We shouldn't make it unrecoverable. A hundred years from now it's quite possible we'll have invented methods of either destroying the waste (eg, in a Thorium fuel cycle reactor) or actually find value in some of the waste components... like coal tar used to be dumped into the Thames but later became an important industrial starting point, especially pharmaceuticals and other organic chemicals.

The public reaction to careful disposal is really dumb. Shutting down disposal sites and letting everything sit indefinitely out in the open instead. Great work. Really saving the planet there.

I have been contracted out to one of these disposal facilities to handle their ventilation control for the past few years. It's a neat process and they at least take safety pretty serious.

Finland should make a business out of burying other counties' nuclear waste, since the ground in Finland is optimal for that. There could even be a slogan: "Finland, the nuclear waste land".

Why is it even waste? Surely if it's still chucking out radiation in the form of excess electrons, then it's still usable as fuel? Sure, it's not as efficient, but it's still doing the same job we need it for. Couldn't we just use it to power reactors that have a lower power yield?

I find it odd that this video didn’t talk about 4th Gen breeder reactors that will be able to use waste from previous generation reactors as fuel. With that in mind it seems irresponsible to scuttle possible fuel away in concrete filled bunkers.

How about harnessing the energy that it makes?

Has BBC Earth Lab considered doing videos on other types of extreme waste from power generation? Such as the radioactive waste left behind after burning coal. The toxic waste left after mining for rare earth elements such as those required for neodymium magnets & solar panels. there are very few ways of generating power that do not have consequences. Perhaps a video that explains all of these consequences so people will come to understand that what they think is Green electricity is not necessarily the case.

Maybe continue in developing the nuclear reprocessing technology? Not stopping it because politics...

It's not just Finland, Sweden has a huge waste disposal facility, where it keeps nuclear waste from half of Europe, including UK, Finland was just first to come up with such solution.

Today's waste is tomorrow's fuel.

Well finding an underground bunker with tons of nuclear waste is like “the mummy” movie of the future 🤣

I know its alot to mention in this video but can you weight in on the difernces between Uranium and Theorium power plants?

Hi Greg! Greetings from Austria! Have a nice weekend. I enjoyed your video as usual. :)

We have in finland olkiluoto's "cave" where we put them for long term storage and fill it with concrete

@2:07 Why is this expressed as an area? Are the containers 10cm in height or 1m? Is it the actual waste or including the size of the containers? Or is it the area of the facilities used to store said fuel? The number doesn't have any meaning in that context except to scare people.

How about the Thorium plant?

Normally I like these videos, but for the most part they just fuel the fear that we will be generating endless waste. The reality is the amount of "waste" is currently tiny, and after it is removed from the cooling ponds, it is not particularly radioactive anymore. There is some long lived plutonium however (half life ~24k years) and that is what gets people freaked out (and why he said 1/4 M years, because after 10 half-lives it is roughly gone. However, that plutonium AND the remaining uranium is a FUEL. It can't be used in the inefficient reactors we have today, but new technology is being developed to use it commercially. Look up MSR and Gen IV reactors. Perhaps you can do an update to this video after you learn about these items. Nuclear energy is by far humanities best solution to energy generation and abundance.

Team Thorium!!!!

Haven’t done any research about this subject, but i was wondering, couldn’t we just release the radioactive material into the nature around us? But just in small quantities at a time, not enough to kill all life in the sea or poison a whole city. I was wondering that because i read somewhere sometime ago that there are around 64 Parts Per Million Uranium-235 in the US soil or air on average and that’s harmless. I think it’s that high because of the nuclear bomb testings in Florida, but if we release small amounts in the whole world then that might be a solution.

Disappointed you didn't talk about using it for power generation. I know, it's not quite ready yet, but thorium and traveling wave reactors seem to be on the verge of functionality, dozens of companies are working on them and a lot of money is being invested. If I understand correctly, it's likely possible to use spent fuel in these types of reactors.

Thanks, BBC.

Assuming the waste can't be salvaged for other uses (radiotherapies, lower yield fuels, ammunition/armour - depleted Uranium, etc), deep burial seems most feasible. But the mantle idea : would not the heat of the earth help destroy the waste material? One suggestion i heard 'send it to space and fly it into the sun' which probably would destroy it

I thought we were making progress in learning how to use that nuclear waste for energy...

Re-utilize the waste for use in radio-isotope thermoelectric generators. The long half-lifes of the discarded material would make RTGs the most efficient batteries we can make. And there is sufficient material for a single RTG compound (city block sized) to continue providing power for years/decades beyond the shutdown of a Nuclear power plant.

We already make capsules that can survive the explosion of arocket carrying it. Here in the US we had space shuttle disasters showing that. Couldn't we design a multilayer container that fits at the end of a rocket that would remain intact in case of a failed launch. Then the capsule could be recovered if necessary. Even if we put something like a huge skull and crossbones over an area or pit here on Earth I can imagine curious people in the future saying "What's this?" and attempting to investigate the contents.

Of what is the radio active waste made of ? What if we put radio active waste in deserts under the sunlight ?

Sweden (more precisely SKB (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering Aktiebolag)) is constructing its final storage facility, it has however not been approved yet by all authorities.

Yeah Finland! You rock

We should invest in some of some of those bins from from Subnautica! Just toss the spent radioactive rods into them and they're gone!

I wonder if the nuclear rods could be used for something rather than discarding them... if they are combusted will radiation then just drift through the sky? What research has been put into seeing if it’s possible to erase levels of radiation somehow?

Line-X spray can resolve nuclear radioactive wastes barrel. Of course nuclear radioactive wastes can extract plutonium bomb 94. Meanwhile it can also extract atomic battery and Radioisotope thermoelectric generator polonium 210 from nuclear radioactive wastes.

If water is needed in keeping it cool then it means it's hot and stays hot. Doesn't that mean it still produces energy? Why not harness that heat energy to produce more electricity?

Another possibility is to finish and build IFR reactors en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor. These type of reactors can recycle nuclear waste.

Create a teleportation mechanism and throw it in the nearest blackhole

Why isn't it simply dumped into a live volcano?

Liquid fuel fast-neutron molten salt reactor can consume high level nuclear waste. Waste from these molten salt reactor is not long lived, repository should be built only to last 200-400 years.

Recycling should be our first option no matter what the cost is.

Am sure if the researchers worked hard they might find way to convert the waste to some thing less active and danger. Convert waste must work on

Our company has development an entirely new way to handle radioactive waste -nothing like what you are describing here and nothing like any research we have been able to find. In fact, we can clean up the existing stored wastes and deep water dumps too. Japan could use us about now, but there's no way to get to the person in charge because no one seems to know who is running the operation. REALLY weird! Our main problem with getting to market is the number of businesses, supporting businesses, and political corruption involved that will cease to exist. LOTS of people are protecting nuclear waste storage. It seems EVERY ONE has their hand and wallet in the income from waste storage. I'm not sure you have heard of SynRoc, but we have made this new technology obsolete too. Any words of wisdom from your viewers or you would be appreciated. The truth is..."no one wants to have a nuclear waste site anywhere close to their homes". We can make that happen and COMPLETELY resolve the UK problems.

It came from nature. So give it back to nature. End of story.

Love BBC

It's not radioactivity that heats the water.

for one, if something has a half life of half a million years, that means, by definition, is not highly radioactive second, lava is hot *because* of radioactivity in Earth's core

My vote is for deep sea subduction zone disposal. Make the casks out o extremely dense materials, osmium lead or bismuth, and make them strong enough to survive getting swallowed up by the Earth relatively intact. If they're made dense enough, the casks should migrate downward toward the mantle rather than be pushed upward by volcanic activity.

a few things you did not mention current technology of reactors burns maybe 1% of their fuel. after just a few years in the reactor fuel gets contaminated with fission products and there is a concern fuel cladding might not be able to hold it in any more. that's why such fuel is being removed. Does it mean it can no longer be used? No. It just needs a different type of reactor. Breeder reactors can take such spent fuel and keep on using it to make electricity or heat - greatly reducing the volume of waste and it's longevity. remove transuranic materials from this fuel and its radioactivity would be down to natural levels after 300 or so years - and these transuranic materials - you can use them to keep making electricity for you, instead of burying them, until they are all gone. Such reactors are currently being developed. There's a whole list of companies who are making major progress in making them happen - my bet you can expect China to start building such a reactor in several years tops. So it might very well be that Finnish deep geological repository solution is already obsolete - before they even start using it. Btw what you've said about storing fuel in water pools is inaccurate. Underwater storage is necessary only for the first several years. After that, for another 20 or so years it's enough if you store it in a casket that has enough air ventilation to take away the heat. After that, you can just bury it underground without any cooling solution at all. The nuclear dream of providing a near-infinite amount of cheap and clean energy is now more alive than it ever was. It just needs better technologies than those used back in the 1960-ies.

What happened to Coventry city football club?

What about the test reactors that breaksdown the fuel to shorter lived ones?

If waste still radiates, why is it not used for energy still? This does not make any sense at all.

5:28 We are speaking of millions of years of course someone will stumble upon it ... and even what is down needs to stay down ... a little folding a little erosion and the stuff is out in the open ... And more likely water will get in the storage the container corrode and the nasty stuff will pollute the groundwater... All in all sooooooooooo much safer than the "send it to the core" method

we as a species dont deal with our coal nor any fossile fuels waste... why would we start now?

My five-year-old suggests we send all nuclear waste into a black hole so it disappears.

"what goes down tends to come up"?

Keep it accessible in a controlled environment. It will be safer that way and useful in the future.

Launch it in space 👏👌😂

Why can't someone invent a cheep affordable solar powered interlocking roof tile that can be replaced easily? Get on it guys.

Why can't we throw this waste in volcanos 🌋 ? And why necular waste is radioactive ? plz answer me

If I were asked to choose between stored nuclear waste vs stored human feces, I'd opt the latter

Great stuff as always Gregg and co. Could you make a follow up on the issues with reusing the waste? judging from the other comments many of us lack the knowledge to know why we can't recycle the waste by re-enriching or use the 'new' radioactive material in another generator - after all the radioactivity making us bury it is still a form of energy that should be exploitable

Cheek it!

with wind solar hydro and battery/storage tech, the move away from nuclear is the only way forward

The radioactivity ___________ up in a nuclear reactor stays around

Antartica? 1km under the ice, no one will live there for a long time

For the US rocky mountain depository

If it is so highly radioactive, why can't we use it to generate more power?

Never mind what happens to nuclear waste.. What happens to the money from BBC TV licences?

I was actually going to recommend shooting the waste into space, then Greg mentioned the potentional for a break apart. I wouldn't like that. One mintue I'm eating with my family, then I see granny pissing through her nostrils.

Wind and nuclear power plants have nearly equivalent total grams-of-CO2/kWh carbon debt, which includes construction plus operational lifetime carbon use. However, for an equal electricity MW output, wind costs 4x more than nuclear to build and & wind is only available (depends on location) about 50% of the time (UK often dips to 30%) whereas nuclear power plants average about 90% availability. Nuclear power will be the primary tool used to address CO2 emmissions in the near term. If/when we have economical large-scale battery storage to buffer intermittent renewable sources, then I will happily support scaling back nuclear where it makes sense to do so. But we can't afford (existentially or econimically) afford to abandon nuclear power yet.

It gets collected and stored in the Canadian Shield

No one is doing waste reactors yet?

Why not concentrate the radioactive part of the waste back into fuel?

Chernobyl is building a recycling plant. we don't need to bury all of the waste, just to make it more safe and reusable.

TORILLE PERKELE!

The underground bunkers seem like a solid idea to me, i'm surprised the public are still so weary of Nuclear power

FINLAND! ~Patrick Star

I assumed it ended up in fast food.

Well .. it turns to farts!?!?!?!

thorium,thorium,thorium,thorium,thorium,and thorium

It's always been politics that has prevented us in making any real progress in this area. It's quite sad really. Finland has the right idea.

Suomi mainittu, torilla tavataan.

I'm still quite attached to the subduction zone solution

Could it be possible to just put it under Chernobyl? At least till we perfect space elevators..? to get the waste past our magnetic shielding, &... headed for the sun??

If it puts out so much heat. Why not reuse that heat to power a steampowered powerplant?

Or we could just use renewable energy. I'm a big fan of nuclear energy but green sources are a much safer alternative.

It's simple. We hire the Batman.

If only we had space elevators. We could send it up the elevators and give it a nudge towards the sun or let the earth's electro magnetic sphere deal with it. The amount of radiation from the sun bombarding earth is far more than spend fuel rods.

Let's use the waste it in cars, nuclear-powered cars.

Why can't we make energy from Volcanos 🌋 ? Are we not enough ‘advanced’ ?

Nuclear reactors in space.

Simple solution to nuclear waste, just don't make it! It will out live every society that produces it, it may possibly out live all humanity and yet we make it. I am by far from an environmentalist but this has always seemed a bit stupid to make things we don't know how to dispose of.

By studying..........Sun....

I vote load it in missiles and lob it at canada

Disposal in Chernobyl

Underground bunkers have already been a failure in several aspects (Transportation methods, Leaching, ect). The over all costs involved with this has also proven to be much higher than expected, and when researchers checked on previously designed, deep underground bunkers with stored Nuclear Waste they found material leached through the containers designed to specifically hold Nuclear waste. Ironically, the investigation found Microbial growth. Not only was it found, researchers were astonished to find that was breaking down the Nuclear waste (Which was never thought to exist). With this being said, I don't know why this would not be on the top of the list for researching into ways of eliminating these types of waste. I wish I had kept the article or where I had read it. Oddly enough, I never heard about it again for some reason. I was taking my Environmental course at the time and used the article in research paper that was for alternative methods of reducing/disposal of Nuclear and other Hazardous wastes. The professor had kept a copy as he was very interested. There was some other really good papers from others as well. I think some researched extreme incineration process, and another was something pertaining to stripping the molecules down through either a mechanical or biological process which the end product was either no longer deemed Hazardous, or able to be reduced to a much small volume, but I don't recall. Point is, there most certainly is other ways of dealing with this stuff. I'm guessing cost over profit is the over all factor..... If only the truth was made public.

Recycle..........

*pakollinen "torilla tavataan" kommentti!

Shoot it into space! Lol

As china made artificial sun ........muclear fusion....method.........

. Is the BBC still even trustworthy these days ? .

The url of the video spells "Guy"