The only reason nuclear waste exists is because we have literally never updated out 1940's designs. We still use crude uranium-and-water reactors, which are grossly inefficient. The only reason those spent fuel rods remain dangerous for 10,000 years is the fact that 90% of it is still enriched uranium.
At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, from 1965 to 1969, we operated a Molten Salt Reactor. Because the nuclear fuel, thorium, is dissolved into a liquid fluoride salt, this class of reactor can be immune to meltdown.
If the safety system ever loses power or the core ever overheats, the molten salt will simply melt through a plugged drain and the bottom and pour into a shielded chamber, where it cools and solidifies. It's walk-away safe.
Thorium doesn't need to be enriched for use as a nuclear fuel. We have vast stocks of it already mined, because it's considered a waste product of heavy metal refinery. It's more common than uranium ore, it's safer to mine, and it's not good for building nuclear weapons.
Sadly, that's why thorium-fuelled MSRs didn't become the standard. Every nation wealthy enough to build reactors wanted to use uranium because it could also build nuclear bombs as a Cold War deterrent.
We're now less interested in bombs and more interested in the high efficiency of thorium MSRs. The longest lasting waste isotope they produce is Cesium-137, with a half life of only 30.17 years. After only 300 years, it's less radioactive than natural uranium ore.
Unlike boiling water reactors, thorium MSRs operate at very low pressure. Any leaks can be patched easily because there wouldn't be an explosive decompression.
The liquid salt is stable under intense heat and radiation, unlike water, which can break down into highly flammable hydrogen gas.
Best of all, the thorium fission cycle is long and complex. It can be used to make breeder reactors, which produce more fuel than they need to operate, or waste burner reactors, which can run on "spent" uranium.
We could meet 100% of US electrical demand with zero carbon emissions, using only the thorium we already have mined, for 1,000 years at current levels.
Those reactors could be literally meltdown-proof, useless for bombs, and consume existing nuclear waste.
This literally solves every problem associated with nuclear power, and it was proven to work back in 1965.
Solar and wind are great, but we can't store that power without batteries made from volatile, toxic rare earth metals like lithium. Those batteries are expensive, dangerous, and demand a lengthy carbon-emitting refinement process.
If you still argue against nuclear power knowing all this, then you're willfully ignorant and you're part of the problem.
romaincrisis
