Re: Nuclear waste, I've often wondered...

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. You’re welcome!

Personally, I’ve been a fan of glass, since the 1984 World’s Fair (the Australian pavilion had a simulated cylinder of “vitrified” waste.)

https://www.shef.ac.uk/news/nr/nuclear-waste-storage-glass-sheffield-1.203561

[font face=Serif]22 August 2012

[font size=5]Glass offers improved means of storing UK’s nuclear waste[/font]

[font size=4]University of Sheffield researchers have shown, for the first time, that a method of storing nuclear waste normally used only for High Level Waste (HLW), could provide a safer, more efficient, and potentially cheaper, solution for the storage and ultimate disposal of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW).[/font]

[font size=3]Currently the UK’s preferred method is to encapsulate ILW in specially formulated cement. The waste is mixed with cement and sealed in steel drums, in preparation for disposal deep underground.

Two studies, published in the latest issues of The Journal of Nuclear Materials and European Journal of Glass Science and Technology A show that turning this kind of waste into glass, a process called vitrification, could be a better method for its long-term storage, transport and eventual disposal.

…

A key discovery made by the Sheffield team was that the glasses produced for ILW proved to be very resistant to damage by energetic gamma rays, produced from the decay of radioactive materials.

…[/font][/font]

Now though, I’m more interested in something like Transatomic’s proposed reactor. (Let’s not just hide it under the rug somewhere and hope that it doesn’t cause problems in the future…)