@blazera
I did not say it was safe, I said after a few decades is far easier to process. It does not remain "crazy" high radioactive for thousands of years - that is pure hyperbole. The chart attached illustrates radiotoxicity if ingested - and no one advises anyone to eat nuclear waste.
Radioactive material radiates, because it decays. The more it radiates, the faster it decays. The highest level radioactive material from nuclear fission reactors has half-life measured in decades (30 years), that is, half of it will decay in that time. It does NOT take thousands of years. Conversely, the long-lived isotopes radiate much less, thus are easier to store and process.
@blazera
I did not say it was safe, I said after a few decades is far easier to process. It does not remain "crazy" high radioactive for thousands of years - that is pure hyperbole. The chart attached illustrates radiotoxicity if ingested - and no one advises anyone to eat nuclear waste.
Ps. There is a country which has solved long term storage. Guess where I live.
Source: https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/587853#
@dilmandila
@blazera
@dilmandila
Inaccurate. To take it back to basics:
Radioactive material radiates, because it decays. The more it radiates, the faster it decays. The highest level radioactive material from nuclear fission reactors has half-life measured in decades (30 years), that is, half of it will decay in that time. It does NOT take thousands of years. Conversely, the long-lived isotopes radiate much less, thus are easier to store and process.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html