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Sorry you won't be able to listen in, but I fully understand bandwidth problems. I won't be able to type here during the show - I have found that, between typing, talking, and thinking I can only do 2 at a time. So if I try to type and talk you'll end up without any thought going into either. But I'll come back for a time after the show also. The big problem is that I'm on the East Coast, so the show will end at 2 AM here. I'm a night owl, but I also have to work tomorrow, so I'll try to log in here for an hour, but then I've got to turn into a pumpkin to catch some shut-eye.
adele_delight
“Wibbly, Wobbly, Timey, Wimey… stuff”- Dr.Who
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Seahunter
AKA "Roy"
Are nuclear waste storage sites just as safe Andy?
( Not a critic, just curious.)
Another good question, Adele, and not necessarily simple to answer. The radiation part is not dangerous - especially for low-level waste (I disposed of several thousand cubic feet of low-level rad waste in my days as a university radiation safety officer). And even high-level waste is packaged so that radiation is not dangerously high. So the radiological problems can be managed - especially when you've got well-trained professionals following good procedures. But at the same time you've got to remember that we're talking about putting big heavy containers into mine shafts deep underground - there are a lot of things that can go wrong that don't involve radiation hazards. I've visited mines and regular waste disposal sites - you alwasy have to worry about cave-ins, hazardous gases, equipment accidents, and so forth.
So the way I'd answer this would be to say that radioactive waste disposal is not without hazards - but the hazard from radiation would not be my biggest worry because it's the easiest risk to manage.
Seahunter
AKA "Roy"
We really appreciate your time, and look forward to chatting again after the program!
adele_delight
“Wibbly, Wobbly, Timey, Wimey… stuff”- Dr.Who
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I guess the key words for safe nuclear energy are 'well-trained professionals'. Thank you so much for chatting with us Andy and answering my annoying questions.
Thank you so much for chatting with us Andy and answering my annoying questions.We're a LONG way from Mr. Fusion - the joke in those quarters is that fusion power is a generation away - and always will be. But they do have small nuclear reactors - not for individual homes, but maybe neighborhood-sized. One version is called a "pebble-bed modular reactor" - they are nicely designed to be as close to inherently safe as possible (i.e. they shut down from basic physics principles rather than machinery saving the day if something goes wrong).
The tiniest reactor I've heard of was about the size of a big can of coffee - but it was fueled with weapons-grade uranium. The reactor on my submarine was about the size of a really big trash can (one of the ones we put by the curb each week) and it was also fueled with weapons-grade uranium. But with our power output (sorry - can't tell you exactly how much) we needed a lot of support equipment and a couple dozen people to run it. A commercial power plant running on normal reactor fuel would have been much larger and more complex.
Incidentally, there was a small nuclear reactor in Antarctica for a number of years before it was decommissioned. While it made sense economically and safety-wise, it just wasn't a good idea - the Antarctic environment is too valuable to expose to even a very low risk of accident.
I guess the key words for safe nuclear energy are 'well-trained professionals'.
The well-trained professionals are needed everywhere. I mean, I certainly wouldn't let my son cut my hair, and that's only an aesthetic hazard. And don't worry about your questions - all of you are asking better questions than many of my graduate students during my professor days. And paying more attention too!
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