depends on the type of waste, that determines its halflife. some waste will be safe in just a few decades, other types will take millions of years.
if they would reprocess reactor nuclear waste so that uranium, plutonium, and other transuranics were recycled as fuel instead of staying in the waste; the remaining waste could be stored in a repository for 100 to 200 years and be safe after that.
It would take hundreds of thousands of years for the most common isotope being synthesized, which is plutonium-239. Hundreds of tons have been produced for nuclear weapons.
The half-life of plutonium-239 is 24110 years, and it is only "lost" if it fissions in large nuclear reactors, where currently more is being produced than is used up. Decay is not a practical consideration because of the long time frame that this entails.
*Smaller power generators utilize plutonium-238 for the thermal energy released from its decay (half-life of 87.7 years).
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However much there is, it will be "gone" for practical purposes in the same number of half lives (about 5 to 10, or 120550 to 241100 years), but It will take much longer than hundreds of half-lives for it ALL to be gone, because as the number of atoms is reduced, it takes much longer for a given volume to decay.
There are different types (isotopes) of plutonium, and they react differently. In other words, the details of the radioactive decay depend on the specific isotope.
As an example, plutonium-239 decays into uranium-235, with a half-life of about 24,000 years. After that time, ONE-HALF of any given sample will have decayed. For individual atoms, the atom has a probability of 1/2 of decaying within one half-life.
Milliards of years by natural radioactive decay.
The half life of the most important isotope (239Pu) is 24 200 years.
For the half lives of the other isotopes see the link below.
The half life of the most important isotope (239Pu) is 2,41.104 years.
A very long time; some isotopes of plutonium have half lives of many ten thousand years.
It depends on what the toothbrush is made of.
The amount of time it takes for a paperclip to decompose depends on the material it is made out of. Metal paperclips take longer to decompose than plastic ones.
i don't know ask someone smart
Plutonium is only paramagnetic.
9,990 years
how long does fabrics take to decompose how long does fabrics take to decompose
Does not decompose
1700 years to decompose
Gold will never decompose.
how lond does it take to decompose a band aid
iron does not decompose but after a long time and i mean a long time it just starts to flake away but does not decompose
how long
Brass is a metal it does no decompose. Only organic materials can decompose.
about 5oo years...
it takes about 10 years to decompose .
it takes over a year for it to decompose
it takes about 10 years to decompose .