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Some kinds of radioactive waste, particularly spent fuel from nuclear power plants, will remain dangerous to people for tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years. For this waste to decay to the point that it has approximately the activity of naturally occurring materials, it will take several million years.
Jessika Herman
Flavio Mitchell
1,000,000 years
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoSome kinds of radioactive waste, particularly spent fuel from nuclear power plants, will remain dangerous to people for tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years. For this waste to decay to the point that it has approximately the activity of naturally occurring materials, it will take several million years.
Wiki User
∙ 13y agodepends on the isotope half life, then wait 5 to 10 half lives.
some isotope half lives are in small fractions of a second.
most fission products half lives are under 200 years.
plutonium-239 half life is about 21,000 years.
most uranium half lives are in the billions of years.
what is the composition of your waste?
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoThat depends on the waste. Different materials have a different length of time and the more waste you have the longer it will take. you have to know the half life of the material and how much you have. Need to find what level of radioactivity you are considering to be a "safe level" and what the maximum amount of your material you can have and still be below that level. After that you simply find how many times you need to divide the mass of your material by 2 to get it below the max "safe" amount and multiply the half life of that material by the number of times you divided by 2.
Most Radio active waste can stick around for many many years.
Wiki User
∙ 11y agoThat depends on the specific isotopes involved. Some decay faster than others.
Wiki User
∙ 10y agoNuclear waste has to be stored for thousands of years before it is no longer hazardous. Some would say that it is always a hazard.
Wiki User
∙ 12y agoi need this for science so someone answer this please.
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How long does nuclear waste need to be safely stored?
1,000,000 years
Where should nuclear waste not be stored?
This is a trick question Nuclear waste should not be stored at all. But as we have some and need to store it, where is an important consideration. Transport is risky. Where you store it has to be able to handle it if it leaks for a million years or so, at least until its safe to handle. The US government has a facility that sounds good, A old salt mine that could hold the danger for a very long time. But is it really in a geologically stable place? Can it leak waste? Will there be an accident moving the waste? Should special storage be built where the waste is?
How do you dispose of high level nuclear waste?
Unfortunately for humankind, the answer is, as yet, not known.
What are the different levels of nuclear waste?
There are three main categories of nuclear waste:High Level Waste, including waste fuel and similar materialsIntermediate Level Waste, such as materials from reactor decommissioning, sludge, and so on, that require shielding. This category is not in use in the United States. In the United States there is an intermediate level termed Transuranic Waste, which consists of materials that contain transuranic elements due to contamination, and so need shielding.Low Level Waste, including materials contaminated with radioactive materials with short half lives, such as clothing, paper, filters, tools, and so on, that can be stored for a relatively short time and requires little, if any, shielding aside from short term burial
Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear reactor?
One of the advantages of the nuclear reactors is that they do not produce smoke particles that pollute the environment and therefore lead to the acidic rainfall. The other advantage is that it is easier to control the output of a nuclear reactor to fit a given need. One of the disadvantage of the nuclear reactors is that the disposal of the nuclear waste is very expensive.
How long does nuclear waste need to be safely stored?
1,000,000 years
Where should nuclear waste not be stored?
This is a trick question Nuclear waste should not be stored at all. But as we have some and need to store it, where is an important consideration. Transport is risky. Where you store it has to be able to handle it if it leaks for a million years or so, at least until its safe to handle. The US government has a facility that sounds good, A old salt mine that could hold the danger for a very long time. But is it really in a geologically stable place? Can it leak waste? Will there be an accident moving the waste? Should special storage be built where the waste is?
Where should nuclear waste should be stored?
This is a trick question Nuclear waste should not be stored at all. But as we have some and need to store it, where is an important consideration. Transport is risky. Where you store it has to be able to handle it if it leaks for a million years or so, at least until its safe to handle. The US government has a facility that sounds good, A old salt mine that could hold the danger for a very long time. But is it really in a geologically stable place? Can it leak waste? Will there be an accident moving the waste? Should special storage be built where the waste is?
Which issue associated with nuclear power is the biggest source of debate?
The biggest issue associated with nuclear power is determining what can be done with the radioactive waste.
Would reusing nuclear fuel be safer because of the lack of need for storage?
Recycling nuclear fuel does not eliminate the need for long term storage of spent fuel. Uranium fuel is routinely refined and recycled, but the process is messy, expensive and itself creates nuclear waste. Some long lived isotopes of fission will always need disposal somewhere.
What do nuclear power plants do with their waste products?
Nuclear waste can be divided into two types, high level, and low level. Low level nuclear waste is materials that have been exposed to nuclear materials, such as tritiated water, pieces of contaminated clothing, contaminated tools, materials that have been in the nuclear reactor or with the high level waste, earth that has had contaminated water soak into it, and so on. Some of these are stored at the plant, and others are shipped off to low level waste storage facilities. They are separated according to need. Some may need to be stored for a period of decades or centuries while the materials in them decays, and others may need to be stored for centuries. High level waste needs to cool off before anything can be done with it, so when it is removed from a reactor, it is put into a spent fuel pool where it is cooled with water while the short term isotopes in it decay to the point that they do not give off too much heat. This takes several years. At that point, the waste may be moved to what is called dry cask storage, where it is held until someone decides what to do with it on a more permanent basis. Some countries allow waste to be reprocessed and some do not. The United States does not, and since no one has figured out how to store waste over a long term, the waste accumulates at the plants that produced it. This is not a good solution because the plants are nearly all sitting on the shore or on river or lake banks, where they are exposed to some degree. The French have been very aggressive with reprocessing nuclear waste, and do it for a number of other countries. This is fine, except that the reprocessing has its own set of possibilities of disaster, the very reason the United States does not allow reprocessing. There are technologies being developed, such as energy amplifiers or accelerator driven systems, that may be able to use the nuclear waste as an energy source, reducing it to radiologically inert material in the process. We do not know if this will work.
Why is it necessary for structured waste handling plans to be implemented and followed?
Structured waste handling plans must be implemented and followed becuase certain waste products need to be processed or disposed of carefully due to their composition. Most nuclear waste needs to be encased in concrete and stored deep underground for hundreds of years. Household waste needs to be treated to remove bacteria etc before it can (perhaps) be used in landfill sites.
How do you dispose of high level nuclear waste?
Unfortunately for humankind, the answer is, as yet, not known.
What are the different levels of nuclear waste?
There are three main categories of nuclear waste:High Level Waste, including waste fuel and similar materialsIntermediate Level Waste, such as materials from reactor decommissioning, sludge, and so on, that require shielding. This category is not in use in the United States. In the United States there is an intermediate level termed Transuranic Waste, which consists of materials that contain transuranic elements due to contamination, and so need shielding.Low Level Waste, including materials contaminated with radioactive materials with short half lives, such as clothing, paper, filters, tools, and so on, that can be stored for a relatively short time and requires little, if any, shielding aside from short term burial
Does nuclear power station provides cleaner more efficient energy?
It's definitely cleaner than fossil fuels. It produces very little pollution, just waste, which can be stored safely. As for whether it's more "efficient", you need to define what you mean. Nuclear power plants use far smaller amounts of fuel than fossil plants.
Is solar power or nuclear power better?
The 'power' that comes from a both nuclear and solar is the same - it's electricity. Nuclear power is quite clean while it is being produced (assuming nothing goes wrong with the plant), however getting rid of the harmful nuclear waste after it's use is an extremely difficult pollution problem. Solar power is 100% clean, and no harmful waste is caused after it's useful life. If you were to power a house with solar electricity, it can either be done by suplimenting the electricity needs at night with other green electicity (such as from a green energy supplier), or the electricity from the solar panels can be stored in solar batteries then power will be available day and night. Looking at the very short term problem, nuclear produces a lot of power and is clean (apart from after it's use). Looking at long term, and the need to reduce pollution and nuclear waste then more solar power is better. Nuclear and solar should work together - If more houses/buildings were powered by solar (and other green electicity) then it would mean reducing the need for quite as many nuclear power stations.
Why isn't nuclear energy used more often by the society?
Nuclear power plants are expensive to build and need highly trained engineers to operate. Fear of a nuclear accident and fear of nuclear waste mean many people don't want nuclear plants to be built near them.
