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Radioactive Waste
Radioactive waste is waste that contains radioactive materials. This can be caused by nuclear fission, nuclear medicine, radiography, and other sources. There are very strict rules about the storage and disposal of radioactive waste.
334 Questions
Mainly I think these are people who oppose anything to do with nuclear power
salt mines
During President Clinton's term, international inspectors were not allowed to look at North Korean sites where nuclear waste was being dumped because the North Koreans did not want people to know what was going on. That country continues to keep much of their nuclear capability a secret from the rest of the world.
Should Australia take other countries nuclear waste?
This must be left to the Australians to decide, but they have plenty of unused space and stable geology. But most Australians appear to be opposed to this proposal. No matter how stable the geology may seem, there would be a small but real risk of radiation escaping over a period of many thousands of years. There is a better case for saying that those nations who choose to create nuclear waste should find safe solutions, whether in their own countries or elsewhere, without singling out one country.
How does radioactive dating relate to fossils and radioactive waste?
There are a number of types of radiometric dating. Carbon-14 dating, which is perhaps best known, can only be used for things some thousands of years old at most, and so is not particularly useful for fossils. Other types of radiometric dating, however, are good for hundreds of thousands or millions of years, and these are very useful for fossils. In fact they can be used to estimate the ages of various kinds of rocks.
Radioactive waste is a pollutant that affects some radiometric dating techniques, skewing them. For example, above ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s produced waste carbon-14, almost doubling the amount in the atmosphere for some time. This would make samples from that period appear too new.
Most radioactive materials in nuclear waste or pollution would not have this sort of effect, however. In order to influence radiometric dating, the material measured has to be part of the pollution or has to be generated from it. Carbon-14 results from a collision of a neutron with nitrogen-13 (a hydrogen atom is also generated). But this happens in the upper atmosphere as a result of cosmic rays. There are very few sources of neutrons on Earth, with uranium-235 probably being the most common. So ordinary nuclear waste from such sources as power plants will not usually skew carbon-14 dating.
On the other hand, the isotopes other than carbon-14 that are used in radiodating may be among those in nuclear waste. Among the isotopes that might be affected are those used in iodine-xenon dating, rubidium-strontium, and potassium-argon dating. Nuclear pollutants might include these isotopes in them, and so exposure would possibly skew results.
There are other forms of pollution that affect carbon dating. Burning of fossil fuels increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere without increasing the amount of carbon-14. This would make some samples from the period after about 1700 appear too old.
Why do hydrogen bombs produce radioactive waste?
Although the name suggests that the bomb solely uses nuclear fusion to create mass destruction, a Hydrogen bomb actually contains both fission and fusion fuels. Since fusion requires such a high energy input to initiate, a fission bomb is required to detonate the fusion component of the Hydrogen bomb, thereby releasing nuclear waste and radiation.
High level nuclear waste is created in two main ways:
- Nuclear energy reactors during normal operations generate radioactivity which affects metals and water in the plant; also used-up fuel is left over after being used for reaction.
- Nuclear weapons programs use nuclear reactors to create plutonium with a lot of radioactive byproducts. The leftover materials and just about everything that comes near the weapons material becomes nuclear waste.
Low level nuclear waste is created in many ways, some of them not so obvious.
- Hospitals use radiation in cancer treatment, nuclear imaging, etc.
- Homes use radioactive materials in smoke detectors.
- Naturally occurring radiation can effectively be concentrated in air and water filters, such as radon filters for well water.
- Naturally occurring radiation can be concentrated in coal ash by coal-fired power plants, often along with dangerous pollutants like mercury.
There are many other sources of low level nuclear waste and many tons of it must be safely disposed.
radon-222
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 will nuclear wastes be transported to Yucca Mountain?
Spent fuel would be put into very heavy and secure containers (flasks) which could be transported by railroad as far as possible. I'm not sure if it is intended to build a railroad up to the repository, but that would be best. Otherwise the flasks could be transferred to road trucks for the last part of the route.
Application of nuclear reactor?
Nuclear reactor design and operation depends largely on its application. Those applications are mainly:
- Electricity generation
- process heat generation
- research
- material testing
- radioactive isotope production
- training
- saline water desalination
- propulsion (e.g. submarines)
Does the half-life of a radioactive material increase with the amount of material present?
The half-life is a fixed period of time: the average time it will take for one of every two atoms to decay to another isotope or element.
So no matter how much of a given radioactive isotope that you start with, only one-half of it will still be that isotope after a single half-life period. Likewise only half of that remaining material will be the same isotope after another half-life period.
Of course, some of the atoms will be decaying all the time, so the half-life is only a convenient way to define the quantity at any given time.
What is the definition of radioactivity?
Radioactivity is a term that refers to the emissions from atomic nuclei due to changes in those nuclei. Those changes will occur as a result of instability of isotopes of certain elements. These atoms have a nuclear structure that is inherently unstable for whatever reason. And any unstable nucleus will eventually decay in a manner characteristic of that particular atom (radioisotope). We term the activity associated with the natural changes due to nuclear instability radioactive decay. As you can guess, different things might appear as an expression of the radioactivity of a radioisotope, and they'll vary according to the radioisotope being inspected.
We could say that the elements on the upper end of the periodic table are radioactive, and these elements, the ones beginning with bismuth, have no nuclear configurations that permit them to avoid instability and their eventual radioactive decay. Additionally, we know that there are isotopes of other elements (lighter ones) that are not stable, and these radioisotopes are radioactive and will decay in time. Lastly, there are the elements technetium and promethium, which are the only elements with atomic numbers below that of bismuth that have no stable isotopes.
The emissions we might gather under the umbrella of radioactivity include both particulate radiation and radiation in the form of energy, or electromagnetic radiation. Your investigation of the instabilities associated with atomic structure and what it is that results is just beginning. Use the links below to check facts and learn more.
What is the name of the Defunct nuclear waste storage site in Nevada?
It is the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository.
Can our nuclear waste go in to your water?
no, its not safe to dispose nuclear waste in water,rather it would be safe to dispose it in common salt trenches.
Which countries have nuclear waste problems?
All countries that have nuclear reactors have nuclear waste and it is always a problem, though a manageable one.
What is the hottest man-made object on earth?
Outside the laboratory, it would have to be the core of a nuclear reactor.
Inside the laboratory, it has to be either the collisions in a particle accelerator,
or the experiments in fusion containment ... both of those are places where
the definition of temperature changes somewhat from how we understand it.
Are radioactive nuclear wastes stored in airtight containers made out of glass?
The idea is to actually incorporate the waste into the glass rather than a container made of glass. This would make a stable mass of glass-like material which would last for thousands of years without the active material leaching out, though we would still want to store it somewhere without risk of flooding.
To easily summarize the last response above me, that would be a yes, just for simplification.
The plan was to mix long half life wastes into molten glass until throughly blended then cast the glass into cylinders. The solid glass cylinders were to be clad in steel, these glass filled steel cylinders were then to be placed individually in steel shipping casks designed to take a direct collision with a freight train at top speed without rupturing.
It is all kind of irrelevant now as the US has eliminated all long term waste disposal sites from the list and have ceased looking for new options. We are just going to end up filling all the reactor spent fuel rod storage swimming pools, then shut down all the reactors (which is what the anti-nuclear groups planned all along).
Why wouldn't freezing radioactive waste reduce radiation?
Radiations are independent from temperature.
From nuclear wastes can be extracted plutonium, uranium, useful isotopes of cobalt, strontium, prometium, technetium and many other.
