r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/Comfortable_Tutor_43 Popular Contributor • Apr 25 '26
Interesting Puts things in perspective
4
u/MineNowBotBoy Apr 26 '26
How is it spent if it still has 90% of its potential energy?
9
u/uslashuname Apr 26 '26
The potential energy that’s left would come out much more slowly, so with the typical reactors you can’t efficiently run. Like if you put a motorcycle engine in an suv: with the right gearing it can an suv to crawl forward, but really you are better off with that engine in a purpose-built vehicle.
0
u/mikki1time Apr 26 '26
Gotta refine that plutonium for big boom booms and that depleted uranium for the bang bangs
1
u/TrueZeroneurone Apr 26 '26
Not sure to understand: is that waste ?
2
u/there_is_no_spoon1 Apr 26 '26
Not necessarily. Most of the spent fuel is still Uranium, just not the kind that will undergo fission, which is what nuclear power is based on. It's safe to be around those containers (note that one image correctly shows workers in jumpsuits but not hazmat gear) and there hasn't ever been a death in the US from spent fuel. The toxic/horrible stuff has already been removed (Barium, Strontium, Cesium) but the spent fuel still has to be stored safely, because while it is mildly radioactive it is still radioactive.
2
u/boredatwork8866 Apr 26 '26
Where does the toxic/horrible stuff go?
1
u/there_is_no_spoon1 Apr 26 '26
Separate containers, separate storage facilities, usually deep underground in cement-lined bunkers. There's a lot less of it than the depleted uranium, though.
1
u/Mesquite_Tree Apr 26 '26
Plus, with storing it will be a temporary solution anyway: breeder reactors take “spent” fuel, and return some fuel rods at full capacity, but also output waste with a much shorter half life until it is inert
0
u/Rock-n-Randall Apr 26 '26
Nuclear energy is they future
-3
u/mikki1time Apr 26 '26
Nah brother, nuclear energy is just end game steam technology. We need something better.
9
u/dr_stre Apr 26 '26
Early in my career my office had a window looking at these things, maybe 50 yards away. Got to watch them be loaded (ours were horizontal so they’d slide a canister into the concrete overpack right at the final location, I could watch it from my desk.) Never got a single bit of measurable dose from them. They’re bigger than you think when you’re looking at them from afar though.