From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Oct 01 2001 - 09:41:23 MDT
John Grigg wrote:
> I still am concerned about the waste disposal issue though.
You shouldn't be. Assume we get reasonable nanotech sometime
between 2010-2020. At that point you simply dissolve the waste
and do seperation based on 1 AMU massometers (discussed in
Nanomedicine) [this can even be done with current technology
in bulk-flow mass-spectrometry machines]. You get out the
radioactive materials in one pile (highly concentrated, separated
by element) and the non-radioactive materials in another pile.
You then feed the radiocative materials back into breeder
reactors that convert significant fractions of the waste
into non-radioactive isotopes. You repeat this process
of separation and breeding until substantially all of your
radiactive waste has been converted to non-radioactive waste.
Much much nicer than burying the waste someplace.
The DOE is working on strategies like this, so it
isn't some wild-eyed idea.
In the long run I'd favor approaches of smaller, inherently
safe standardized designs (e.g. those that "cannot" meltdown)
that get buried underground around major metropolitan areas.
Much safer from the perspective of smaller more difficult to
hit targets for terrorists and less damage to power supplies due
to point-source failures (e.g. accidents involving power lines).
Robert
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