How do nuclear waste dumps effect the environment?
Can somebody please answer the following questions for me:
How do nuclear waste dumps effect the environment? such as if it is dump in the ocean, what happens?
In countries that have nuclear reactors, where is the waste buried?
How does nuclear waste affect people?
What will happen to the earth if nuclear waste is burried in there?
July 24th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
nuclear waste is also radioactive but its not economical to generate electricity from it so its waste.dumping it in the ocean will affect the marine life. nuclear wastes are kept under water in lead containers in specially made dumping ground
July 24th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Nuclear wastes are highly radioactive. This can cause mutations and even death to most living things. They are most of the time dumped into the deepest part of the ocean or underground contained in specialized and tough containers. In an incident in our country, radioactive wastes were dumped without proper procedures. This caused mutation to many living things including humans. It was horrible. Many died and got sick then later died. A lot of babies were mutated at birth. Some have messed up faces and many lacked some body parts.
July 24th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Waste is disposed of/stored in deep unused salt mines. It is not “Dumped” anywhere.
Waste is a danger because of the so called “half life”, it takes a long time for waste to decay to the point that it is harmless.
July 24th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
There are many classes of nuclear waste. Everything from the radioactive sources used in medical treatment to sources used in manufacturing processes to the spent fuel from nuclear reactors. Each is handled differently, and in many cases the same type of waste is handled differently from one country to the next.
It sounds like you are talking about spent fuel. In the U.S. there have been over 100 nuclear reactors operating since the 60’s/70’s. All of that spent fuel is still sitting on site where it was produced, since the U.S. has no waste repository. These plants are spread all around the country, yet no significant accident involving this waste has ever occurred or else would be sure to hear about it from Greenpeace to this day.
The term “spent fuel” is misleading in itself. The spent fuel taken from a reactor actually has a huge amount of usable nuclear fuel left in it. The problem is that over time, the fragments of fissioned uranium act to “poison” the reactor so that the remaining burnable fuel is not actually usable. If you read the linked page about France you will see mention of “reprocessing”. What they do is take out the good fuel still left in the spent fuel, and then only bury the “poisonous” parts. The usable fuel is then put back into a reactor to produce more energy. These reactor “poisons” sound bad, but in actuality their high radioactivity means that they decay away much faster.
When the greenies complain that waste is deadly for 10’s of thousands or even millions of years they are really talking about the uranium and plutonium that should be getting reused. The U.S. has a stupid policy of not reprocessing our spent fuel because the same people who don’t understand nuclear power in the first place are afraid of reprocessing as well.
November 5th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Nuclear waste mutates living thing, making reactions such as birth defects, a animal having two heads or some junks like that… no kidding!
Many power plant bury nuclear waste under ground in airtight bags. Sooner or later, the bags break down and release the waste. The waste then mutates the moles, earthworms and other under ground living things. People are thinking of rejecting the waste out into space…the idea is pretty good if you ask me.
November 5th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
i agree with henry, ps … it is correct, reseach yourself
December 12th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
If it’s true that knowledge is everything(according to this site), then some people certainly don’t have much here. All this anti-nuke reactionary hysteria is pure crap.
December 12th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
In spite of all the ignorance and irrational hysteria, disposal in a subduction zone of the seafloor is about the safest place there is. The ocean is so vast, any leakage would be highly diluted.
All these ignorant people like Jane Fonda and Amory Lovins, who pretend to be scientists and so-called environmental “experts”, all need to go back to the psychedelic L.S.D. tripping 1960’s so that more sensible people can deal with things for a change.
March 18th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
henry is a fool, imagine putting nuclear waste in the tip of a rocket headed out to space. now imagine the rocket failing and landing in the middle of asia or europe. you effectively have a nuke thats going to kill thousands
April 4th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
It would be more of a dirty bomb.
November 11th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
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