This is extremely off topic, but hey that's what this thread is here for right?

Anyways, I have this dying urge to find out this one specific question I've been having all week. No one at my school can figure this one out for me. I've tried searching on Google, but all I got were irrelevant. So here's the million dollar question...

"How do you handle nuclear waste and dispose of it?"

Now, I know that in places such as New Mexico, there exists underground silos, hundreds of meters deep for storing the plutonium rods. But the real head scratcher is, how in the heck do you handle such radioactive waste? A machine simply can't drop the plutonium rods down into a hole. From what I've read, these plutonium rods are placed in what looks to be humongous steel cylindrical containers. They are then neatly packed in vast networks of silos which can stretch out to several kilometers apart. So there has to be somebody physically there in order to store these extremely dangerous cylinders of plutonium right? These plutonium rods however are so radioactive, that I believe if you are within even a hundred feet of it's boundary, you are subject to extreme amounts of radiation.

Lets take into perspective what amounts of radiation levels are present in everyday life. A normal X-ray emits 0.1 mSv or millisieverts of radiation. It is suggested that one limits his/her exposure to X-rays as much as possible. Now, lets see the amount of radiation present in these plutonium rods... It's a whopping 6000+ mSv or radiation. That's guaranteed death within weeks. How in the world do we do it? How do we handle nuclear waste without exposure? Special suits, robots, etc?

Anybody here by chance, have a hypothesis or an answer? It's driving me insane. I never thought I would post this on CBRforum... Maybe I shoulda picked NUCLEARforum LOL Thanks

 

Despite being a chemist and working with radiation, and radiation detectors, this isn't sometime I know a whole lot about.

Plutonium, and other high energy sources, remain radioactive long after they are 'spent'. They are often encased in lead containers and packed in concrete. This makes them 'safe', even when standing next to them with no personal shielding. This is basically done so if there is a disaster, like an accident or earthquake, radioactive waste likely won't be spread. This is all done remotely, as radioactive safety suits won't stop the high levels of xray, gamma ray and neutron bombardment.

Deep earth storage is currently the most common (to my knowledge) method of storing high activity radioactive waste, but its got its drawbacks, such of being "insecure" (terrorists can get their hands on it and utilize it, earthquakes or other natural disasters).

Hope this helps!

 

Why don't we "hire" death row inmates to handle it?

 

Excellent question vfrman... Its really hard to arrest good help these days.

 

You have come to the right forum my man!

I have been in the business of inspecting nuke plants for the last 30 years.

For starters, 98% of rad waste comes form the medical industry. That stuff is hauled away and buried.

Nuclear plant fuel use to be chopped up and placed in wet cask for burial. It is handled in pools. You usually need 28 feet of water to attenuate the radiation so all work is done under water. H2O has many large partials (protons and nutrons) to shield the workers.

The newer way spent fuel at a decommissioned plant is stored, is at the site in a Dry Cask Storage System. When the spent fuel is in the cask, you can walk up to it and touch the cask. The cask design is tested in many ways. One way is to place the cask on a flat bed that is parked on RR tracks and hit it with a fright train.

I use to travel to the Connecticut Yankee Plant. This plant was decommissioned and the entire plant was removed except for the fuel and reactor internals. The property has to be monitored for years by the licensee so what better place to store the fuel. In this LINK you can see the workers in close proximity to the spent fuel.

I hope you can sleep better at night now.LOL