Nuclear Emergency at Hanford site in Washington State

[eglove]

A 20x20 foot hole has appeared and it looks like it collapsed over one of the tunnels holding nuclear waste


http://www.hanford.gov/c.cfm/eoc/?page=290


https://twitter.com/HanfordSite

[killramos]

Out of all the kinds of nuclear disasters. This one is pretty minor.

Going to be expensive to clean up for sure but actual risk? Not so much.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by killramos Going to be expensive to clean up for sure but actual risk? Not so much.

They allow tourists and have guided tour there.

Although, you have to be US citizen.

[ZenOps]

The risk is in losing it to a foreign entity. Arguably, certain forms of nuclear waste are far more valuable than biological weaponry.

Imagine Khadafi getting his hands on a few tanker trucks of it and then threatening to spew it over the roads the middle of Manhattan if he should ever happen to lose power or be killed.

Mind you, there is that one guy who wants to fill a moat of it at the Mexican border at the wall to make sure no one crosses it.

[killramos]

What is wrong with you man...

[ZenOps]

It actually would have been possible to safely contain said nuclear waste.

The accepted method is to slowly remove the radioactive particles from the water and then add it to molten iron in a dilution ratio that keeps the iron rods hot to the touch for centuries, but otherwise "safe" because its extremely difficult to remove radioactive particles for nefarious purposes.

The only reason to keep it in liquid suspension in high concentration is: Cost or use as weaponry for US use in the future. The pessimist in me believes the US was keeping it to breed other radioactive particles as weaponry. The optimist in me believes that the US was simply too cheap to bother. The extreme pessimist in me believes that the US started nuclear power plants to create weaponry first, and electricity was only a nice byproduct.

I can imagine that blackmarket nuclear waste probably goes for quite a large sum of money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_...ste_repository < Should be able to safely store 70,000 tons of nuclear waste.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...-nuclear-waste

There is currently no Geneva convention mandate on buried nuclear waste, but there is on land mines at border walls.

Just being real. Khadafi always stated that if he was ever killed, retribution would be apocalyptic. Didn't happen. If Kim Jong is assassinated by the US? Definitely apocalyptic.

[e31]

Originally posted by ZenOps
The extreme pessimist in me believes that the US started nuclear power plants to create weaponry first, and electricity was only a nice byproduct.

Umm, that's exactly what happened. Nobody (reasonable) will argue that historical fact.

[JRSC00LUDE]