Nuclear waste dumps

[Targan]

An article I read today has got me thinking.

http://gizmodo.com/how-to-store-nuclear-waste-for-10-000-years-and-how-no-1658844721?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_faceboo k&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Aside from whether all of the locations where radioactive waste was stored before the war remain in governmental control during and after the Twilight War, could the maintenance that some of these facilities require be kept up?

For instance, what would happen if absolutely nothing was being done to prevent leakage at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation? How much groundwater could that contaminate? What would the consequences of uncontrolled leakage be and over what timescales?

What if some group like New America decided that it wanted to build a bunch of dirty bombs? What sort of priority would MilGov or CivGov place on placing such facilities back under it's control?

[kato13]

Someone better keep up maintenance at the spent fuel storage at nuclear plants or the following video from "Life After People" would come true in a T2k world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91JZCbGLCvk

[Trooper]

Simple method to avoid overheating - sink those spent fuel rods to nearest lake or sea?

[unkated]

Simple method to avoid overheating - sink those spent fuel rods to nearest lake or sea?

That tends to pollute the lake or sea, and any water sources downstream (if there is a downstream). :eek:

That can have its own problems. Don't they show (the original) Godzilla movies in Finland?

I suspect that most nuclear waste won't make very deadly (as in immediate effect) dirty weaponry, it can render town-sized areas unhealthy for long-term habitation.

Uncle Ted

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Every area not hit by a nuke in any T2k timeline that is also serviced by a nuclear power plant is basically living on borrowed time. Spent nuclear fuel is still crazy hot. It has to be kept in a water-circulated cooling pool. You'll wind up with a mini-Chernobyl accident at every one; once the grid goes down and breakers trip, the plant will automatically respond and lower its output rate. If it falls far enough the whole plant will enter a low-power, then a shutdown state. While not bad for the plant this means that the power to the cooling pumps for the fuel will shut off. Diesel generators can keep the power going for a day or so. Once that's gone, depending on the state of the spent fuel you may have a day or as much as a week or two before the water covering the fuel boils off.

Then comes the fires, explosions, and fallout.

As Olefin said regardless of which faction you're aligned with, taking control of those facilities is priority one.