The short answer is that it isn't true. Also, that 95% of it is uranium being wasted.
The slightly longer answer is that a fuel rod removed from a reactor, or even left in an abandoned reactor, loses 99.75% of its radioactivity in five years. The customary place to put rods from a healthy reactor is a pool of water that absorbs the radia…
The short answer is that it isn't true. Also, that 95% of it is uranium being wasted.
The slightly longer answer is that a fuel rod removed from a reactor, or even left in an abandoned reactor, loses 99.75% of its radioactivity in five years. The customary place to put rods from a healthy reactor is a pool of water that absorbs the radiation of decay, and dissipates its heat. Now, note that the annual quantity of "retired" fuel rods is about 2500 tons, and that therefore the freshly retired "radioactive waste" is equivalent to a million tons (2500 x 400) of the stuff that comes out of the cooling ponds five years later.
There have been no fatalities or injuries alleged from the processing of the retired, only slightly used fuel rods. A sufficiently safe method of handling them has been used. When they are taken from the water, and dried or allowed to dry, they can then be stored quite safely in steel and concrete "Dry Storage Casks" deliberately made big and heavy enough to require conspicuous machinery to move.
To propagate fear of a mere 80 thousand tons of this still slowly decaying stuff, is mere bogeyman memes. Since it's politically motivated, I call it terrorist propaganda.
The short answer is that it isn't true. Also, that 95% of it is uranium being wasted.
The slightly longer answer is that a fuel rod removed from a reactor, or even left in an abandoned reactor, loses 99.75% of its radioactivity in five years. The customary place to put rods from a healthy reactor is a pool of water that absorbs the radiation of decay, and dissipates its heat. Now, note that the annual quantity of "retired" fuel rods is about 2500 tons, and that therefore the freshly retired "radioactive waste" is equivalent to a million tons (2500 x 400) of the stuff that comes out of the cooling ponds five years later.
There have been no fatalities or injuries alleged from the processing of the retired, only slightly used fuel rods. A sufficiently safe method of handling them has been used. When they are taken from the water, and dried or allowed to dry, they can then be stored quite safely in steel and concrete "Dry Storage Casks" deliberately made big and heavy enough to require conspicuous machinery to move.
To propagate fear of a mere 80 thousand tons of this still slowly decaying stuff, is mere bogeyman memes. Since it's politically motivated, I call it terrorist propaganda.