RE: Will Nuclear Waste Disappear?

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I'm a little skeptical. The energy levels required are huge. I mean, even if you can get photons to those energy levels, you might end up using a large portion of the energy produced by nuclear, just to deal with the waste, using this method.

I think the waste problem is overstated. It's a result of government intervention. When a nuclear plant is designed, one of the considerations is waste. And the US government tends to subsidize waste removal. When the government fails to live up to their end of the bargain, which is what they've done historically, the plant fails.

The proper approach is for the plant to incorporate waste removal into their business model.



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Hard to argue with a premise of government intervention screwing things up. I remember all the controversy about the plan to ship nuclear waste by rail to be buried in the mountains (in Nevada maybe?). Nobody trusted the government to not fuck it up.

With net power consumption, who knows. Maybe the free H+ generated can be used somehow to recapture a portion of that energy.

This is firmly in fantasyland at the moment though as just a hypothesis along with all that revolutionary battery technology that is just around the corner.

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I'm wondering when we'll see a news article about a company that buys nuclear waste (alpha emitters) so they can capture the helium and sell it. Supposedly there's a helium shortage, right? I'm sure there's not enough emitted to be viable for current industry, but still. If there really is a shortage, they can corner the market now.

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