America’s nuclear arsenal relies on this brand-new supercomputer. Theverge.com
Blog
-
Geiger Readings for Nov 21, 2018
Ambient office = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 132 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 133 nanosieverts per hour
Crimini mushroom from Central Market = 119 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 127 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 104 nanosieverts per hour
-
Radioactive Waste 361 – How Can We Warn Future Generations Of The Dangers Of Radioactive Waste – Part 2 of 5 Parts
Part 2 of 5 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
ANDRA is the French agency in charge of storing nuclear waste in France. They have begun to use acid-free paper to record their information. This paper will last much longer than regular paper. They have also been experimenting with discs which are made out of sapphire and are coated with platinum on one side. Each sapphire disk can contain as many as forty thousand pages of pictures and texts. It is estimated that they could safely store these pages for up to two million years. This is certainly enough time for radioactive materials to finish emitting radiation and become inert.
While this could take care of the long-term storage problem, there is another issue that must be dealt with. Languages change over time with new languages being born and old languages being forgotten. Even if you can store a page of text for a million years, it is unlikely that the written form of any of today’s major languages would still be understood at the end of that time and humanity may be gone by then anyway.
A third concern with the long-term storage of information has to do with location. In order to survive, records must be kept in a safe place. If the place is well known, it may be looted or destroyed by war or vandalism. If the records are well hidden, they may not be accessible when that information is needed in the future.
The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency has created a working group which is dedicated to developing best practices for Radioactive Waste Repository Metadata Management. The information must be stored safely in a form that will survive for thousands of years. It must be readable over a very long period of time and must be kept safe but be accessible.
Dr Gloria Kwong is the acting head of the radioactive waste management division at the Nuclear Energy Assembly (NEA). She recently told Euronews that, “What we now have heard from many countries is that at each step when developing a waste facility, you have to listen to people. The social input, the social concern and their exceptions should also be taken into account, even in designing your information management system. Everyone has to think about how they can make sure this knowledge is transferred to the next generation of reviewers, regulators, or even waste managers so that they know where the information is.” Many people with important expertise in nuclear technology and materials will be retiring soon and their knowledge needs to be recorded for storage before that knowledge is lost.
A group of researchers under Thomas Sebeok at the University of Indiana was appointed by the U.S. Department of Energy in the 1980s to develop a knowledge transmission system as part of the work of constructing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in near Carlsbad, New Mexico. This facility is the only existing geological nuclear waste repository in the U.S. A geological repository for spent nuclear fuel was under development at Yucca Mountain in Nevada but that project was canceled in 2009. A geological repository for spent nuclear fuel will not be available in the U.S. until 2050 at the soonest. Other countries such as Finland are working on geological repositories.
Please read Part 3 -
Geiger Readings for Nov 20, 2018
Ambient office = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Orange bell pepper from Central Market = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 73 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 62 nanosieverts per hour
-
Radioactive Waste 360 – How Can We Warn Future Generations Of The Dangers Of Radioactive Waste – Part 1 of 5 Parts
Part 1 of 5 parts
I have often blogged about spent nuclear fuel. This nuclear waste contains radioactive materials such as plutonium-239 which has a half-life of twenty-four thousand years. Geological repositories are being developed for long term storage of such nuclear waste. When repositories are filled, they are to be sealed and made inaccessible. However, not all radioactive waste will be stored in such repositories and there will be temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel in steel and concrete casks at ground level. If anything disastrous happens to our civilization, the nature and danger of the content of these repositories and casks will probably be forgotten and they may pose a serious hazard to our descendants.
Ionizing radiation includes higher frequencies of ultraviolet light, x-rays, gamma rays, cosmic rays, energetic neutrons, alpha and beta particles. Currently the internationally recognized symbol for ionizing radiation is called the trefoil. It was first used in 1946 at the University of California, Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. There are three blades radiating from a small circle. Each blade is one sixth of a circle. There are same sized spaces between the blades. The blades have a circular outer rim. The original color scheme was magenta symbol on a blue background.Eventually, the background was changed to yellow in the U.S.
Internationally, the blades became black.
This version is also widely used in the U.S. Sometimes, the symbol is surrounded by a triangle or a circle.
In February of 2007, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) jointly announced a new symbol that was to be used on sealed containers or repositories of radioactive materials. The symbol is intended for use by anyone anywhere regardless of language or culture. The new symbol contains three different symbols. There is the trefoil with descending lines at the top of a triangle. In the lower left corner of the triangle is a skull and cross bones and in the lower right is a human figure depicted as running away from the skull and cross bones in the direction shown by a horizontal arrow.
This symbol is not meant to be openly displayed but rather placed on components inside devices that employ radiation sources as well as on casks and drums of radioactive waste in repositories. It is hoped that if anyone encounters this symbol, it will show them that they should run away from whatever displays it.
For some time, people have been considering what sort of warnings could be posted around areas where nuclear wastes are stored or which have been contaminated by radioactive materials. These warnings would have to survive for millenia and be understood by our descendant who may have lost much of the knowledge of our civilization.
Our ancient ways of storing information such as stone and ordinary paper deteriorate over time. Stone weathers and inscriptions can disappear. Ordinary paper contains acids left over from processing wood pulp to make the paper. This results in paper that deteriorates overtime when exposed to light and heat. High tech ways of storing information on computers could be destroyed or cease functioning if our civilization collapsed.
Please read Part 2 next -
Geiger Readings for Nov 19, 2018
Ambient office = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Red potato from Central Market = 112 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 120 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 115 nanosieverts per hour
-
Geiger Readings for Nov 18, 2018
Ambient office = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Celery from Central Market = 112 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 120 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 115 nanosieverts per hour
