The Nuclear Waste Problem

The Nuclear Waste Problem

The Nuclear Waste Problem

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Animation by Josh Sherrington (   / heliosphere  )
Sound by Graham Haerther (http://www.Haerther.net)
Thumbnail by Joe Cieplinski (http://joecieplinski.com/)

Nuclear reactor footage courtesy Canada Science and Technology Museum
Spent fuel pool courtesy IAEA Imagebank
Onkalo photo courtesy Posiva

Music: “Raw Deal” by Gunner Olsen, “Divider” by Chris Zabriskie, “My Luck” by Broke for Free, and “I Wanted to Live” by Lee Rosevere

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Content

0.26 -> This video was made possible by Brilliant.
3.189 -> Learn to think like a scientist for 20% off by
5.47 -> being one of the first 500 people to sign up at the link in the description.
10.04 -> Nuclear energy is one of the cleanest, most efficient, and most available sources of power
14.61 -> on earth.
15.809 -> To generate one kilowatt hour of energy—the amount an American household
19.64 -> consumes in 48 minutes—nuclear power plants only emit 12 grams of carbon dioxide— enough
25.89 -> to fill about three two-liter soda bottles.
28.8 -> Meanwhile, to produce the same amount of energy, coal
32.009 -> plants emit 820 grams of CO2—about a full bathtub’s worth.
38.109 -> Factoring in the environmental cost of production, nuclear energy is cleaner than
42.75 -> hydropower, than geothermal, than solar, than really
46.12 -> any energy source except wind.
48.479 -> But that doesn’t necessarily mean nuclear is the long-term
51.579 -> solution for the world because nuclear material is perhaps the most poisonous substance on
57.229 -> earth.
58.229 -> Two times in history have nuclear power plants leaked significant amount of radiation—in
62.37 -> 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine and in 2011 in Fukushima,
66.41 -> Japan.
67.41 -> 31 people died in Chernobyl with at least a further 4,000 expected to contract
72.57 -> early lethal cancer due to the radiation.
75.13 -> Fukushima was better contained with only two deaths, both
77.9 -> unrelated to radiation, and only 130 early cancer
81.37 -> deaths expected, but additionally, each site still today has massive exclusion zones where
87.57 -> humans cannot live due to ongoing radiation.
91.49 -> Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes and will never be allowed
95.55 -> to return.
96.55 -> The economic damage of Chernobyl is estimated at nearly $250 billion dollars—significantly
103.71 -> more than the GDP of Ukraine.
106.05 -> The Fukushima disaster, meanwhile, having taken
108.56 -> place is a much more populated and developed area, is estimated to set Japan back over
114.39 -> $500 billion dollars—a full 10% of their GDP.
118.69 -> In addition, uranium, the element most commonly
121.51 -> used in nuclear reactors, is not in limitless supply.
125.46 -> Using present-day extraction methods, there’s only about a 230 year supply of uranium
131.129 -> left.
132.129 -> Many would say nuclear is only a short-term solution to reduce carbon emissions until
135.98 -> truly sustainable energy can become commonplace,
138.76 -> but the biggest problem with nuclear energy is not
141.379 -> the risk of meltdown, it’s not the supply of uranium, it’s this—nuclear waste.
147.01 -> All current commercial nuclear power plants work through the process of nuclear fission.
151.459 -> As a radioactive element decays, the individuals atoms split into multiple, but when that happens
156.819 -> the reaction also releases energy.
159.22 -> There are plenty of different designs of nuclear reactors, but in
162.139 -> general they capture the released energy by using it to heat up water into steam which
166.769 -> runs through turbines that spin generators.
169.779 -> The nuclear element used is typically uranium which, after
173.03 -> about six to eight years of usage in a nuclear power plant will have released enough of its
177.599 -> energy that it is no longer useful in nuclear reactors,
181.4 -> but that doesn’t mean it’s done emitting energy.
183.83 -> The fuel rods will remain radioactive enough to
186.33 -> emit a lethal dose for tens or hundreds of thousands
190.069 -> of years past their removal.
191.81 -> So the question is, what do you do with them?
194.599 -> The answer is simple—put them somewhere where they can stay, undisturbed, isolated,
199.519 -> forever, but that’s not all that easy.
202.06 -> In fact, no nuclear waste worldwide is currently in what is
206.019 -> considered long-term storage.
208.499 -> Every bit of nuclear waste in existence is in temporary storage
212.51 -> facilities to be used until a long-term solution is built.
216.15 -> Most of that nuclear waste is stored in pools of water.
219.51 -> Water does a decently good job of shielding radiation so this is an inexpensive
223.739 -> and easy way of storing the rods.
226.04 -> Usually these pools are physically inside the nuclear power plants
229.569 -> so, when spent fuel is removed from the reactor, it’s put directly into the water and left
235.019 -> there.
236.019 -> The radioactive material, since it’s still emitting
238.159 -> energy, continues to heat up the water, but cooling systems and pumps keep the water below
242.579 -> boiling temperature, but to do that the plant needs power.
246.279 -> If the power fails and the backup generators fail, the pumps and cooling systems
250.449 -> stop working so the water heats up and can boil
253.73 -> off.
254.73 -> The water is what blocks the radiation so, without water, the radiation just goes right
259.14 -> out into the environment.
260.73 -> In fact, exactly that happened at Fukushima.
264.09 -> Both the primary and backup power sources failed so the pumps and cooling
267.84 -> systems for the spent fuel pools couldn’t run
270.73 -> leaving the water to heat up.
272.14 -> The situation was brought under control before enough water had
275.33 -> boiled off to release significant amounts of radiation into the environment, but had
279.49 -> it not been, thousands could have been killed.
282.57 -> Once nuclear waste has cooled down in storage pools for ten to twenty years, it typically
287.14 -> is encased in casks.
288.98 -> These concrete and steel containers block in radiation, but this solution is far
293.54 -> from permanent.
294.76 -> It does not consider earthquakes, it cannot withstand tsunamis, and it would not
299.1 -> work without humans.
300.67 -> These casks require security and they require maintenance.
304.53 -> Without humans, they could easily be damaged or breached
307.31 -> over time and release radiation into the environment.
310.73 -> Modern humans have only existed for about 200,000 years, so one can hardly be
315.1 -> sure that the species will survive for the millions of years that the most toxic nuclear
319.12 -> waste will continue to emit radiation.
321.38 -> What’s more, one can hardly expect that the dominant civilizations
324.88 -> that have nuclear technology today will continue to exist for even thousands of years.
330.22 -> The Roman Empire was once without a doubt the
332.94 -> most powerful civilization on earth.
335.33 -> Scholars even believe that it is the most powerful civilization
338.68 -> to have ever existed on earth—more powerful than the US, than Europe, than any modern
344.12 -> civilization, but it fell, and so too will the west.
347.82 -> Therefore, long-term nuclear waste storage needs to last longer than any political structure,
352.9 -> it needs to work without the supervision of humans,
355.5 -> it needs to be truly and unequivocally permanent.
359.66 -> Finland is building just that.
361.88 -> This region is largely devoid of natural disasters.
365.12 -> It doesn’t have earthquakes, it doesn’t see tsunamis,
367.56 -> it really doesn’t encounter any natural phenomenon
370.37 -> that could damage a nuclear waste storage site, especially if it’s 1,500 feet underground.
376.01 -> Beneath an island on the Finnish Baltic Sea coast,
378.62 -> the country is digging.
379.96 -> They’re building the very first permanent nuclear waste storage facility in
383.59 -> the world in the stable bedrock 1,500 feet below.
387.2 -> Currently they’re just finishing their dig down then very soon, in 2020, they’ll start
391.56 -> filling the facility with nuclear waste.
393.52 -> They’ll dig long tunnels with small holes in which they’ll place casks
397.11 -> of nuclear waste then backfill the tunnels with clay to be left for an eternity.
402.02 -> With this system, there’s near zero risk of nuclear material
405.01 -> leaking out into the groundwater and, once it’s filled in
408.27 -> the year 2120, it can just be left, forever.
412.36 -> Because the material will be so far down and so
414.51 -> difficult to get to, no human management will be necessary once completed.
418.82 -> No security, no maintenance, nothing which means it should
422.03 -> be truly secure, but before leaving it, they do need
425.63 -> to fight against one thing—human nature.
428.64 -> As curious beings, it’s hard to combat a person’s urge of discovery.
432.82 -> If someone finds a mysterious structure from thousands of years
435.58 -> ago, it’d just be natural to want to open it up, and
438.84 -> that’s a problem for nuclear waste sites.
441.19 -> We essentially did just that with the pyramids in Egypt.
444.05 -> These structures were built as the final, permanent resting places for the elites of
448.22 -> Egypt and we opened them up because we were curious.
452.04 -> Opening the nuclear storage facilities would release
454.21 -> radiation into a future civilization, so we have to tell them to leave the sites alone,
459.26 -> but that’s easier said than done.
461.24 -> The US Department of Energy commissioned a study on how to communicate the danger
465.07 -> into the far future.
466.58 -> The key is to create a message that conveys how uninteresting, how
470.6 -> unimportant, and how dangerous nuclear waste is.
473.53 -> They settled on the following text: Sending this message was important to us.
478.47 -> We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
481.39 -> This place is not a place of honor…
483.45 -> no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is
487.28 -> here.
488.28 -> What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.
490.77 -> This message is a warning about danger.
493.09 -> The danger is in a particular location…
495.01 -> it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here...
498.73 -> of a particular size and shape, and below us.
501.85 -> The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
505.56 -> The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
508.25 -> The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
511.31 -> The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically.
515.969 -> This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
519.7 -> The idea would be to translate a message like this into every United Nations language—
524.05 -> Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
526.85 -> There’s a reasonable hope that, at least in the next couple thousand years, one of
531.08 -> those languages would be understood.
532.79 -> But in the scope of hundreds of thousands of years, there’s
536.25 -> just little expectation that these languages would
538.44 -> survive.
539.44 -> There’s not even a reasonable expectation that humans would survive.
543.26 -> So, you need to convey the same message without language.
547.78 -> What the study suggests is to further push the message by building a landscape that
552.09 -> conveys danger.
553.41 -> It could be a scene of thorns, or spikes, or forbidding blocks.
558.01 -> To satiate the discoverer’s curiosity, it’s also suggested
561.68 -> to add monoliths explaining the history of the site
564.66 -> through pictographs.
566.1 -> Also included would be images like this, engraved in stone, conveying that
570.09 -> the substance has danger that will be passed onto humans if touched, but the difficulty
574.55 -> of this is that it very well might not be humans exploring
578 -> earth 100,000 years from now.
580.08 -> It could be a species that doesn’t recognize the likeness
583.09 -> of what might be a long-extinct species.
585.86 -> What some have suggested is to just let the site be forgotten, to not mark it at all,
591.12 -> to just seal it up, and leave, but having something
594.2 -> that significant disappear isn’t simple.
597.01 -> The site in Finland is designed to not need security or
600.27 -> oversight, but its current location is very well
602.91 -> documented in a potentially irreversible way.
606.279 -> With books and brains and the internet, records of
609.04 -> the site might exist until at least the end of human civilization.
613.16 -> To truly be forgotten, to truly be left as part of nature, so too must humans
618.75 -> be forgotten.
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Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU3kLBo_ruo