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Fox News Response

I received a plethora of email from the Fox News piece on nuclear waste disposal. I'm going to put up a little FAQ here that responds to the majority of it. Then I'll let the fray take place in the comments section.

Why is this even an issue? Isn't Yucca Mountain is a reasonable and safe way to store it?

Yes, but people aren't rational. We might be able to take advantage of their irrationality to develop space.

Which leads to the other popular and reasonable question:

The watermelon environmentalists went nuts over a little plutonium on Galileo and Cassini. Why do you think they'd let us get away with something like this?

Well, the question is not whether or not they'll oppose it, but whether or not their opposition will be effective. I'm cautiously optimistic because 1) their credibility as of recent years has been on the wane, 2) people are less likely to put of with such anti-tech nonsense post 911, and 3) there will be a newfound sense that anything we can do to utilize new energy sources that free us from Middle East oil is worth doing.

That is not to say that they can't stop it--just that there is cause for hope.

This next one was a popular one. Please don't send me any more, even though each mention of it was hilarious, and had me falling out of my chair with helpless laughter. Anyone who does will be hunted down and killed, painfully:

Remember that show from the '70s, Space: 1999? And Martin Landau and the bell-bottom uniforms?

Yes.

I'd almost forgotten it.

Now I have to do so again.

Thanks a lot.

Are you trying to destroy the nuclear industry by making it too expensive?

Well, actually, the NRC's been doing a pretty good job of that for decades, without any assistance from me. Every method proposed to deal with nuclear waste is ridiculously expensive, including Yucca Mountain. I've simply selected an expensive means that also provides a useful spinoff--cheap and reliable space access.

Wouldn't it make the Moon harder to colonize, with all that radioactive waste up there?

Any technology that can handle lunar colonization will consider nuclear waste to be way down the list of environmental problems, after total vacuum, thermal extremes, dust, lack of water and essential nutrients, and the occasional solar flare. This is not to say that lunar colonization will be impossible, or even difficult--just that nuclear waste will not present much of a difficulty relative to the natural ones.

Why would it be more expensive to just drop it into the Sun?

To understand this requires a little basic orbital mechanics.

An object in orbit has a certain velocity needed to keep it from falling toward the thing that it's orbiting around. In order for it to fall, it has to be slowed down.

For an object going around the sun (like the earth, and anything on it) that velocity is the distance traveled divided by time, or about 600 million miles per year, or about 70,000 miles an hour. That's roughly how much an object on earth must be slowed down in order for it to fall into the sun.

To get to the Moon, on the other hand, is more like 25,000 miles per hour. Quite a bit easier (particularly when one considers that the propellant required is an exponential function of the velocity change--a factor of three difference in velocity means a factor of 2.7^3 or 20 times as much propellant...)

Waste isn't a problem if you use breeders. Didn't you know that, dummy?

Well, actually, I did. I was ignoring breeders for the purpose of that article. When I said it's a problem independent of design, I was referring to non-breeder design. I think that breeders are a tough sell, politically, for a number of reasons.

I've seen pictures of the Shuttle blowing up, over and over and over and over and over. How can we ever build a launch system that won't blow up and scatter waste all over the place, killing us all?

Well, OK, no one asked it quite like that, but you know that's what lots of people are going to think, and people are legitimately concerned about reliability and safety. There's an answer, but I don't have time to post it right now (kind of like Fermat's Last Theorem). I'll get to it a little later today, but I've got other stuff to do right now, and I want to at least post what I've done so far.

[Update: 1:56 PM PST]

OK, here's the story.

There are two ways to deal with this:

1) Make the vehicle extremely reliable so it almost never has a catastrophic failure.
2) Package the payload such that if such a failure occurs, no radioactive material can be released.

Both of these are technically and economically achievable. As I said in the column, do not look to any existing launch vehicle as in any way representative of what is achievable in either cost or reliability for space transports.

Expendables are very expensive because we throw the hardware away every time. They're unreliable because every flight is their first--they suffer from the "infant mortality" phenomenon.

Shuttle is expensive because it's partly expendable, and because it wasn't designed for a high flight rate, and it's not flown at a high flight rate, so there are no economies of scale.

A new, fully-reusable space transport, flown at the high flight rates required would suffer from neither of these problems. In fact, I would expect to see several hundred consecutive successful flights of such a system before we would commit to using it for such a program.

As to the second means, payload canisters can be designed that will survive any conceivable launch accident, or reentry from orbit, without releasing any of the waste. This adds weight, and hence cost, but not so much as to necessarily make it unaffordable. Again, this can be demonstrated, using an inert payload.

And finally of course, the perennial question, probably from a Fox Network (not Fox News) viewer:

DID WE REALLY GO TO THE MOON?

Obviously, the questioner somehow feels that the question has more urgency, and less kookiness, if it's asked with the shift key locked...

Answer: No. "WE" didn't. But several American astronauts did. No further comment.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 01, 2002 10:18 AM

Comments

Rand,

There is also the mass driver alternative to get nuclear waste to low earth orbit, which would be cheaper than any reusable manned launch vehicle.

From the cost point of view, the least expensive people mover to LEO is the Russian Soyuz. And it will remain so until we really have fully reusable _privately designed and operated_ RLVs.

A LEO capable mass driver, plus Soyuz serviced inflatable module space station and solar sail upper stages will get your nuclear wastes to the moon or the sun for less than any NASA RLV ever could.

Posted by Trent Telenko at March 1, 2002 03:21 PM

A mass driver won't get it reliably and safely into orbit--you need something that can do the insertion burn. We need to use this as an opportunity to develop cheap, reliable space transports, if it can be sold at all.

Posted by at March 1, 2002 03:42 PM

Mass Drivers are a nice idea, but I've yet to hear of any full scale tests of launching something into orbit. If they have done so, please post info as I'd be really interested.

Space is as good a place as any to put nuclear waste. I have to say that sending it there is a good idea. Just don't put NASA in charge of it! :)

Jason

Posted by Jason at March 1, 2002 03:50 PM

Any space catapult concept, be it mass driver, rail gun or light gas gun, requires a kick stage of some sort to circularize the payload's orbit.

Point in fact, flying an orbit capable space plane on a suborbital trajectory with a small kick stage is highly desirable for some payload maximizing missions. The long and the short of it is that staging works and is desiable with current orbital transportation technology.

As for where the space catapult technology would come from, the answer is from the US Energy Dept. weapons labs.

There was a number of serious proposals from the labs related too the first incarnation of SDI and that surfaced again later in the Clinton Administration when the post-cold War mass declassifications were going on.

I recall one proposal from Lowell Wood that showed up in a late 1980's issue of what was then called Defense Science and Electronics. It spoke of a mass driver used to construct armored orbital laser battle stations, manned C3I nodes and the space colonies to support them both.

Posted by Trent Telenko at March 1, 2002 07:42 PM

I seem to remember reading about a type of slingshot based on the rotation of Earth. An escape vehicle that spins around the Equator (?) and uses the actual speed of rotation to reach escape velocity. This , if viable , would solve the problem of getting rid of whatever waste you needed. Also I recently read that anti-matter is being created in labs, a very tiny amount right now, but this could be the answer to not having any problems with nuclear waste, we wouldn't need nuclear power plants. Of course the article didn't mention if creating anti-matter creats large amounts of dangerous waste.

Posted by at March 7, 2002 09:58 AM

Well, since we are looking into future technologies... how about we pull from a few different areas. I wander around a bit but there is nuclear waste in there I swear!

Bucky balls! Or their cousins, being used to create super "steel" fibers. These filaments have many, many, many times the strength of today’s materials. Think of a suspended bridge using steel fibers threaded together to make a steel cable. Why develop this technology? I'll 'splain in a minute.

Super conductors or rail/cable type elevator system. Starting to get the idea now? In short, create a space elevator. Sound far fetched? Not to me, after reading information on many developing technologies I don't think it is so far off (granted 40 to 80 years is the current estimate, but hey, that’s fast when you look at the geological time we have been on the planet).

Anyway, the point would be to have two or three of these space elevators. One as a people mover and one as an industrial mover. They would be anchored on the ground and in space with some station type facility, which would either serve as a way station to send people/equipment from the anchor point in space, on to the "space station" or serve as that station itself, or any combination of the two.

This would solve the "lift" problem of personnel and equipment (or in the case of nuclear waste) into space. Once people are able to go to and from space relatively easy, it is not inconceivable to build a space dock and continue space flight exploration in space itself. Logistics become the only problem then to get to the next stage of space colonization.

Posted by BP at March 7, 2002 10:51 AM

Each time the shuttle goes up it punches a big hole in the ozone layer. And for comparison, does as much damage as the CFCs being let out of 30,000 old refrigerators. Lauching rockets loaded with Nuc waste is going to use a tremendous amount of energy to build all the stuff needed and for rocket fuel.
Let's burn a bunch of fuel getting rid of the other spent fuel.
Why not solar power? There is lots of new equipment becoming available for comercial and residential use. It is being made more and more efficient and cost effective each year. Reference new string ribbon techology here;
www.evergreensolar.com/
And more
www.sunlightsolar.com.au/
www.malibuwater.com/MalibuSolar.html
energy.sourceguides.com/businesses/byGeo/US/byB/mfg/byN/byNameT.shtml
Electricity Wind farms are being erected all over the world.
www.tri-cityherald.com/news/2001/0111/Story3.html
www.kcstar.com/item/pages/business.pat,business/37753435.314,.html
www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/2001/aug/20010801.htm
ens.lycos.com/ens/feb2001/2001L-02-16-12.html
It can be done and you know it.
After you consider the cost of dealing with nuclear waste, cheap nuclear power doesn't hold water.
Even if you still think it does, don't force it down our throats. We don't want to be educated (propagandized) into how it's cheaper.
It's nasty stuff. We just don't want it.
Note: I live 4 miles from a nuc plant. I belive it's safe. I believe we are passing the cost of cheap power onto future generations who must deal with the radioactive waste, for THOUSANDS OF YEARS!

Posted by Don at March 7, 2002 11:08 AM

I've read recently that new technology has been developed by a private company that can actually burn nucler waste clean while producing energy in return. If the article was true, then all this babble about launching it into the sun is the real waste.

Posted by all4pull at March 7, 2002 12:16 PM

Upon reading the responses to the article, I noticed someone talking about anti-matter. If my understanding is correct, anti-matter does not leave any waste at all. Current theory stipulates that when matter and anti-matter are brought together the two annihilate each other, destroying all mass but creating an enormous amount of energy. There is no waste to speak of, but unfortunately, anti-matter must be contained in such a way that it does not come into any kind of contact whatsoever with normal matter. This means magnetic fields. And if your magnetic fields were to fail....well, if you thought a nuclear explosion was bad, this will change your standards.

Posted by James at March 7, 2002 12:57 PM

Rand

In reading your and your respondants emails I think that you forgot something.

1. In 1965 an early Delta rocket blew up with a nuclear Radioisotope generator on board. What happened? They used remotely a remotely piloted vehicle, found it on the ocean floor, brought it back to the labs, washed it off, and then flew it on the next rocket.

2. In 1970 when Apollo 13 was coming back to the Earth, the Apollo Lunar Lander had nuclear power generator of the same type on board. Because of the failure of the Service Module due to the explosion, the Lunar Module (LM) re-entered the atmosphere of the Earth. The LM was directed to splash down in the western pacific, along the Marianias trench, the deepest part of the ocean. No radiation was ever detected.

The existing generators are extremely tough and even at very high velocities such as the return from the Moon, no radiation has ever been released from an American nuclear generator. The same design methods could easily be used for the waste. Also, for not that much velocity the material could impact on Venus, which has no chance of harboring life and is already a very unfriendly place.

Good report.

Posted by Dennis Wingo at March 7, 2002 01:01 PM

Rand

In reading your and your respondants emails I think that you forgot something.

1. In 1965 an early Delta rocket blew up with a nuclear Radioisotope generator on board. What happened? They used remotely a remotely piloted vehicle, found it on the ocean floor, brought it back to the labs, washed it off, and then flew it on the next rocket.

2. In 1970 when Apollo 13 was coming back to the Earth, the Apollo Lunar Lander had nuclear power generator of the same type on board. Because of the failure of the Service Module due to the explosion, the Lunar Module (LM) re-entered the atmosphere of the Earth. The LM was directed to splash down in the western pacific, along the Marianias trench, the deepest part of the ocean. No radiation was ever detected.

The existing generators are extremely tough and even at very high velocities such as the return from the Moon, no radiation has ever been released from an American nuclear generator. The same design methods could easily be used for the waste. Also, for not that much velocity the material could impact on Venus, which has no chance of harboring life and is already a very unfriendly place.

Good report.

Posted by Dennis Wingo at March 7, 2002 01:01 PM

Rand

In reading your and your respondants emails I think that you forgot something.

1. In 1965 an early Delta rocket blew up with a nuclear Radioisotope generator on board. What happened? They used remotely a remotely piloted vehicle, found it on the ocean floor, brought it back to the labs, washed it off, and then flew it on the next rocket.

2. In 1970 when Apollo 13 was coming back to the Earth, the Apollo Lunar Lander had nuclear power generator of the same type on board. Because of the failure of the Service Module due to the explosion, the Lunar Module (LM) re-entered the atmosphere of the Earth. The LM was directed to splash down in the western pacific, along the Marianias trench, the deepest part of the ocean. No radiation was ever detected.

The existing generators are extremely tough and even at very high velocities such as the return from the Moon, no radiation has ever been released from an American nuclear generator. The same design methods could easily be used for the waste. Also, for not that much velocity the material could impact on Venus, which has no chance of harboring life and is already a very unfriendly place.

Good report.

Posted by Dennis Wingo at March 7, 2002 01:01 PM

Rand:

Great blog, enhanced by intelligent responses from the forum.

Some time ago I read that plasma torches (not the current ones used in industry to cut intricate shapes in steel but powerful, 'next generation' types) could be used on spent fuel rods to reduce them beyond the elemental stage to benign protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, etc. I bet I've got my science mixed up, but any answer here by using plasma torch technology to 'burn' waste?

Posted by Pat Keating at March 7, 2002 04:28 PM


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