#robertajacobs — Public Fediverse posts

.> we make these waste-siting decisions. Our structure for determining and executing the most well-designed deep geological storage facilities for our spent nuclear fuel is based explicitly on the current delineation of our political boundaries. In other words, Finland must dispose of Finnish nuclear waste in Finland; America must dispose of American nuclear waste in America; Japan must dispose of Japanese nuclear waste in Japan. This seems natural since the waste was generated within the boundaries of these political systems. The electricity or weaponry was manufactured for the benefit of the citizens of those states, and the responsibility for the disposal of that waste is the burden of the benefited citizens of those nations. While that makes sense to us, it makes less sense in terms of disposing the waste. When we look at Japan, there is no suitable place to establish a deep geological storage site inside of Japan....

.> ... One may say that Japan should have considered such a dilemma before it chose to generate nuclear waste, much as one may ask that question about the endeavor globally, but such questions are beside the point: the waste is here, the waste will also be there—in the future. What is the best strategy to mitigate risk to ourselves and future generations?

.> The Japanese government has determined the “best” locations for its proposed deep geological storage site.73 The designated sites are considered “better” than other sites. That does not make them good, it just makes them (by some measure) the best of a bad lot...

.> we make these waste-siting decisions. Our structure for determining and executing the most well-designed deep geological storage facilities for our spent nuclear fuel is based explicitly on the current delineation of our political boundaries. In other words, Finland must dispose of Finnish nuclear waste in Finland; America must dispose of American nuclear waste in America; Japan must dispose of Japanese nuclear waste in Japan. This seems natural since the waste was generated within the boundaries of these political systems. The electricity or weaponry was manufactured for the benefit of the citizens of those states, and the responsibility for the disposal of that waste is the burden of the benefited citizens of those nations. While that makes sense to us, it makes less sense in terms of disposing the waste. When we look at Japan, there is no suitable place to establish a deep geological storage site inside of Japan....

.> ... One may say that Japan should have considered such a dilemma before it chose to generate nuclear waste, much as one may ask that question about the endeavor globally, but such questions are beside the point: the waste is here, the waste will also be there—in the future. What is the best strategy to mitigate risk to ourselves and future generations?

.> The Japanese government has determined the “best” locations for its proposed deep geological storage site.73 The designated sites are considered “better” than other sites. That does not make them good, it just makes them (by some measure) the best of a bad lot...

.> we make these waste-siting decisions. Our structure for determining and executing the most well-designed deep geological storage facilities for our spent nuclear fuel is based explicitly on the current delineation of our political boundaries. In other words, Finland must dispose of Finnish nuclear waste in Finland; America must dispose of American nuclear waste in America; Japan must dispose of Japanese nuclear waste in Japan. This seems natural since the waste was generated within the boundaries of these political systems. The electricity or weaponry was manufactured for the benefit of the citizens of those states, and the responsibility for the disposal of that waste is the burden of the benefited citizens of those nations. While that makes sense to us, it makes less sense in terms of disposing the waste. When we look at Japan, there is no suitable place to establish a deep geological storage site inside of Japan....

.> ... One may say that Japan should have considered such a dilemma before it chose to generate nuclear waste, much as one may ask that question about the endeavor globally, but such questions are beside the point: the waste is here, the waste will also be there—in the future. What is the best strategy to mitigate risk to ourselves and future generations?

.> The Japanese government has determined the “best” locations for its proposed deep geological storage site.73 The designated sites are considered “better” than other sites. That does not make them good, it just makes them (by some measure) the best of a bad lot...

.> we make these waste-siting decisions. Our structure for determining and executing the most well-designed deep geological storage facilities for our spent nuclear fuel is based explicitly on the current delineation of our political boundaries. In other words, Finland must dispose of Finnish nuclear waste in Finland; America must dispose of American nuclear waste in America; Japan must dispose of Japanese nuclear waste in Japan. This seems natural since the waste was generated within the boundaries of these political systems. The electricity or weaponry was manufactured for the benefit of the citizens of those states, and the responsibility for the disposal of that waste is the burden of the benefited citizens of those nations. While that makes sense to us, it makes less sense in terms of disposing the waste. When we look at Japan, there is no suitable place to establish a deep geological storage site inside of Japan....

.> ... One may say that Japan should have considered such a dilemma before it chose to generate nuclear waste, much as one may ask that question about the endeavor globally, but such questions are beside the point: the waste is here, the waste will also be there—in the future. What is the best strategy to mitigate risk to ourselves and future generations?

.> The Japanese government has determined the “best” locations for its proposed deep geological storage site.73 The designated sites are considered “better” than other sites. That does not make them good, it just makes them (by some measure) the best of a bad lot...

.> we make these waste-siting decisions. Our structure for determining and executing the most well-designed deep geological storage facilities for our spent nuclear fuel is based explicitly on the current delineation of our political boundaries. In other words, Finland must dispose of Finnish nuclear waste in Finland; America must dispose of American nuclear waste in America; Japan must dispose of Japanese nuclear waste in Japan. This seems natural since the waste was generated within the boundaries of these political systems. The electricity or weaponry was manufactured for the benefit of the citizens of those states, and the responsibility for the disposal of that waste is the burden of the benefited citizens of those nations. While that makes sense to us, it makes less sense in terms of disposing the waste. When we look at Japan, there is no suitable place to establish a deep geological storage site inside of Japan....

.> ... One may say that Japan should have considered such a dilemma before it chose to generate nuclear waste, much as one may ask that question about the endeavor globally, but such questions are beside the point: the waste is here, the waste will also be there—in the future. What is the best strategy to mitigate risk to ourselves and future generations?

.> The Japanese government has determined the “best” locations for its proposed deep geological storage site.73 The designated sites are considered “better” than other sites. That does not make them good, it just makes them (by some measure) the best of a bad lot...

.> Because the melted nuclear cores (corium) of reactors 1, 2 & 3 at Fukushima Dai'ichi are somewhere underneath the three reactor buildings, having melted out, workers at TEPCO have been pouring cold water on the corium since the meltdowns to cool the corium. This is both to prevent spontaneous fissioning, and also to carry heat away from the mess so that it may eventually be removed sometime later in this century (the melted core of Chernobyl is still underneath the reactor, almost 40 years later, and still has not schedule for removal). All of the water used to cool the corium is then pumped into holding tanks on the grounds of the Fukushima site. Also, groundwater flows through the basements that hold the corium, and that adds to the water being pumped out....

.> Because the dumping of the tanks is a political negative for the government of Japan, a pipeline is being built so that the water can simply be dumped via underground pipe, and the theatrics of dumping the tanks into the ocean can be avoided in the future. A political solution to a problem with few mechanical solutions...

.> What else can be done? As Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has said, the water could be moved to much larger tanks and held for up to a century, which would facilitate some further decay of the radioactivity of particles before they are released. However, this would be seen as a political negative as it would fill parts of Japan up with large holding tanks for a century, and remind everyone about the problem.

.> Because the melted nuclear cores (corium) of reactors 1, 2 & 3 at Fukushima Dai'ichi are somewhere underneath the three reactor buildings, having melted out, workers at TEPCO have been pouring cold water on the corium since the meltdowns to cool the corium. This is both to prevent spontaneous fissioning, and also to carry heat away from the mess so that it may eventually be removed sometime later in this century (the melted core of Chernobyl is still underneath the reactor, almost 40 years later, and still has not schedule for removal). All of the water used to cool the corium is then pumped into holding tanks on the grounds of the Fukushima site. Also, groundwater flows through the basements that hold the corium, and that adds to the water being pumped out....

.> Because the dumping of the tanks is a political negative for the government of Japan, a pipeline is being built so that the water can simply be dumped via underground pipe, and the theatrics of dumping the tanks into the ocean can be avoided in the future. A political solution to a problem with few mechanical solutions...

.> What else can be done? As Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has said, the water could be moved to much larger tanks and held for up to a century, which would facilitate some further decay of the radioactivity of particles before they are released. However, this would be seen as a political negative as it would fill parts of Japan up with large holding tanks for a century, and remind everyone about the problem.

.> Because the melted nuclear cores (corium) of reactors 1, 2 & 3 at Fukushima Dai'ichi are somewhere underneath the three reactor buildings, having melted out, workers at TEPCO have been pouring cold water on the corium since the meltdowns to cool the corium. This is both to prevent spontaneous fissioning, and also to carry heat away from the mess so that it may eventually be removed sometime later in this century (the melted core of Chernobyl is still underneath the reactor, almost 40 years later, and still has not schedule for removal). All of the water used to cool the corium is then pumped into holding tanks on the grounds of the Fukushima site. Also, groundwater flows through the basements that hold the corium, and that adds to the water being pumped out....

.> Because the dumping of the tanks is a political negative for the government of Japan, a pipeline is being built so that the water can simply be dumped via underground pipe, and the theatrics of dumping the tanks into the ocean can be avoided in the future. A political solution to a problem with few mechanical solutions...

.> What else can be done? As Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has said, the water could be moved to much larger tanks and held for up to a century, which would facilitate some further decay of the radioactivity of particles before they are released. However, this would be seen as a political negative as it would fill parts of Japan up with large holding tanks for a century, and remind everyone about the problem.

.> Because the melted nuclear cores (corium) of reactors 1, 2 & 3 at Fukushima Dai'ichi are somewhere underneath the three reactor buildings, having melted out, workers at TEPCO have been pouring cold water on the corium since the meltdowns to cool the corium. This is both to prevent spontaneous fissioning, and also to carry heat away from the mess so that it may eventually be removed sometime later in this century (the melted core of Chernobyl is still underneath the reactor, almost 40 years later, and still has not schedule for removal). All of the water used to cool the corium is then pumped into holding tanks on the grounds of the Fukushima site. Also, groundwater flows through the basements that hold the corium, and that adds to the water being pumped out....

.> Because the dumping of the tanks is a political negative for the government of Japan, a pipeline is being built so that the water can simply be dumped via underground pipe, and the theatrics of dumping the tanks into the ocean can be avoided in the future. A political solution to a problem with few mechanical solutions...

.> What else can be done? As Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has said, the water could be moved to much larger tanks and held for up to a century, which would facilitate some further decay of the radioactivity of particles before they are released. However, this would be seen as a political negative as it would fill parts of Japan up with large holding tanks for a century, and remind everyone about the problem.

.> Because the melted nuclear cores (corium) of reactors 1, 2 & 3 at Fukushima Dai'ichi are somewhere underneath the three reactor buildings, having melted out, workers at TEPCO have been pouring cold water on the corium since the meltdowns to cool the corium. This is both to prevent spontaneous fissioning, and also to carry heat away from the mess so that it may eventually be removed sometime later in this century (the melted core of Chernobyl is still underneath the reactor, almost 40 years later, and still has not schedule for removal). All of the water used to cool the corium is then pumped into holding tanks on the grounds of the Fukushima site. Also, groundwater flows through the basements that hold the corium, and that adds to the water being pumped out....

.> Because the dumping of the tanks is a political negative for the government of Japan, a pipeline is being built so that the water can simply be dumped via underground pipe, and the theatrics of dumping the tanks into the ocean can be avoided in the future. A political solution to a problem with few mechanical solutions...

.> What else can be done? As Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has said, the water could be moved to much larger tanks and held for up to a century, which would facilitate some further decay of the radioactivity of particles before they are released. However, this would be seen as a political negative as it would fill parts of Japan up with large holding tanks for a century, and remind everyone about the problem.