And then there’s plutonium-239 that has a half-life of 24 thousand years. The main components of the high level waste are Strontium-90 and cesium-137, which each have half-lives of about thirty years.

It’s really very similar to wealth distribution - the highest three percent are the most toxic. 7 percent is intermediate and about 3 percent of it is the high-level waste that we’re concerned with here, that’s primarily what’s left from the fuel rods. This makes up about 90 percent of all nuclear waste. This is stuff such as tools, equipment, building material, shielding, clothing and so on. Going by volume, most of the waste is lightly contaminated and won’t radiate for long. It can roughly be distinguished into three categories: lightly contaminated waste, intermediate level, and high-level waste, though there’s no international agreement on the exact classification. This process of energy generation at a nuclear power plant leaves behind radioactive waste that must be safely discarded of. Think of fuel rods like world leaders but a bit more reliable. How often this must be done depends on the reactor, but typically it’s every 3-8 years. Eventually, the fuel rods must be replaced. In the course of time the number of atomic nuclei in the fuel rods that can still be split declines, and the power generation becomes less and less efficient. The fission processes that generate the energy in a nuclear power plant create a lot of new atomic nuclei, many of which are radioactive. As a theoretical physicist I’d say it kind of works like a water mill, just a little more dangerous. This generates heat which evaporates water which spins turbines which creates electricity.

In the reactor, they fuel rods exposed to neutron radiation, which starts a controlled chain reaction. A bundle of such rods forms the core of a reactor. The uranium is formed into small pellets which are then sealed into metal tubes called rods. How much nuclear waste is there, how dangerous is it, what can we do with it, and what the heck is a ray cat? That’s what we’ll talk about today.Īlmost all existing nuclear power plants run with uranium. But we’ll talk about the next best thing to superpowers: numbers. Do you get superpowers if you roll around in it? If you came here to answer that question, you’ve got the wrong channel. If it wasn’t for this little issue with the radioactive waste. Luckily, we now all agree that it’s the fastest, safest, and most reliable way to get off fossil fuels.

Nuclear power used to be a conversation stopper.

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