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I wish people realized this. The whole reason the spent fuel (and yes, I'm going to call it what it is) requires hundreds of thousands of years to store is because we're throwing away perfectly good fuel due to the Non-Proliferation Treaties. 95% of spent fuel is still usable fuel, mostly U238, but there's also some U235 still in the spent fuel as well as fissile transuranics like Plutonium 239 and 241 along with Americium. Of the remaining spent fuel, most can either be used for medicinal purposes (cancer treatments, tracers, etc) and industrial uses. Of the overall spent fuel, only 0.5% is actual non-usable junk. It also has the shortest half life of round 100 years. This actual waste could easily be stored for 1000 years without issue. Again though, the reason this does not happen is because of the Non-Proliferation Treaties in place since the Carter Presidency. At this point, it might be worth working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to set up a neutral location where spent fuel could be sent from around the world and then reprocessed. Then the IAEA could take the weapon's grade materials and burn it to power the equipment used to reprocess the incoming spent fuel and send the reprocessed fuel and useful radio-nuclides back to the countries where the spent fuel came from and it could be used again and the true waste safely stored away.

If we would fall back to living in caves again, the ones near Yucca mountain would at least have 'central heating'

A: No, dont store nuclear waste here B: Then use less energy A: No

I live somewhat near yucca mountain. I'm perfectly okay with them using it to bury the waste. The only thing I ask is that they do groundwater testing from time to time and if there's a problem, either fix it or move me. I think that's perfectly reasonable. The people that are against it don't live anywhere near here. Somebody needs to just start doing it

Sometimes, despite all the opposition, shit still needs to get done a certain way.

Wait hang on....Did you just say Germany has a Nuclear Disposal Site called ''Shart Arse'' ??

It’s easier for people in Finland to Finnish what they start...

I love how the politicians in the states either say yes or no to a bill, plan or anything else but will NOT provide alternatives

I've been to Nevada and it seems like the perfect place to store nuclear waste.

Unfortunately it'll take a major accident at a current storage site before people's opinions start to change. Better to be localized at one site, far from civilization, than have multiple storage sites which are next door to highly populated areas.

Are we just going to ignore the Shart Arse?

1:50 - Chapter 1 - Nuclear waste disposal 4:10 - Chapter 2 - Waste isolation plant 5:15 - Mid roll ads 6:45 - Chapter 3 - Yucca Moutain 9:20 - Chapter 4 - The complex 10:10 - Chapter 5 - Opposition 12:20 - Chapter 6 - The finnish expository 13:20 - Chapter 7 - Dead in water

Imagine thousands of years later when the people dig out the radioactive warning signs with 6 forgotten languages on it... It will be like the Rosetta stone except much more deadly lol

I live in Nevada. We need to store the waste somewhere. I say let's store it here. Have you ever been to Nevada? Yucca Mountain only has rabbits and coyotes--no people, no cities, no...anything.

I would love a video exploring the options of nuclear "waste" (it's unused fuel, really) recycling by either separation and reuse in conventional reactors, or for breeder type reactors. Also, the state of generation 4 reactors being developed and tested, like thorium, molten salt and sodium fast reactors. 95% or more of the high-level waste can be recycled today, and it might be even more in the future with more efficient breeders that generate new fuel and energy at the same time.

It’s INSANE that Yucca isn’t being used for safe storage. The nuclear waste is instead just sitting around in parking lots near nuclear facilities… it’s beyond foolish. JUST STORE IT ALREADY!!!

Did you ever do a video on how we got the image of a black hole on here? That'd be cool.

People need to realise that the waste needs to be stored somewhere, otherwise it will just be sitting in barrels next to the power plants which will make it far more dangerous

Image at 15:19 is not Yucca Mountain, but rather the Calico Hills located NE of Yucca Mountain on north side of area 25. I worked on Yucca Mountain project for 16 years.

Thank you for the videos, we love them!!

I live in Las Vegas, and I always thought it was funny that the place where we dump our nastiest waste is called Yucca.

Unless we miraculously find a use for this waste? They actually did. Travelling Wave Reactor by Terrapower Waste Burner reactor by Copenhagen Atomics All sorts of fast breeder reactors like the one being designed by Elysium Industries for example. All sort of Thorium Molten Salt reactors like the one being designed by Flibe Energy There is a ton of these waste burning reactor designs that can be operational in several years if only there would be any kind of public support for it. Spent fuel IS NOT A WASTE. it's a material that so far has been used in maybe 1% of its potential. It just needs a different kind of reactor to keep on using it and by doing so: you decrease the volume of this waste - by pulling nonradioactive stuff out and reusing what can be reused reduce its half-life to hundreds of years instead of hundreds of thousands using liquid fuels makes it possible to reprocess spent fuel. There is a ton of useful stuff in this "waste" - noble gases, rare minerals both of that can have industrial uses, medical radioisotopes that can be used to save the lives of cancer patients. most of the spent fuel is the stuff that can be used as fuel all over again. By doing so you can decrease the volume of this waste to just 1%, and make money in the process. Sounds better than spending billions on making repositories, doesn't it? and also do remember - it's the stuff with a short half life that is insanely radioactive when you hear something would remain radioactive for a million years it means for most of this time it's barely radioactive at all. because that's how it works - its like draining a battery by plugging a light bulb into it. you can attach a tiny little bulb and there would be little light for a very long time (long-lived radioisotopes) or a huge lightbulb, which would give you lots of light, draining your battery so much faster (short-lived radioisotopes)

Nice job, analyzing and explaining the situation and what Yucca Mountain is

There's always the Moon base Alpha option, although we're missing the fusion powered Eagle spacecraft to fly it there.

I would rather have Nuclear waste stored in a geological safe disposal facility 130km away from me than it being stacked up around the Country at all the power plants and the Nuclear industry that makes isotopes for things like RTGs.

Hey Simon! A suggestion: you could do a video about thorium reactors, apparently they produce a lot less radioactive waste, and can't melt down...

I've had a few nuclear dumps in my time. You know what dump I want to hear about? The largest dump in human history, do a mega project on that!

Simon: Nuclear waste is going to affect people for thousands of years. Me: Bold of you to assume the human race won't be extinct by then...

Archeologists in 5,000 years: "Hey what's with these ancient drawings of stick figures and people screaming? Maybe it means the land is cursed. Lets dig deeper and find out..."

I was lucky enough to be one of only a few people allowed access to go inside Yucca Mountain well over a decade ago. It really is a huge project. Being driven past huge nuclear bomb craters Frenchman’s Flat and visiting Mercury City were almost surreal.

I love how you present the topics IE-Mega projects

hard truths. excellent video

Did I just hear "shart arse mine"?

Being born and raised in Nevada(Reno/Sparks)I remember Yucca Mtn. being in the news all the time. It might be because of the incentives the federal government would offer(everyone and everything has a price), knowing that the waste does need a place to go, and I live hundreds of miles from Yucca I'm kinda in favor of it becoming the nations depository. As long as there is 0 chance of underground water contamination, seismic safe containment is a must, and at least a 97% chance plate tectonics wont interfere with the geology of the Yucca Mountain complex. The desert in Nevada is vast and something needs to be done with the ever growing stockpile of nuclear waste. I dont recall megaprojects doing an episode on ITER. That would be a good and hopeful episode but only in 20yrs. See what I did there?

The best film ever made regarding Nuclear Waste is "Into Eternity". It is all about Onkalo Waste Disposal Site. Really well done film.

Great presentation

NIMBYs gonna NIMBY: The story of the Yucca Mountain complex.

Great stuff, keep it up. I’m a Reactor Operator at Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 2 and both of our reactors have been online since the mid 70’s and NONE of our spent fuel has ever left the facility. After years in the spent fuel pool, the fuel is moved to dry storage casks made of steel and concrete and those casks are stored on-site on concrete pads.

A few suggestions, one related to this project: The Hanford site Vitrification Plant, currently under construction. It's designed to take that High Level waste and embed it in gigantic glass logs. Also, the CANOL Project, and the USAF Heavy Press Program are excellent candidates for this channel.

Great video!! I would normally not comment but you included a picture of where I work. ANO is the picture at the 3:52 mark. This picture was taken between 2011-2012. In the top left of the picture (just above the 3 story white building) you can see the dry fuel storage canisters sitting on the fuel storage facility. Low and medium level radioactive waste is shipped offsite. The dry fuel canisters you can see in this picture are not designed for transport. As for the nuclear weapons you mentioned, some have been processed into fuel, burned in the two reactors here, and are in those cans currently. One topic you did not cover in this video is fuel recycling. The fuel in the storage cans is perfectly capable of being used still. They have to many fission product poisons to be viable for continued use as is. The fuel can be disassembled and separated from the poisons, mainly samarium, and reconstructed into new fuel assemblies. This process can be repeated indefinitely until all of the fuel is reduced to low level radioactive waste. The main road block to this is that President Carter shut down the fuel recycling industry after TMI and it has never truly been reconsidered. I would love to see a Megaprojects video on fuel recycling. This could extend the estimated nuclear fuel supply by thousands of years. Thank you.

"Hey I dug this giant whole in this mountain, do you still want to use this?" Re: No, the politicians have mixed feelings as usual (about everything). "But like, I already dug this. Its a really fucking big whole, I even put lights in it" Re: Yeah we're just going to let the stuff we were going to store in it sit on a tarmac" [Rage starts build]

"Unless we find a miracle use for nuclear 'waste'..." All the people who work with Breeder Reactors: Am I a joke to you?

Love this channel 💯🍿🙏🏼

4:24 I cant be the only one that giggled. Such a fitting name for storing waste.

Fun fact: nuclear waste is stored forever at your local nuclear plants. No disposal plans.

Simon: Hey world, take notes from Finland Me, a Finn: TORILLE :D

We need this

Definitely interesting, thank you. Will you be considering a related episode on what, presuming there are some, lines of research are being carried out to repurpose/tranform/reclaim/recycle/reuse nuclear waste?

As a german your misspronunciation of Schacht Asse II is the most hillarous thing ive heard in a long time

This is, as usual, another great video. I would like to point out one detail you kind of missed, and many people miss very often. When you were discussing how much waste is created by nuclear power stations, and nuclear weapons you listed off how many nuclear plants there are in the U.S. and showed their general location. The thing many people don't realize is that there are nuclear power plants in many other locations not normally considered, and in greater numbers than you might imagine. How is this possible? Every U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier is powered by 2 reactors. Also, most modern submarines also have nuclear power plants, at least the big missile boats, and modern attack subs of the U.S. Navy (subs are called boats). Funny story, I was in a college level Environmental Science class in the Puget Sound region and the anti-nuke group was giving a presentation about why nuclear power was bad, and explaining all the horrible things that would happen if nuclear reactors would be allowed in the region. They had all the evidence of how life would seemingly end. They ended their presentation with, "This is why we must ever allow Nuclear Reactors in the Puget Sound Region. Then they took questions. I simply asked them if they were aware that there were at least 10 nuclear reactors in the region which were routinely in operation, and that number of reactors had been in operation in the region for a few decades. Of course they had a strong reaction, laughed, and condescendingly told me how absurdly incorrect I was, until I revealed why they were wrong. Then they stopped laughing, but changed to "shore based reactors". You know, the old shift what you really meant to say game. When you live in a Carrier, or a Sub you are working, living, and sleeping all around reactors 24 hours a day. Fun fact, a modern shipboard reactor only burns the amount of fuel contained in two large paper clips in a 24 hour period when at full operation. The Army and Air Force also have had, and may still possibly have some reactors that they do interesting things with. We also have reactors down in the Antarctic, and who knows where else. There were previously many secret programs which used reactors. It's all on KZfaq now.

RAIL GUNS! (Bae Systems) plus in doing this you get to show super cool slo mo footage ; ) and thanks if you saw my suggestion to look at this waste repository topic, good one

If we'd switch to thorium reactors we wouldn't have a waste issue(well, depending on the reactor type), but certain nations prefer reactors that have the capacity to produce weapons grade material.... Also, if we'd focus a bit more on breeder reactors, a lot of the existing waste could be reprocessed into less dangerous waste. Of course, nobody wants to build new nuclear power plants, even tho new plants would be safer than the very much aging designs we currently have, that keep having their lives extended well beyond their original engineered life span.

Hey Simon! You should do a video on Denver International Airport. It's the largest airport in the world (King Fahd doesn't count...), fifth busiest in the USA, and the 15th busiest in the WORLD!) The airport has its share of conspiracy theories, gorgeous architecture, and plenty of budget overruns! It's truly a spectacular place that is deserving of a mega projects video.

Business Blaze Simon would have made a joke about Schact Asse.

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

It's unfortunate that this "waste" isn't being reused. Under the Gates foundation, one of their investments have developed a fission reactor that uses these "spent waste" to produce energy. I also remember reading an article a few years back about a team of MIT researchers that were in early stages of developing a reactor that utilizes spent nuclear waste. The unfortunate part is that the Fukushima nuclear disaster put a complete damper on communities that could use such a reactor.

I thought America’s nuclear dump was after Taco Bell. Allegedly.

I appreciate your work simon. Nuclear waste is unpleasant stuff but it has to be dealt with and nuclear is by far the best source of energy

Simon, you should think about doing a video on The Villages, Florida. It is the largest retirement community in the world with about 140,000 residents and was built pretty much from scratch. Lots of impressive construction statistics.

The transition rock music at the beginning sounds similar to the one from That 70's Show.

There's a 3 reactor plant about 15 minutes from my house in South Carolina..Oconee Nuclear Station... One of the safest in the country and one of the oldest..

Starting my New Year right watching Megaprojects. Thanks Simon for all the work you do!

As far as the current "waste" "Problem", would COULD construct or refurbish an existing reactor into a "burner" reactor, also known as a recycling reactor. We could process existing waste into new fuel, and some small portion of actual waste that could then be stored here.

At 4:50 in the video is that 3 mile island in Harrisburg PA it looked familiar and I grew up near the plant. If anyone knows for sure that you be cool to know that it was used in the video

Idea for a Megaprojects video; the human genome project, a fascinating science project

I guess the Finnish people "Finnished" building their repository, hah!

We definitely need to use Yucca mountain for storage

Back in 1991, I worked as an intern at a DOE Superfund clean-up site in West Valley NY. www.wv.doe.gov/ Their long term solution, was to mix concentrated high-level radioactive waste with liquefied glass. This formed into glass logs, that were next sealed into stainless steel "cigar tubes". While safely locked away inside the glass, leaks were improbable, long term. To my knowledge, their final destination was to be Yucca Mountain. When I was there in 91, it was designated as a "temporary" facility, but 30 years later, that site is still there.

Excellent job! I work at WIPP. I sure wish our politicians could get this handled. We are in the saving the environment business. It has to go somewhere!

Maybe we could take your high level waste and store it into Onkalo, alongside our own. For a suitable price obviously.

The Finnish nuclear waste repository looks like something from the Resident Evil franchise.

Did a project in grad class. Not the perfect site (fault zones). But one empty of people. We should be using boron salts to get to the end of fuel rods-this can extend lifespan by from 17 yrs to 85.

The really sad this is that almost all of our nuclear waste, over 90% of it, doesn't need to just be stored or sit around. It can be recycled back into usable fuel. But we choose not to. In fact you could power the United States grid for over 100 years if you simply recycled the spent fuel we have and created no more.

So early I haven't even experienced my first half life yet.

Nuclear waste could be placed into deep oceanic tectonic subduction zones, where the subducting plate will eventually carry the waste deep into the mantle. There would be a risk that that it could be involved in a stratovolcanic eruption, but would take a million years plus to to be potentially at the right time and place for that happen. by then the material would be relatively inert and would end up highly diluted into the magma reservoir.

Absolutely love the video, had a convo with a friend a month ago about the same issue and I basically have the same opinion. While nuclear isn’t a great power solution and it has its downsides it is at this moment the best option we have. So if we have to have it we need to deal with the waste. No one likes the “oh just bury it” approach but right now that is the best option. That doesn’t mean that after burying it we as a people shouldn’t continue to try to find a better method in a better way of disposal or repurposing it. People say burying it is like sticking our heads in the sand and pretending it doesn’t exist... what do you call blocking the storage and thus leaving no real option on disposal? To me that is burying ones head in the sand. The mountain work has stopped, the gov is paying out multi millions every year for not completing it and the waste is still piling up with NO alternative way of dealing with it.

As a Nevadan, let’s take it. It will finally get us off reliance on the Casino industry

Imagine a power generation method where we know the exact amount of the waste, it's current location and that it's doing nothing and harming no one. That would be nuclear.

I think the Alberta oil sands would be a really great topic! I'm from Calgary and have never lived or worked up north, so haven't had the chance to see a mine irl. They can be very large operations. And often the coverage of them gets polarized and branded dirty tar sands, or completely sanitized and used for O&G propaganda about 'canadian oil' or some shit. Rarely does the actual reality of the operations get shown or explained.

I helped build the sleds for the containers. All fabricated with two miles of welds and twenty miles of paperwork. That is the term we used. It is a lot of detailed work.

Just dump all the waste near the Yucca, people will be scared of that s..., and will agree to bury it in the tunnels.

9.8 out of 10. Missing a certain “je ne sais blaze”

10,000 years ago, Nevada was a lush grassland with giant lakes. Who’s to say that won’t happen again in the time spans involved with nuclear waste?

Every time spaceX launches throw some drums on there and ship it to space lol

I live close to a low level nuclear dump. It's a small site and I've been on it (yes walked on top of it). If it's stored properly, it can be safe. As opposed to just a couple of counties over, the radioactive waste was dumped in a creek! As long as we can find a geologically stable area and the design is taking nearly every conceivable contingency, it would be viable.

The one Finland has built is amazing ! !

Maybe just some benign landmark or project that is generally not controversial. I recommend the Mackinac bridge. Thats interesting how they did that

The scary part isn't where it's stored. It how it's transported there. Government contracts to transport waste in Trucks via the interstate feel like an accident waiting to happen. If we can't even agree on the hole in the ground to put it in, figuring out the logistics to get it there is going to be a nightmare.

Blaze Whistler is overtaking the other Whistler's.. He'll possess and consume all of the other entities!

You best speak about the nuclear dump in St. Louis, the one where they dumped the trinity bomb waste, THE ONE THATS ON FUCKING FIRE

Thanks again Simon! From Dave in Kyiv, Ukraine)))

Your videos are compelling. What do you see as a solution? Looking forward to an update.

Yo Simon I know that people can recommend video ideas so can u please do a mega project on the nuclear planes

When you say the greatest nuclear disasters aren't associated with storage are you forgetting your video on Lake Karachay, that went so well :-)

Reposting Mike Z's comment: Unless we miraculously find a use for this waste? They actually did. Travelling Wave Reactor by Terrapower Waste Burner reactor by Copenhagen Atomics All sorts of fast breeder reactors like the one being designed by Elysium Industries for example. All sort of Thorium Molten Salt reactors like the one being designed by Flibe Energy There is a ton of these waste burning reactor designs that can be operational in several years if only there would be any kind of public support for it. Spent fuel IS NOT A WASTE. it's a material that so far has been used in maybe 1% of its potential. It just needs a different kind of reactor to keep on using it and by doing so: you decrease the volume of this waste - by pulling nonradioactive stuff out and reusing what can be reused reduce its half-life to hundreds of years instead of hundreds of thousands using liquid fuels makes it possible to reprocess spent fuel. There is a ton of useful stuff in this "waste" - noble gases, rare minerals both of that can have industrial uses, medical radioisotopes that can be used to save the lives of cancer patients. most of the spent fuel is the stuff that can be used as fuel all over again. By doing so you can decrease the volume of this waste to just 1%, and make money in the process. Sounds better than spending billions on making repositories, doesn't it? and also do remember - it's the stuff with a short half life that is insanely radioactive when you hear something would remain radioactive for a million years it means for most of this time it's barely radioactive at all. because that's how it works - its like draining a battery by plugging a light bulb into it. you can attach a tiny little bulb and there would be little light for a very long time (long-lived radioisotopes) or a huge lightbulb, which would give you lots of light, draining your battery so much faster (short-lived radioisotopes)

The keynote speaker at my university graduation was an argeologist who discussed how to label nuclear waste etc. Was very interesting

He needs to make a new channel called "microscopic projects"

When Simon started about the fact that there are messages to future civilizations on nuclear waste... thats really crazy

You should do a video one the new reactor designs that limit waste.