Nuclear Waste Management Essay -- essays research papers

Nuclear swash ManagementNuclear energy harnesses the energy released during the splitting orfusing of nuclear nuclei. This heat energy is most often used to convert body of waterto go, turning turbines, and generating electricity.However, nuclear energy also has many disadvantages. An event that present this was the terrible incident at Chernobyl. Here on April 26,1986, one of the reactors of a nuclear power plant went out of control andcaused the worlds worst cognise reactor disaster to date. An experiment that wasnot properly supervised was conducted with the water-cooling administration turned off.This led to the uncontrolled reaction, which in turn caused a steam explosion.The reactors protective covering was blown off, and approximately 100 millioncuries of radionuclides were released into the atmosphere. round of theradiation spread across northern Europe and into Great Britain. Sovietstatements indicated that 31 people died because of the accident, but the numberof radi ation-caused deaths is still unknown.The same bad radiation that was present in this explosion is alsopresent in spent give the axes. This presents special problems in the handling, storage,and disposal of the eat up uranium. When nuclear fuel is first loaded into areactor, 238U and 235U are present. When in the reactor, the 235U is graduallydepleted and gives rise to fission products, generally, cesium (137Cs) andstrontium (90Sr). These gaga materials are actually unstable and have to undergoradioactive disintegration before they push aside be transformed into stable isotopes.Each radioactive isotope in this waste material decays at its characteristicrate. A half-life can be less than a second or can be thousands of historic period long.The isotopes also emit characteristic radiation it can be electromagnetic (X-ray or gamma radiation) or it can consist of particles (alpha, beta, or neutronradiation).Exposure to large doses of ionizing radiation causes characteristicpattern s of injury. Doses are measured in rads (1 rad is equal to an amount ofradiation that releases 100 ergs of energy per g of matter). Doses of muchthan 4000 rads severely damage the human vascular system, causing rational edema(excess fluid), which leads to extreme shock and neurological disturba... ...relatively low in follow compared to storage in a pool of water andcan be moved around if necessary. An separate way to dispose of radioactive wastesis with geologic isolation. This is the disposal of wastes deep within thecrust of the earth. This form of disposal is attractive because it appears thatwastes can be safely isolated from the biosphere for thousands of years orlonger. Disposal in mined vaults does not require the use of progresstechnologies, rather the application of what we know today. It is possible tolocate mineral, rock, or other bodies beneath the surface of the earth that willnot be event to groundwater intrusion. A preferred place would be at least1,500 feet under the earths crust, so that it may avoid erosion for thespecified period of time. no(prenominal) of the preceding methods offers a completesolution to the problem of nuclear waste. They just bury it, temporarilyshoving it out of our current view for a last mentioned generation to solve. Maybe thefuture inhabitants of this world will find a solution to this problem, for as wechose to continue the use of nuclear power, more and more waste will beaccumulated, emitting deadly radiation long after we pass away.