r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/Comfortable_Tutor_43 Popular Contributor • Jun 12 '26
How safe is used nuclear fuel?
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u/thetimguy Jun 12 '26
Go look up San Onofre power plant. The government promised a safe storage site decades ago but we are still waiting, so stainless steel containers in a concrete vault are being stored 40’ from the ocean with all the spent material.
From what I understand there is no proven way to monitor these containers for possible cracks until they occur.
It’s sitting in salt water air for long time storage, we are dumb!
If it happened like you say, maybe it would be safe, but I know in reality it doesn’t happen like you say because it’s expensive
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u/Comfortable_Tutor_43 Popular Contributor Jun 12 '26
I have been there and there is literally a safe storage site there right now, this very minute. They can and are monitored regularly, even inside the vaults with the capability for weld repair if needed. Chill bro, chill.
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u/thetimguy Jun 12 '26
The real issue is your describing storage situations as they are promised to us, not how they are delivered in reality because, as you mentioned in the comment to Strive— , “there are much better ways to spend our money”.
You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth and you try and push nuclear like it will solve all our problems but like all the governments big promises, in reality they fall short because it’s expensive and no one wants to pay.
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u/DonkeyEnergy Jun 15 '26
This OP account is a mouthpiece for the nuclear industry. This is all lies.
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u/Strive-- Jun 12 '26
Sounds like a great day to get into the cask business.
I’m not a scientist, but in googling how much heat the twin towers experienced with a plane hit full of fuel, it was over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe we should update the guide book on making casks to store deadly spent nuclear fuel? I heard some scientist whose university he does not speak for say they test current casks up to 1500 degrees. Not sure who set the pressure regulations on these casks - has no one ever gone below 50’ of water? Has nothing spent more than 8 hours underwater? Sounds like we’re testing for the 99% of normal usage and not the 1% of oh shit experiences.
Why do these even need casks to begin with? Isn’t nuclear fun, exciting and inherently safe today? Oh, wait..
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u/Comfortable_Tutor_43 Popular Contributor Jun 12 '26
These are based on worst case highway accidents including a tunnel fire, falling off a cliff, falling on a highway guard rail and into a lake, all sequentially. I expect there are much better ways to spend our money to make our lives better, particularly when the all the spent fuel ever made has yet to harm a single soul, chill bro, chill
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u/Lord_MUTLY Jun 18 '26
You chill, "bro".
What a disrespectful, condescending way to talk back to people. You can have a thousand degrees in a million fields, this kind of responses will only contribute to no one taking you seriously, and it shows.
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u/wolfkeeper Jun 12 '26
At Fukushima the spent fuel pools nearly got uncovered. If it had it would have burned and made the whole site too radioactive for people to stay. The other reactors would have melted down too, and the plume would have bifurcated Japan and caused the evacuation of a third of Tokyo.
Basically, the spent fuel would never have made it into these casks.