Quartz sand, limestone and soda ash (sodium carbonate) together with some minor components, are heated together in a furnace, when they melt together to form a liquid of uniform composition. The individuality of the components are lost (there are no free sand particles remaining, for example) and they all just become components of the glass. So it is with glassification of nuclear waste.

It is only the same as obsidian to the extent that both are non-crystalline solids with high silica contents and obsidian is able to survive unchanged for millions of years deep within the earth's crust.

I've no idea. But that doesn't mean it won't last for the thousands of years necessary. I don't doubt for one minute that reliable estimates have been made of the durability of the stainless steel containers, by people competent to make such measurements. You don't have to bury stainless steel for 5000 years to know whether it will survive for that time, any more than you have to observe a lump of uranium-235 for

700 million years to know that half of it will have gone in that time.

Political reasons, not technical. When the general public realise that it's not the hazard that people like you say it is and are happy to have burial sites in their area, it will be buried, but not buried as in just digging a hole and covering it with earth, but stored in underground storage areas such as the one being constructed at Onkalo in Finland:

Meanwhile, it's being stored quite safely above ground.

Even if true, it doesn't rule it out as a very safe means of disposal.

Left out because it wasn't relevant to your query. Controlling the composition of the glass to limit its content of the platinum-group metals is trivial, just as is controlling the composition of window or bottle glass. And they're using a vitrification plant in Germany to clean up and solidify waste left over from a now-closed pilot-scale reprocessing plant. So what?

[harryagain]

They're not burying it because they have no idea if the method is viable or not. They are all watching one another's projects to see what happens and if there's a cockup. There;s a few cockups here.

So they produce and store ever more waste with no idea how to permanently deal with it. They make placatery noises to sooth the proles and half wits.

And one from the USA

[Chris Hogg]

Nice to see that progress is being made, albeit slowly. It would seem that old salt mines are mostly not a good idea. However, the Asse II salt mine in Germany was used for low and medium level waste, which was not vitrified nor contained in stainless steel drums, as is now the practice for high-level waste. There is no evidence that radioactivity actually leaked out of the mine, for example into groundwater, nor is it likely that anyone was actually at risk, which is the ultimate test.

The Morsleben salt mine was also used for medium and low level waste. There is no suggestion that there has been any leakage at that site, although TBH I'd be surprised if there wasn't some (mild steel drums and salt don't go together), but again, it's very unlikely that any such leakage would present a hazard to the local population.

No waste was put into Asse II after 1978, and no waste put into Morsleben since 1998. So both are examples of old technology no longer practiced.

Finland and Sweden are now leading the field. It wouldn't surprise me if their sites don't become repositories for most of Europe's high-level waste. Probably a lot cheaper for the UK to use than persuading luddites like you that UK sites are safe, and then constructing them.

The problem with Sellafield is a legacy one. Sellafield exists and has to be dealt with, and costs incurred, whatever they are. The reactors and tanks of accumulated waste, were constructed and used in the early years of nuclear power, weapons and research, when the main purpose was to make plutonium for bombs. When built, little thought was given to decommissioning. Modern nuclear power stations will be much less expensive to decommission, and as has been stated here several times recently, the costing of modern power stations includes decommissioning. So those costs won't be incurred by Sellafield in the future.

As with the UK, much of the cost of dealing with the nuclear waste in the US is legacy stuff. They had a massive nuclear weapons programme. With the easing of E-W tensions, and the decommissioning of large stocks of nuclear weapons, the West has more than enough plutonium to satisfy current weapons needs for many decades, so won't need to manufacture any more. With the advent of shale gas resulting in cheaper electricity from conventional power stations, older nuclear power stations can no longer compete. They close, and their waste has to be dealt with.

As all technologies develop, things get cheaper. Your comments are rather like someone in the 1960's criticising the economics of installing solar panels on the grounds of cost. They got cheaper. It will be the same with nuclear power and waste disposal, especially once older plants and their wastes are dealt with.

The father of Gaia Theory, James Lovelock, has no problem with nuclear waste. I quote from his book 'The Revenge of Gaia', p.91: "An outstanding advantage of nuclear over fossil energy is how easy it is to deal with the waste it produces", and on p.92: "I have offered in public to accept all of the high-level waste produced in a year from a nuclear power station for deposit on my small plot of land; it would occupy a space about a cubic metre in size and fit safely in a concrete pit, and I would use the heat from its decaying radioactive elements to heat my home."

Prof. David Mackay is also pro-environment. He is the Regius Professor of Engineering in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and former chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.

His most notable contribution to the green energy debate is his highly acclaimed book 'Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air'. It's available to read, free, on-line. The chapter on nuclear power begins here and on subsequent pages up to p.176. The section on dealing with nuclear waste is on pp.169-170. You would do well to read it.

Like Lovelock, he also is very happy with nuclear waste. For example, on p.169, he estimates that the total volume of nuclear waste (low, medium and high, combined) per person, per year in the UK, will occupy just about a wine-bottle full. On p.170: "At 25 ml per year [per person], a lifetime?s worth of high-level nuclear waste would amount to less than 2 litres. Even when we multiply by 60 million people, the lifetime volume of nuclear waste doesn?t sound unmanageable: 105 000 cubic metres. That?s the same volume as 35 olympic swimming pools. If this waste were put in a layer one metre deep, it would occupy just one tenth of a square kilometre".

And again, and very relevant to your opinions: "People sometimes compare possible new nuclear waste with the nuclear waste we already have to deal with, thanks to our existing old reactors. Here are the numbers for the UK. The projected volume of ?higher activity wastes? up to 2120, following decommissioning of existing nuclear facilities, is 478 000 m3. Of this volume, 2% (about 10 000 m3) will be the high level waste (1290 m3) and spent fuel (8150 m3) that together contain

92% of the activity. Building 10 new nuclear reactors (10 GW) would add another 31 900 m3 of spent fuel to this total. That?s the same volume as ten swimming pools".

Lovelock and Mackay, would be, by your description, 'proles and half wits'. They are both hugely more intelligent than you (or me, for that matter), and such an opinion shows just how abysmal is your attitude.

I'm getting tired of this discussion. I'll let you have the last word. As a 'prole and half wit' yourself, I'm sure you will!