The Nuclear Waste Problem
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- Опубликовано: 20 ноя 2017
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Animation by Josh Sherrington ( / heliosphere )
Sound by Graham Haerther (www.Haerther.net)
Thumbnail by Joe Cieplinski (joecieplinski.com/)
Nuclear reactor footage courtesy Canada Science and Technology Museum
Spent fuel pool courtesy IAEA Imagebank
Onkalo photo courtesy Posiva
Music: "Raw Deal" by Gunner Olsen, "Divider" by Chris Zabriskie, "My Luck" by Broke for Free, and "I Wanted to Live" by Lee Rosevere
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Radioactive Uranium Rods
He chose... poorly.
That’s a movie I’d watch
Mysterious glow... melting faces... ancient warning... so THAT'S what was in the ark of the covenant! Maybe the briefcase in Pulp Fiction was nuclear waste too!
Barest comment award
@@maximogriffin487 wtf
"The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place." I cannot think of a better way to peak someone's curiosity.
Pandora's box.
What if we build traps? Like arrows shooting from the wall, giant boulders ect ?
What is this Indiana Jones?
*pique
The message sounds like something from epic fantasy lol, hell yeah I am going in!
"If you open this, everyone gets sick and dies." That's better than that mysterious interesting shit they wrote.
Surely that has a striking resemblance to the messages on the pyramids?
How about; "This is not an invitation and our civilization is not perfect and strives in warfare, so take it from us that opening this will definitely kill you!!!".?!
@@jonatanrullman Yeah, but the pyramids weren't a thousand feet underground. Let's say, "If you open this, everyone gets sick and dies of radiation from nuclear waste" instead of some curse nonsense.
It really was interesting.😂
that is not the message they physically want to write (the whole point is outlasting all existing languages). that's the meaning that they want conveyed through symbolism
Just create a secret society dedicated around protecting the future from the past
That's actually the best solution I've ever come across.
They it will probably become a religion by then, all haile the temple of rods
honestly that message sounds like some kind of amazing weapon is buried there if I was a warlord or something I might want to dig for it
Erisi Dlarit that’s why they have security but say a f18 went rogue and decided to fire a middle at a cask plant then kaboom
@@sturggaming6759 the point is precisely to avoid that people try to open it long after our currrent institutions are gone
@@DN-qd4dp I'm aware theres nothing on the face of the earth that can safely hold nuclear waste equivalent of leaving a ship in salt water for 2 years
@cyanwaterr fact you think you wont see the end of the world makes me lol trump starting pointless fights threatening war on several countries Corona virus the high lord putin creating the worlds most powerful unstoppable nuke transgenders telling kids there not the gender there born as the end times are here we wont see 2030
It sounds like satan would be down there
"I've got it, to prevent future civilizations from getting curious, we should build massive stone monoliths carved with hieroglyphics that detail a cryptic danger buried beneath. Surely nobody would ever try to figure out what the horrible thing buried here is".
How ironic
69th like lol
could we send them off into space and into the sun
@@randomrazr That would be a massive waste of resources. Spent nuclear fuel can be harnessed as new fuel in one of multiple ways.
@@hochhaul yet we bury them? lol
As somebody who works in nuclear, and specifically in spent fuel storage, I can assure that a number of things stated are false or misleading. For one, dry cask storage systems (the concrete steel cylinders) have various different designs that take natural disasters based on area into account. In California, at sites like San Onofre and Diablo Canyon, the casks each have their own individual slot 20' deep inside of a seismic safe concrete pad; this design is called a UMAX. On the east coast US, you don't have to worry about earthquakes or tsunamis of course. Two... No government or company in their right mind would leave an underground mausoleum unguarded; that bunch about the Finnish site is a complete lie, or at least would not apply in the US; happy to see it's being memed.
Am I a dick for thinking that if humanity is completely wiped out then how likely is it that Earth is still liveable and who actually thinks nuclear waste is a big issue then.
@@NotASummoner if that happens (which it will) the radiation leakage due to the other 'phenomenon' happening on earth, that supposedly wiped out living beings would be much greater than the nuclear waste but that will be taken care of in due time, it's the fact that these nuclear waste will even stand the test of time for 10k years or so and that poses a threat for the new class of living beings that will originate on earth.
That's just my hypothesis, maybe the nuclear waste will die down too after million years or so ...since that's exactly how much time it took for humanity to reach here!
Yeah this video is full os misinformation. Like uranium is lethally radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Thats just incorrect. The longer something is radioactive for, the less lethal it is to be exposed to that radiation.
Nuclear isn’t as safe as you and your scientist pals wanna believe. Don’t be so arrogant, mistakes can happen and things like natural disasters can’t be stopped. Point is.. if godforbid there is a meltdown.. it’s jus too damaging.. it’s very unlikely to happen often but even happening once a decade is too much and NOT worth it to bare and the more common it gets the more and more radiation accumulated. It’s suicide and we jus can’t trust private companies enough to actually follow all the safety requirements even tho there is massive oversight and regulations things still happen jus look how Fukushima plant was wanted about not having adequate wall to stop waves and were warned years before the meltdown.. and didn’t fix it. You really trust other people to govern such a dangerous thing that has been proven to release all hell several times before.
@@akhil.bhardwaj
The waste that live for thousands of year or more are a small part of the total.
The immense majority (90%) have a half-life of less than the lifespan of a reactor (about 31 years).
And if the long lived waste are some days exposed , it would not be that dramatic. It would not "release" radiations, rather emit (they are not bombs dropped from far above the ground really).
And the waste are solid so they won't leak or anything.
The α and β rays are stopped by pretty anything.
The γ and x rays are blocked by a good concrete thickness, lead or even soil (a few meters is largely enough).
If their is nothing the radioactivity declines with the inverse square law.
And for exemple after Chernobyl, the wildlife has increased much more than since man lived there.
The catastrophe for the population was due to the incompetence/tentatives of cover up of the leaders of the USSR more than anything.
I don't say that we should not take great care of the nuclear waste, but rather that it is not the absolute nightmare a lot of NGOs like Greenpeace portray.
From what I can observe, it looks like containing the nuclear waste would at least be easier than pulling a bunch of carbon dioxide out of the air.
Exactly!
@Skel Archer plants have enough CO2, we do not need this much
@Skel Archer Respect the trolling hustle, also yeah nuke waste is way less of a problem
@Skel Archer aus means autsralia or austria or is it a city
@Skel Archer OTB?
-What's it saying, blob?
-Danger, Death, Radiation, Useless, Heavy.
-Blob, what is it really?
-Barely used nuclear fuel, for free! Just what we need for the Beta Fusion Reactor mark XVI...
I think Europe uses their fuel rods much more than the United States. I don’t think calling it barely used is fair
Except you don't need a "Beta Fusion Reactor mark XVI" when we already have about 400 reactor-years with Integral Fast Reactors, and are just getting started with Molten Salt Reactors. We KNOW how to convert once-through nuclear fuel rods into 60 to 90 times the energy of this wasteful cycle. The final waste product is only radioactive for 300 years.
@@eclipsenow5431 people will still fear it
@@shmadmanuts People think the coronavirus is a plandemic - some kind of conspiracy. People are dumb. I want us to educate governments so they'll nationalise energy, roll nukes off the production line, bring the costs down, and clean the skies. Then we'll have a healthy population, save about a million lives a year worldwide due to cutting fossil fuel pollution, and figure out whether we can run the modern world without oil, coal, or gas!
@@eclipsenow5431 Was thinking about ways of doing so, but sadly there is no way of bypassing the stupid majority. Politicans just think of terms and influence. In order to convince a politican of such a public act (which would see him and you getting blasted by the medias) the public must be on your side. Forget about teaching the public about nuclear and why it is the only worthwhile energy investement for the future, because understanding nuclear energy is FAR out of their attention span. No, what you most focus on is simply deconstructing the "nuclear bad" that has been used by politicans and lobbies for decades to get easy traction behind their schemes. And obviously, in order to deconstruct a myth half a century in the making, you will need a lot of influence, allies, solid grasp of the media and a TON of resources, and that's not even counting restarting a field of research that has been neglected for decades.
Sadly, you will need help, a lot of help. And the oposition will be there in spades. Oil lobbies will order the wall steet journal to give you a negative rating so no one wants to invest in your plan to starve you of resources. And if you start to get a bit too logical, they will order their army of eco-warriors to dismantle your public image and cast shade on your project. Not saying it is impossible, but going against a block which has trillions in assets, can bend any politician to their side and has proven able to make major states fall to their schemes (look at germany) is going to require just as much of a power show on the nuclear side, and it has not been enjoying that since the first reactors.
Clicked on this expecting to learn about nuclear energy, left questioning my existence
Exactly man all I learned from this video is that humans will not be existence in 100 000 years
Same here
yay il die in 100000 years
Left me wondering about the future
Just reminded me how stupid humans are to get into this mess in the first place
Between 2008 and 2017 there were over 1500 deaths resulting from oil extraction. The argument against nuclear power being safety issue is not a good one…
What they fail to mention: both “nuclear” disasters actually were due to human error- particularly in the case of Chernobyl, where VITAL safety measures were IGNORED!
Also, nuclear power is INCREDIBLY dense in compared to the space it takes up AND the waste it produces.
I'm a nuclear energy fan, but I don't think this is one of the stronger arguments -- human error will always be there, perhaps better to emphasize it as an opportunity for future power plants to get better
@@MrDaAsif Fukushima got hit by a 14 m Tsunami wave from the fourth biggest earthquake we've ever measured yet it's sister powerplant which experienced the same thing was fine. Their construction was finished in 1971 and 1976.
@@MrDaAsif human error + outdated technology, this is the soviet union were talking about after all, modern reactors are significantly safer
He forgot about the Kyshtym disaster in 1957 when a tank of liquid nuclear waste exploded and rained down on Chelyabinsk.
Right, its not like other sources of energy have not had accidents or killed humans, due to human error or otherwise. Only photovoltaic solar energy appears to have little to no opportunities for accidents
Thousand years later ... Some random tomb raider think he/she found an ancient artifact. Read the warning, and say :
Look at these religious superstitious bloke. They think they can scare us with a nonsense mythical curse.
fajar adi Pradana Hahahaha then they get fucked over and die and they think the curse is real and believe that we are gods or some shit
Wait a minute, didn't we just do that with the Egyptians? Oh how the tables have turned
MR. RANDOM GAMER Well then, checkmate.
or a supervillain/superhero or a wannabe-supervillain/superhero:
"There's a great power hidden here, a great ancient power. I better claim it, lest it falls into the wrong hands."
reading sends so much chills down my spine
7:55 If that message was in a video game I would dig that up in no time.
that message made me curious to open the mine
"the only way to truly forget this this place, is to forget humans entirely"
"TODAY'S SPONSER IS"
what an oh so good transfer of topics
Im surprised you left out the US's waste deposit site in Yucca Mountain. Billions of dollars went into it and is very similar to the one in Finland. Isolated and deep into earth for permanent waste disposal.
And bikini island
The native people did not want the waste? did they?
That warning just sounds too much like the Ancient Egyptian warnings which we completely ignored.
We knew they were iron aged people. We weren't that concerned.
Rick Footson
And the future socities will say : "They were just a bunch of internet aged ppl we are not concerned"
@@Rael14 If that is the case, society will understand the concept of nuclear radiation quite well, I presume.
@@ez45 Exactly.
Egyptian religion is bunk and they have no power to curse anyone.
The warning here is worded in a formal manner that disavows itself from being misconstrued as a religious warning.
It is also a legitimate warning with an actual threat associated with it, unlike the warnings in Egyptian tombs.
Just name the site Flint Michigan and I'm pretty sure any government will forget about it if not ignore it.
Or Camden, NJ
**This**
Flint Michigan happened because the leaders of flint Michigan we’re dumbasses it’s not the feds responsibility to deal with it
@@maybe3430 Great take dude, the federal government shouldn't care about its citizens. Seriously are you losing it or what...
Kel Webster local government should look after the citizens. Federal gov should look after the country
wendover is like the more depressing twin brother of HAI
This video exaggerates the danger of nuclear waste massively. Mixes up radiation and radioactivity.(radioactivity is like poop, radiation is the stink, except it's rays, not gas) The whole nuclear scare is funded by the fossil fuel industry. A 20-fold increase in nuclear energy production can and(I hope) will save the world.
On the contrary, that's the exact kind of message that increases the curiosity
7:55 Wow that message TOTALLY won't just make them more curious
Right? When I was listening to it I was just thinking of some monster made of energy that ruled over the world and finally got captured or something lmao
Especially if it is humans, they would want to research it in order to figure out if they could use it to kill other humans... That's the sad truth :S
I know. That would make me want to open it more than ever. May I suggest an alternative? "Behind these walls are nude pictures of Hilary Clinton". That'll keep people away.
Exactly! That is the WORST message they can leave. Might as well write in a big sign "ENTER AND DIG!!"
How can they be sooooo stupid and not write "There is a bunch of radiation waste that will cause cancer if you get too close. The only thing that lays here is simply waste that will keep being harmful to humans and Nature for thousands of years to come"
Jeremy Wells didn’t the pyramids warn about curses and shit like that? Look how much we cared.
Future human reading "dangerous message" be like :
" *THIS MUST BE WHERE THE TREASURES BURIED !* "
Future aliens reading "dangerous message" be like"
"Language unknown at this time"
@@beepfd Presumably an alien civilization with sufficiently advanced technology for interstellar travel won't be threatened by a little Uranium.
@@ethandehoff3517 They would be. Their archaeologist would find among American waste Pu-239 and create plenty of fringe theories explaining why those Earthlings were throwing away good fissile material. ;)
It would be a treasure. Easily separable plutonium, no enrichment needed. Could build a bomb, or a reactor. Free energy essentially. Assuming they waited long enough to not get sick from the associated shorter lived waste.
oof and f in chat
So glad this video is 4 years old and we have technology to store the waste and a better understanding that the actual harmful radiation comes from 1-3% of what’s actually used. We also have the ability to use the same drilling practices as the oil companies and use bore holes to store the material at much much deeper depths
Very informative documentary, thank you so much!
Wendover: "the only way to secure this place is to let it be forgotten"
Also Wendover: tells me about this place
Legit was thinking the same thing XD
More like : Puts it on the internet on a well subscribed RUclips channel.
wendover? more like bend over
That message sounds ominous as fuck. I think it would do the opposite and attract more people than it scares off. It kind of sounds like something that would be in a horror movie.
It kind of sounds like a call to adventure 7:54
I agree. It does sound interesting
Better would be "Nothing here, move along"
Just like in horror movies, once they started dying, they'd want to bury the cursed items. Sometimes you should heed the warnings.
Yeah sounds like something that can inspire a nice sci-fi story masquerading as a fantasy story. Primitive (or even our era people) discover this site and despite warnings dig to uncover its mysteries only to discover the folly of the people who came before and the danger that awaits. Of course Holywood would mess this up by adding deadly mutants or some other pseudo-science schlock for action and drama.
I always wonder, if spent fuel rods still have enough energy to boil off water and cause meltdowns.. then why don't we use them to generate electricity?
Same here
They boil water but too slowly to generate enough pressure in a reasonable amount of time and size of the reactor.
look up fast reactors. there's a variant of them that uses molten salt as coolants. they can actually reuse spent nuclear fuel...if the vids I watched are to be believed...
Distinct heating and such maybe?
"The Nuclear Waste Problem Does Not Exist" Fixed your title for you.
"Forbidden blocks"
Wow I really want to open it up now
In one thousand years someone will find one of those caskets, read the message, and it will become a creepypasta about some ancient demon that is trapped in it
It’s going to become the Area 51 of their era
Never really thought about this. What an awesome piece.
230 years of fuel is a pretty good bandaid if it gives us time to fix the environment and come up with better solutions for energy. Look at the progress of technology in just the last 100 years.
With seawater uranium used in breeder reactors, it's pretty much unlimited. All the world's energy for a billion years. That's just uranium.
"The form of danger is emanation of energy. The danger is unleashed only if you disturb this place"
there are no better words than this to make them more curious.😂😂😅😅. In every sci-fi movie they type the exact same words near a super-powerful material like vibranium.
Truth be told, I'd say that it's a self-curing illness here.
You dig it up? You die. Someone touches it and gets dosed? They die. Repeat until people stop touching it.
Just flex tape it.
Just smack it on the side she'll be right..
Donkey *The Government Wants to know your location*
Thats a L O T O F D A M A G E
@Frank Heuvelman hahaha yea them guys.
pfff, just some wd 40 and shes good to go again
Nuclear waste does not have to be buried/thrown away, if it's recycled dangerous radiation levels only last about 100.years, and these wastes are more compact, and we get more nuclear fuel to produce power for several 100 years - this without removing any ore from the ground.
Japan 2021: I do apologize for all that I ve done
Japan 2041: its not my fault, it was done by a previous generation
Japan 2071: there is no such thing
Warning message written on an Ancient Egyptian Tomb (Pyramid):
"Watch out not to take (even) a pebble from within it outside. If you find this stone you shall transgress against it."
Modern humans:
"Yeah, let's respect the warning and never touch any of those pyramids."
To be fair in the future people might be able to handle nuclear waste better than us.
@@joshuajoe1419 what if there is an apocalypse and we return to the stone age
Tbf those aren't "This place is cursed, you will die" messages, it's literally just a Ye Olde "Do not trespass, private property" message
@@boygenius538_8 I think there would be bigger issues to worry about
@Eli Shhh I know, I was saying if a apolylpse would happen, that would be the biggest current problem.
"This information needs to not be spread and be forgotten"
2.3 million views.
Planet of the Humans? Huh! 😂
3.4 million.
8:00 They can just say: This is a Nuclear waste dump piles.
Please make a new video about this subject. Amazing work
"Nuclear waste here, if you open this everyone will die"
that's a better message :)
its lies, they dumped all hazards into ocean
Hilarious. Your joke was very funny and not at all unoriginal like every other comment on this amazing video.
@@uniqhnd23 its still true
"Right here, below the ground, is something very very dangerous, and we put this here, because it emits a lethal dose of radiation, a force that can kill you very quickly and can only be detected using devices you likely not have, wich means that when it's already too late for you, you didn't even notice yet. Please refrain from digging, looking for closed off tunnels and populating this area. If the material deposited under the ground gets to the surface, it will probably kill every living thing in a very large radius, wich you hopefully do not want to happen"
@@alexandertheok9610 what is some wone wants it to happen???
>Convey a vague warning about death and destruction awaiting within
>Build a landscape of inhospitable and evil-looking structures around it to ward off intruders
This is how you get a classic dungeon
A dungeon that gives you cancer as loot
Is that why the monsters are so scary?
And what do we do to dungeons? Explore them.
But instead the vault was just filled with tentacles
and a bunch of adventures hunting treasure.
I would literally travel to see a huge field of 30' spikes at odd angles with huge blocks of black dyed granite..
I cannot possibly be alone
Imagine being alive in the year 32094 and the ancient languages expert translates the sign, only for everyone to conclude that humans of the era in which it was made were too primitive to have known such a thing. Then they pick you to investigate.
That sounds like a good Netflix plot
SMALL FINNISH TOWN
NORMAL LIFE
SUDDENLY NUCLEAR STUFF
SOME KID DISAPPEARS
PEOPLE LOOK FOR HIM
GO INSIDE NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE
MONSTER OR SOMETHING
DUN DUN DUN
STRANGER FINNS
Pitch it to Netflix, they'll green light it 100% guaranteed.
This guy halloweens
that show is called DARK
Greetings from finland :)
Theese structures will not be dug up in 1000 years, they will be dug up in a few decades when we want the Uranium 238 for breeder reactors.
I really hope this happens, except skipping the burying them in the first part bit. It's amazing we have the technology that makes nuclear waste practically nonexistant, but we instead are planning on just throwing it all in a hole.
Exactly, or possibly even Fast Spectrum Molten Salt reactors. Convert it all to fission products and it decays to below natural uranium in 300 years.
@@greedtheron8362
What's the technology that makes nuclear waste non existent fool ?
@@hjembrentkent6181
Idiot
Look up breeder reactors. Takes unstable elements, like Uranium, and turns them into either more stuff you can shove into a reactor, like Plutonium, or turns it into stable, non radioactive elements, like Actinides. People don't like it so much because it's eaiser to turn Plutonium into a bomb than uranium, but those people haven't come up with a good solution for the waste. Completely legit science, not fool stuff.
There is only one solution for this
*"Call Dr Strange and ask him to cast a spell that everyone forgot this Location"* 😅🙌
That warning makes me want to explore it all the more!
they should fill the tunnels with flex seal
Clay is exactly that
With instant noodle
@@stieeleon99 No it is not
That stuff could be eaten by plastic eating bacteria of some sorts.
That's a lot of damage
Wait, but stonehenge, the pyramids of Giza and the statues on Christmas are super touristy these days because of how mysterious they are. If we build something like a "spike field" or "forbidding blocks". I think that it's only natural that future societies will also flock there in huge numbers to experience and better understand them. I don't think that that is really what we want, especially with radiation!
Especially with that kind of written message. Even they can read and understand it, they might not believe it, and it could be irresistibly fascinating even if they do. People might go poking around anyway just to know what's up.
You know there's devices to indicate radiation, right?
@@gustopher6500 We know that they exist, we don't know that future civilizations would have access to them.
@@TroggacomCactus we knew about radiation before we knew anything about computers, if they could land on our planet, they most likely know what radiation js
Tröggâçom Càctüs you’re trying to communicate a message to essentially infinity... assuming they would have ANY kind of technology at all is ridiculous...
The message left out some important facts. The most significant one that I am aware of is that the rod is considered spent not because it lacks sufficient energy to continue using, it actually has 95+ percent of its fissionable material. The problem is that the rod pellets take on mehanical changes that make them unsuitable for continued use. THEY CAN BE REPROCESSED. This is CURRENTLY BEING DONE by other advanced nations such as France, UK, and Russia. It reduces the need and timeline for disposal, dramatically increase its efficiency, and extends the supply of uranium by leaps and bounds. It also minimizes the need for storage both long term and short term.
The other shortcoming is the failure to mention the heavy water reactors, in very wide use, developed in Canada, and spread all over the world in a safe and efficient manner. Uranium enrichment is unnecessary, natural uranium is fine, and there are models Canada has developed that even can use spent rods. Each reuse cycle efficiently reduces the radiological danger, and the tiny remainder is very manageable.
There is also another sin of omission. The failure to mention thorium as an extension of the usable supply of fuel. It is of itself not fissionable but what nuclear scientists call fertile, if bombarded by the same kind of radiation emanating from a reactor, it converts over to a fissionable form of uranium. The bundle of uranium reactor rods, if surrounded by a couple of rows of thorium rods, will create new fuel as the old is being used. It is thereby called a "Breeder reactor", and currently generates 80 percent or more of France's electrical energy grid. It has done so safely for decades.
Finally, permanent disposal. Really very simple. There is a huge area in the North Pacific ocean. At the bottom, there is a huge area that has a deep muddy bottom, with the consistency of peanut butter that runs very deep. The long term storage concrete cylinders that it is currently in can be dropped down from a ship, and they will sink down in deep from their heaviness, and unless the Earth's gravitational field reverses itself, they're not going anywhere. Problem solved.
Question: where is the waste from wind, solar and carbon based energy production? Nuclear energy production is the ONLY way of energy production where we have figured out before production starts what we are going to do with the waste.
Just tell Candice that Phineas and Ferb made the radiation, and it will all be gone before mom gets home.
😂😂😂
@Frank Heuvelman You didn't get the joke.
Oh my god this person solved all the problems ever
bws
And then dr doofenshmirtz goes and steals it
How does this not have more likes...????
A message to future civilisations saying essentially "keep out, nothing but danger here" will NOT stop them from opening up the site and taking a peek.
*After all, didn't the Egyptians leave messages about "Nothing but Death and Curses come to all who disturb this place"??*
We (humans) didn't take heed of dire, death warnings then, and we won't in 1,000 years.
Essentially the message should describe exactly what is there, why it is what it is and how it is harmful.
Full explanation so that future people will know EXACTLY what it is, and not something cryptic that they will be curious to look for.
After all, in 1,000 years, humans could have figured out how to get more energy from the waste using technology we don't have now, and they could in fact make very good use out of it.
If the decay is consistent and significant, there may be a way that we haven't learned yet to use it......
True, but we still need to find a way to let them know what it is.
That "full explanation" will probably fade before the material containing the nuclear waste disintegrates in fifty years or so... so regardless of whatever you're gibbering on about, I'm so sorry that your school failed you.
Sebastian Ramadan Nice try troll.
No food for you.
Bye Felicia
They will want to use it as a dirty bomb If they know what it is, and wouldn't avoid it if they don't know what it is.
The warning was worded in such a way that it could not be misconstrued as magic or a curse.
Casks are permanent storage devices. They’re laced with cement so it water gets in, the cement activates and fills the seal. And casks can be kept in the ground for centuries and nothing would happen to it. So what if an earthquake occurs? The cask shakes a bit in the ground. And nuclear fuel can be recycled into the next batch. Meaning somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of all the spent fuel needs to be sealed and stored. The rest is used up or recycled. Just like in France
France runs some 70% of their grid on nuclear for decades now, but I have heard they are planning to start decommissioning some of the nuclear power plants by 2050, which will reduce the percentage.
The more I read these warning messages the more they sound like the curses that were meant to dissuade explorers of Egyptian tombs, and I think it highly likely that an advanced civilization would see them the same way.
I love how the message isn't even written in simple English
The message needs to be translated to every other UN language. What you consider simple english would be exponentially difficult to translate to other languages.
@@uniqhnd23 ??? That's not how translating works. They just need to have the same meaning, not exactly the same sentence structure.
it should be like this "here danger dig you die"
Yeah I want to strangle the idiots that came up with that
under here is radioactive uranium and it will kill you so don’t dig down or you die
the part about translating the message in every UN languages made me think it might become the future Rosetta stone maybe 🤔
For certain it will make any future civilization have a way easier time deciphering what it says.
Absolutely, one of the UN Languages may survive (Traditional Chinese lasted hundreds if not thousands of years for example) and this could be it
Imagine a future civilisation: "So, our miners found this cryptic messages in a vault deep under the earth. The archeologists say, these are written in ancient languages that are barely understood even by scholars, such as English and Chinese. There are also fragments in other languages we cannot translate, yet. This message, for example, might be Finnish." - "This might be the key to understanding the mysterious forgotten languages. We need to excavate all of this and study it thoroughly."
That got unexpectedly deep.
wow! I learned so much! Thanks!!!!!
That message low-key made me even more curious
Who in their right mind would abstain from further research with that message?
What would we do if some ancient civilization sent us that message?
I know what I would want to do
They'll likely stumble across our thorium reactors first... and be like... "neat, this advanced species found a way to reuse nuclear waste..." "... and they called it a 'MSR reactor'...". Yes, I think that's what they'll probably think.
@@sebastianramadan8393 Heh... Wishful thinking.
It's kind of a moral issue. We can't just bury radioactive waste that will be dangerous for thousands of years and forget about it. Future generations would be inheriting our problems without their knowledge. Very interesting topic.
You can build breeder reactors that can turn 5 tons of nuclear waste into one ton of waste and use it for energy.
"Do not open. Extremely toxic waste"
DO NOT EXTREME
OPEN TOXIC WASTE
Danger. Do not danger open. Extremely dangerous danger toxic danger waste.
DON'T DEAD
OPEN INSIDE
@@sakykBzz I understood that reference
@@TeknoKseno oh shit.
That message though😅
Sound like some evil soul burried😂
Usman Ajaz haha yeah😂
Usman Ajaz xD
IKR, worst idea possible
stop using emojis instagram normie
Sounds like humanity captured some ancient demon that’s been terrorizing them for centuries
8:00 That message was so fascinating that I almost want to dig it up even though I know what is inside. Big mistake, you just made the future civilizations even more curious
It would have been good to discuss, or at least mention the potential for reprocessing. To a large extent this could remove the need for long term storage of high level waste.
Correction. Most of Fukushimas exclusion zone is safe now and people are returning, only a small area near the plant is still closed.
Most of the chernobyl exlusion zone is not very dangerous, while the nearest town pripyat will remain uninhabitable for a long time there are already thousands working in chernobyl and mainy who are living there permanently within the zone. I've been there and it's surprisingly clean.
Yeah, but telling the truth about nuclear accidents and waste isn't as popular as fear mongering. Got to get those subscribers and views. For bonus points, make longer half-lives sound more scary than shorter ones.
Yeah, i just saw first part and made comment and then started to watch all this about how "dangerous" waste is and also no mention about thorium reactors which will be much more efficient.
I'll bet it's clean. It's probably sterile!
But what about the mutated mega-wolves that are the size of skyscrapers that inhabit Chernobyle. #TotesWoke #WhAtThEyDoNtWaNtYoUtOkNoW!!!!!!
Not very dangerous is not something that would attract a lot of tourism
Why did they write that piece in such a cryptic, "OH NOW I GOTTA KNOW" way? It was so odd and flowery, more like some hypnosis youtuber's attempt at "induction"
They should clearly write what it is maby provide a sample at a lower level to discourage them and write that it can't be used as a weapon. Provide them with information so that they may evaluate it to come to the same conclusion.
7:53 when I first watched this vid, I thought that message was one of the scariest things I've ever heard. Especially when it said "the danger is still present". What could be that dangerous? The devil? The message is frightening.
I suffer from amenonemophobia, which is the fear of wind turbines (definition used to be windmills, but those are uncommon nowadays). When they popped up on the screen I had to cover my eyes like a parent does to a kid during a violent scene in a movie.
5:45 “It fell, and so too will the West.”
*_the CIA wants to know your location_*
...and so will all of humanity.
We. Do. Know.
cia works on it every day ( how to destroy west )
Implying that the CIA is the guardian of western civilisation. What a fucking stupid proposition.
Kikuyu Kiiru I don’t think anybody thiught that.
The letter condemning the future generation from opening up the Nuclear waste storage, sounds to epic. They might be even more motivated to open it up, just make it boring and simple not a start of a movie trailer.
3Niggasflying exactly my thoughts. I know whats in there but would still open it after I read it
It sounded like a kind of religious text about a forbiden land
3Niggasflying It should be like: "Hey guys of the future. We just put this thing here cause it is literally nothing. Stop wasting your lives here and go away. Thanks!"
That's what struck me as well. It might well become the future equivalent of a "pharaoh's curse"...
It *must* be simple for the best chance of understanding. The curious will die, yes, but combined with the message their deaths should be sufficient to keep people out.
Really fascinating topic really well explained.
The most likely scenario, is that we soon will have the means to use the spent fuel until it's no longer dangerous, or to make it inert.
In the event that will not happen, I think it's safe to assume that those that come along and have the capability to open such a storage site, are likely to be intellectual enough to understand basic visual warnings. To be more specific, three images; one image of healthy life forms, one image of life forms in proximity to the dangerous material, and the last image of dead life forms. Just make sure to close off the openings with massive barriers that are not trivial to remove.
Best message would be, "Buried below is your total amount you owe for you student loans" NO ONE will touch that.
Winner
Surely if they can read that long message, then just saying "dangerous radiation" is all you need to say.
but languages dont survive very long...i would say that english after 2000 years sounds same to those humans (if humans survive that long) as Egyptian hieroglyphs sound to us currently.
Death is the only message we need to convey at this site. Just more death at deeper level.
You need a pretty long sample and well separated into blocks to reconstruct a language. If I said "Sugárfertőzés veszély" you will have no idea how to even start. If it was in a 600 page book though, you would have emotional reactions, descriptions of noises, greetings, question-answer pairs, things that introduce you to a language which you can use to reconstruct what the small bit of "Sugárfertőzés veszély" meant back then
If they are smart enough to figure out the message they would certainly be smart enough to understand the danger if we just spelled it out. "Radiation" might not translate, but an explanation of what radiation is would surely be understandable to any civilization advanced enough to decipher it. The symbol that is basically an atom is probably the clearest thing they have labeled it with. Maybe they should use the code based on the atom that was used to send a message on Voyager.
@@crystalwolcott4744 I think the issue is, we don't know who we're communicating with:
Sure, if these people are on our technological level, they'll know what radiation is, and they'll pick it up as they dig. But if they're more primitive than we are, either humans after a bad dark age or some other terrestrial intelligence evloved in our wake, they might not have discovered radiation yet. Granted, such a civilization might not be able to decipher that text on its own, but they might not have to. They might have discovered numerous examples of writing from our time period, and developed a rough ability to translate it. However, unless they've discovered detailed records of our technology, they might still be left not knowing what radiation is or why to avoid it. That, I think, is where this kind of text would come in.
Watched this episode at night, now I am having existential crisis
Now i will never forget it
Seems to me like the problem with the "this is not a place of honor" message is that it's too complex and prone to linguistic and physical corruption. Let's say we carve that in stone, but the stone becomes weathered over time, and what remains is:
"... powerful culture.
..
This ... a place of honor… esteemed deed ... commemorated here… valued....
... dangerous and repulsive to us.... warning ... danger.
"
It gives the intriguing impression that something frightfully dangerous but very powerful is buried there, that curious individuals or ambitious polities would spare no expense in digging up.
What I think was the point is to make sentences that are word-to-work equal in all 6 languages used, for easier decoding later. And if you ever tried doing that boy will it be difficult!
they can create a few material planks some exposed others preserved behind a protective plate.
@@thunderlifestudios Or use Tungsten Carbide instead of stone.
@@thunderlifestudios Err... gold-plated Tungsten Carbide? I have no idea if tungsten oxidizes.
@@jeffbenton6183 sounds fancy
A liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) burns up 99% of the fuel put in to it and the remaining radioactive isotopes will disappear in 300 years. The LFTR can also utilize current stock piles of Nuclear Waste to produce energy and again, reduce it down to something that disappears after 300 years.
They do produce some transuranics. And ten half lives isn't going to make all that CS completely disappear. That said, the thorium breeder route really needs to be properly researched!
How dare you bring up technological advances!
I heard about MSR and LFTR about a decade ago. Where are they ? That NASA engineer/scientist is a good tedx talker but not a real scientist.
Yeah TED is media nonsense, not facts or science.
MONAY
man I came here looking for informative energy solutions and only got existential dread
there might be a solution already in nature to deal with nuclear waste. The plant life in and around the Pripyat exclusion zone have defied what many analysts predicted back in 1986. The plants seem to be able to defend against the harm of the released radiation. Background radiation levels in many parts of the zone are well below what they should be based on our current understanding of radioactive decay. it is possible there is something in nature that can help us deal with nuclear waste in a much safer manner
probably because nature likes to disperse things, so the initial nuclear waste is spread out over a large area and less concentrated than when the cleanup finished
@@justinokraski3796 that's what "background radiation" means, how radioactivity is dispersed and spread throughout an area. Estimates show it's significantly lower than what was predicted which means there might be something going on besides it being spread out
I swear this is like the beginning of every sci-fi adventure novel ever written. Literally the worst way to disinterest people possible
Generally accurate, but very selective use of facts. The reason why the rods are in temporary storage is because they have value for future energy generation, in summery when we run out of Uranium we can reprocess the rods and get more energy.
When we need to dispose of it we need to remembered no radiation is being created, its just being concentrated. It can be merged in with another inert material in low density to be placed back, in the same density as it was originally mined, such as Synroc. This technology exists today. Burying it in a concentrated manner is cheaper, avoids the not in my back yard protests and can earn Finland a great deal of cash.
But at this point in time there is very little high-level nuclear material that anyone would want to dispose of, its simply worth too much money and has too much value for future energy production. Only contaminated material is being disposed of, such as the 5 t of plutonium-contaminated waste at British Nuclear Fuels Sellafield plant, on the northwest coast of England.
There is no insurmountable nuclear waste issue; its just no one wants the diluted radioactivity material in their back yard, even if was originally in that location. As a result we have to bury it in a concentrated format using a technology like synroc, or not so smart, contained in its original form in steel containers.
The Finnish site also isn't the first attempt at a permanent location, there's a site in New Mexico, US that's already been constructed. It relies on a 2000 foot salt bed to insulate radiation underground: wipp.energy.gov/wipp-site.asp
Knave
In Germany we have a similar situation: There is a site in Gorleben, which is being tested for suitability. In 2000, the leftist parties stopped that exploration and prevented its restart ever since, but did NOT declare the site officially unsuitable, indeed signed a document that all known facts point to suitability.
So much for it cannot be solved.
Peter F-model. Wrong. The reason rods are in temporary storage is because a permanent waste site has cost $15 billion so far and another $95 billion over the next 30 years... and this is the kicker - NIMBY. And the taxpayers are paying power plants almost $1 billion a year to store their own crap. Why should they change a sweet deal like that?
@@slithra227WIPP is for transuranic waste ,not high level radioactive waste. And it has already been shut down once for problems with emissions.
We also started on the Yucca site. Cost so far $15 billion. Shut down because of NIMBY. If construction restarts it will cost another $95 billion and take 30 years to compete. Would not even hold all of the 750,000 tons of high level waste in US already in existence. Doesn't include all the waste overseas that the NRC promised we would take care of for the gullible countries stupid enough to buy our technology. How many 100s of billions do you want to spend?
@@jackfanning7952 There is a mystery and you could be correct, whenever government interferes rent seeking follows, but the mystery is why do they store the rods instead of reprocessing them and reusing them. As each rod costs a fortune to manufacture and a fast breeder can make it usable again, no one wants to make the rods useless by using one of the existing disposal technologies.
The NIMBY issue is also a major factor, but this tends to be driven by lobby groups and politics rather than logic, as no one is disposing anything next to the local playground. But i suspect that is the real reason.
A.D. 12,020:
Igblot: "Boy, those ancient humans sure went to a lot of trouble over some plain old nuclear waste."
Den: "I know, I almost feel insulted. It's like they thought people were going to get stupider or something."
Igblot: "How the hell did they think we would get exposed anyway? Did their worker robots not have radiation detectors or something?"
Den: "...Hey Igblot... You don't think... were those guys actually going underground themselves... like with their own bodies...?"
Igblot: "Don't be stupid man! Who would crawl into a radioactive hole in the ground when you could send a robot!?"
I can imagine this video would frighten some one who knows little or nothing about engineering, and does a lot of fear based thinking. Some one who doesn't consider the consequences of ignoring viable alternatives to fossil fuel powered energy production. Wind and solar are good technologies, but we can't store electricity in the amounts needed to keep production up when the sun isn't shining, and the wind isn't blowing. Nuclear power plants are the safest way to produce base power generation. We should build more of them, while improving our transmission capacity so that solar and wind power can be better utilized. Relying solely on renewables just isn't possible at this point, and fossil fuels obviously are not sustainable or healthy for us.
I agree completely. The problem is that the word 'nuclear' is demonised. Why? Because without fear, the weapons are useless. Secondly, there is a fortune still to be made from fossil fuels. Thirdly, there is a fortune being made from the 'management' of reactor 'waste'. Reactors do not create anything remotely like the amount of waste we're told they create. It's theatre, and we're paying to watch it.
I love how nuclear waste is supposedly such a big problem for people that nuclear technology is nonviable, yet fossil fuel waste (which (1) kills millions of people every year as a result of air pollution, (2) Has contaminated large areas of our planet with toxic chemicals from spills and the dumping of organic compounds as waste, (3) is poisoning our oceans and cooking our atmosphere) is not sufficient motivation to abandon that technology.
Nuclear power is to coal what airplanes are to cars. The failure of an airplane is more scary and spectacular than that of a car, and (as we saw in 9/11) airplanes have the potential to do a huge amount of damage in a worst case scenario. However, when you look at it statistically airplanes have a much better safety record than cars, with far fewer incidents per mile traveled. Same is the case with nuclear, one of the safest power sources in terms of deaths per unit energy generated. Managing risks is an inescapable part of our existence on this planet. If we want to unleash massive am amounts of energy on the surface of our little planet, (so that we can drive cars, and watch TV, and have air conditioning) we have to expect to pay some price. People need to think about the risks and ask what they really want.
Because of how the grid works we need consistent power from a turbine generator to balance supply and demand on the grid, nuclear is the only option that is really viable.
I think you're being too nice to coal.
Jumping Spider
You make some good points. But the new nuclear power plants cost far too much and take far too long to bring online. The whole nuclear industry and coal, too, are being made obsolete by renewable energy - solar and wind. There are already solutions to peaking power to make baseline power plants not needed.
@@acmefixer1 solar is incompatible with the current grid, it will never fly. Not until super batteries arrive.
@@acmefixer1 ""The whole nuclear industry and coal, too, are being made obsolete by renewable energy - solar and wind."".... Bruhh
@@acmefixer1 Humans consume most energy at night, which is when there is no solar energy produced. Wind should take that up, but what if there's no wind? that's where water turbines come into play. What if there is not a whole lot of water and hight? Your only option is nuclear if you want to go clean...
The "WARNING" seems like a riddle characters in a movie would find before royally messing everything up from doing exactly what is says not to do.
I think "Danger! Radioactive!" will do.
Simple and to the point.
05:47 A chilling bone quote about nuclear waste permanent storage.
Hey lets make an extremely vague and interesting message to scare away future humans they won’t possible look if we tell them it’s dangerous
Scribbles seriously, that message would make me very curious.
Scribbles- it's so vague that I'd feel an intense need to figure out what it was. Especially if there were spikes and stuff.
future civ: hold my beer
What a waste of money that "study" was. Make the door of solid titanum. Primitive cultures can't cut through it. Advanced cultures would presumably detect the radiation.
yea just make it “THERE IS TOXIC NUCLEAR WASTE BURIED HERE THAT WILL KILL YOU”
There are also other elements, such as thorium, that can be used for nuclear power that are safer, cleaner, and easier to get than uranium. On top of all of that, the likelihood of a truly catastrophic meltdown is lower
Hear hear! But to be truthful, there is NO possibility of catastrophic meltdowns in the right designs.
Thorium is none of those things; it is another nuclear fuel,stop the nonsense please, Uranium is better than thorium, it breeds faster and is denser so the reactor can have more fuel. It is more expensive too; but thorium is not a magic wand, do not conflate a reactor with its fuel. Thorium reactors aren't a thing, reactors which may use thorium are a thing.
@@businessproyects2615 but thorium is denser it need another element with out it it wont be dangerous by just removing in and placing thorium in water, it also has more fuel and there's more of it. and there are less waste but it's still expensive and emit gamma rays if something is not removed. well i agree that it's not a magic want it's still better than uranium
@@human8985 Thorium is not denser; Uranium is denser, both in therms of density and energy density when it fissions. Most reactors use U235 and not the other isotopes, but that's a fault of the reactor not the fuel.
@@human8985 thoriumitself doesn't produce energy, it is used to create U233 which is then used as the fuel to create energy
"How do we prevent some alien species from killing itself after out species is extinct "
Well, that sounds like a definition of "not our funking problem".
9:07 lmao "let's be as weird and cryptic as possible", scientists think like parents
I live near olkiluoto in finland and have been in the upper levels of the tunnel system where they store the less radioactive waste, the place is also open for tourists sometimes.
Im glad i live in bulgaria, were its totallllllly safe from all kinds of radiaton disasters.......wait why are there two suns?
Disappointed that alternatives weren't even mentioned in the video. Thorium waste is safe after only hundreds of years, rather than hundreds of thousands. It's something that really needs more exposure.
yes and we cant use it at this point in time to produce energy. Nuclear waste isnt such a big problem. The pictures we saw in the video were probably the waste that a hand ful countrys generated since they started their first power plant.
And there's a ton of it unlike uranium. They used to just throw it away before.
This video is full of shit. It's clearly anti-nuclear propaganda.
@TheCrazyKid1381 well for one he only talks about burying nuclear waste without going into other alternatives like Waste-Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor (acronym WAMSR) and really overstates the impact of nuclear waste.
In fact Molten salt reactors are not even new. They were developed and tested in the 60's. But its videos like this that scare monger people into not supporting nuclear funding... which makes your problem worse.
Fukushima was made in 1971. ALL of the reactors were generation II. In 1990 US NRC pointed out the problem in the reactors design and in 2004 japan NISA also cited the report. They knew and did nothing.
The problem is not nuclear power. It is the fact that nuclear power is seen as a boogie man so no one wants to support it.
kyletheok Nuclear power just like carbon and solar and many more, has drawbacks.
As an Italian, I am happy that we don’t have to worry about some idiots poisoning a 30km square (which is less than half of Chernobyl) area, because of a serious power failure, natural disaster (What happened in the case of a level 3 Vulcanic eruption? That eliminates a good 20% of the Italian coast, than you could have serious earthquakes...).
Honestly even just having them in France is a little bit of pain in the ass. Why should we worry about something going wrong there?
Finland has figured it all out.
That message written by the US government sounds like the setup for a terrifying cosmic horror story.