Dear MEL Topic Readers,
How to build a nuclear tomb to last millennia
Radioactive waste is a byproduct of nuclear reactors, fuel processing
plants, hospitals, and research facilities. The radioactivity of all
radioactive waste weakens with time, not in years or even centuries but in hundreds
of millennia. Since there are no viable technologies to weaken radio activities,
we have no choice but to keep those radioactive wastes somewhere safe. Geological
disposal facilities (GDFs) are planned underground structures to contain the most
radioactive, thus the longest-lived nuclear waste. GDFs are built under 500
meters to 1 kilometer below the ground in geologically safe and stable
places. There are planned or in development sites in the UK, France, Finland,
and other 20 or so countries. In time, there will be safer, faster, and more efficient
technologies to store or weaken radio activities. But for the time being, we bury
nuclear waste like Emperor Qinshihuang's terracotta army or Tutankhamun’s tomb that
lasted thousands of years. Would time solve the problem?
Read the article and learn about how nuclear waste is being kept.
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