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How much radioactive waste is known to be in the Irish Sea?
LeastDuck
138,254 tonnes
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
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Can you get power from the radioactive element Xenon?
xenon is usually a waste product of nuclear reactors and although has power not that much
Does fusion create large amounts of radioactive waste?
True. If fusion can be made to work in manmade equipment, for power production, (and this is not certain), there should be much less radioactive waste than for fission reactors. The product of the fusion, helium, is harmless. The engineering details of such a plant have not been established, but the energy produced will presumably be extracted from materials surrounding the reaction chamber which absorb the neutrons produced, so these materials will become irradiated and radioactive. Whether the structure will remain for the life of the plant or perhaps neutron absorbing materials have to be replenished from time to time is unknown, but obviously there will be some radioactive waste to be dealt with.
What happens during radioactive dating?
Radioactive dating is carried out with substances which were formed at some unknown point in the past and contained a known proportion of a radioactive isotope of some element. Radioisotopes decay into other elements at a fixed and known rate. So, if you know how much of the radioactive isotope is still left in the sample, then you can work out how long it would have taken for the rest to have decayed into other elements. That gives the age of the sample.
Why should you ship radioactive waste into space?
It should not be shipped out to space. It would be too expensive. There are thousands of tons of radioactive waste being stored all over the world. It would not be good to put it in orbit, since it might return to Earth for what ever reason. To boost so much weight into escape velocities would cost billion or trillions of dollars. It is much better to develop safe ways to store the waste in ways that will keep it safe for 100s of thousands of years. The facts are simple: # Radioactive waste is a huge problem. # Accidents happen. # It is not just going to go away. # Safe storage methods must be found before unscrupulous people start dumping it into the environment to the detriment of the whole ecosystem.
How can radioactive contamination occur?
Radioactive contamination is also known as radiological contamination. It is the deposition, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces within solids, liquids, or gases. There presence is unintended or undesirable.
How do you dispose of medium level nuclear waste?
The problem is two fold here. The waste from nuclear sites is plentiful only because of foolish guidelines. For example water leaving a power plant can not have as much background radiation as it does when entering in some cases. High level waste we all agree is an issue. Low level waste is not an ssue, but there is this grey area of medium level waste. The simplest method would be to put this waste into barrels and bury it in New Mexico or other solid areas. One interesting method that I was presented with by a passenger on a recent flight was this. We do not actually make radioactive material, we concentrate it. If we take three toms of dirt out of a half ounce of radioactive material, why not mix the material back into the stuff and fill the mine back up with it? No new amounts of radioactive material would be added to the area and the concentrations would be the same! How does one argue this?
Why can't spent nuclear fuel rods be deposited in magma flows to dispense the radioactive material?
Because then, instead of a small volume of relatively concentrated radioactive material, what you get is a large volume of dilute radioactive material that you don't know the exact location of, which may still include relatively concentrated pockets. Dispersion is pretty much exactly what you do notwant to happen with radioactive waste, unless you can precisely control the dispersion and make sure that the concentration is everywhere negligible.
Does nuclear power produce radioactive waste?
Yes. It is contained in the spent fuel rods, which when they have been used too much to be useful anymore are removed from the reactor and stored in a large pool of water to keep them cool until most of the radioactivity has decayed (the energy released in radioactive decay could heat them hot enough to melt if they were not cooled). They were then supposed to be removed from the temporary storage pool and shipped to a long term storage facility or a reprocessing plant, but the US has built neither so the spent fuel rods remain in the temporary storage pools.Also coal fired plants produce and release coal waste, which includes radioactive uranium oxides in the smoke (nuclear power plants do not release their wastes).
How much Irish blood must you have to be in the Irish mafia?
100% Irish blood
What can nuclear waste do to you?
There are 2 primary hazards of nuclear waste. The first is a simple one- a chemical hazard. Some wastes are poisonous, just like their non-radioactive cousins. Poisons can damage different organs of the body, and make you sick- or in high enough concentrations, kill you. The second hazard is the ionizing radiation given off by the waste. Depending on the waste, this may be very low level that is only dangerous if ingested into the body, or high enough to damage the whole body. Known as radiation sickness, an overexposure to hard (ionizing) radiation can cause failures of organ systems, sickness or death, and can cause cancer. The degree of hazard depends on the form of the waste, and how "hot" it is. A solid piece of concrete or steel that is mildly radioactive can be placed in storage with little danger of it being carried into the environment. A water soluble substance like iodine is at a greater hazard of leaching into the environment, and being absorbed by your body.
Why do people working around radioactive waste in a radioactive storage facility wear badges that contain strips of photographic film?
The film in the badges changes colour when radiation hits it. By looking at the badges, the people wearing them can tell how much radiation they have been exposed to. They have different strips of film for different types of radiation, so they are not only able to tell how much radiation someone has been exposed to, but also what type of radiation. Its basically a safety measure to ensure that workers are not exposed to excessive levels of radiation emitted from the waste.
How are radioactive isotopes different from isotopes?
Both isotopes and radioactive isotopes are pretty much the same but radioactive isotopes are better because it can be used to make medicine.
