What To Do With Nuclear Waste

Its the other side of the nuclear reactor equation, the part people don't know about or want to know about. Its not making the headlines.

What do you do with nuclear waste that has a radioactive life of 100,000 years? Architects and engineers are working with that question. The answers are not pretty.

Guardian UK: Nuclear waste: Keep out – for 100,000 years

(Regarding Chernobyl) Hence the current longer-term plan, called the New Safe Confinement. This project calls for the erection of an arch-shaped hangar, bigger than a football pitch and high enough to fit the Statue of Liberty inside. Because of the radiation levels, it must be built 500 metres away then slid over the top of the reactor and the Object Shelter. At 32,000 tonnes, it is just about the heaviest object ever moved.


(Regarding Chernobyl)...the arch will be assembled and slid into place by 2015. Then huge, remote-controlled cranes inside will dismantle the Object Shelter and begin retrieving the hazardous materials inside.


Onkalo will be ready to take waste in 2020, and then will be finally sealed in 2120, after which it will not be opened for 100,000 years. By that time, Finland will probably have been through another ice age. Little trace of our current civilisation will remain.

Trailer for 'Into Eternity' AKA 'Nuclear Eternity' - a documentary about storing nuclear waste.