Recycling should change the material to a benefit to mankind not a danger.
So using spent Uranium on the battlefield doesn't count.
Turn the idea over to MIT and others.
Offer a million dollar reward (or even a billion) to the scientist who comes up with a solution to turn all nuclear waste into a benefit by recycling it inexpensively.
While your at it offer another million to the scientist who discovers a way of cheaply removing carbon from the atmosphere without pumping it into caverns.
Comments (7)
Great idea.
However, I presume the patent rights on whatever process or technology can sucessfully recycle nuclear waste, is an existing strong incentive. Hopefully, someone would make it free technology though.
The Mycologist Paul Stamets has done some work that shows how cesium-137 can be heavily absorbed by mushrooms (some 10,000 normal.) Cesium has a short 30-year half-life however. Just thought I'd share. Stamets has a great book out called "Mycelium Running."
I believe there are other countries recycling, France is I believe. There are also Thorium reactors which can use waste from Nukes.
I think I read something about this already being done, but I unfortunately don't remember.
I read an article warning that France recycles all their nuclear waste into things like pots and pans, baby bottles and strollers, etc. etc. Unsure if it's true.
They take an arch-laser and glassify nuclear waste into a solid object. It does not reduce the radioactiveness of the material but it is easier to store.
First answer: This has already been done. The French have been burning waste in fast breeder reactors for years. They have very, very little high-level radioactive waste, in that most of the waste contributes to the reactor power output and is destroyed.
Second answer: you'll get the same effect ive you simply wait 2-3 decades.
The answer is not to make nuclear radiation safe; the answer is to make it irrelevant. This will be done by being able to repair and rebuild the body even given massive radiation damage and exposure.
When radiation-caused health issues become trivially fixable, the irrational fear of nuclear radiation should decrease.
Voting down as redundant/already available.
Hey lunatic,
Even if dna repair for radiation exposure was free and accessible to all people, we'd still have to deal with it poisoning our ecosystems and food supply.