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Why so shallow? 650 metres is by far not enough. Why not drill a hole 5 km or deeper? Nothing will come back from this depth until this part of the earth’s crust is consumed by the mantle in a subduction zone.
This is yet another compelling reason to stand against the reactivation and construction of new commercial power reactors. Our ballooning energy demands for A.I. and other data centers, coupled with the push for “clean” energy, comes with a critical challenge: the irretrievable disposal of plutonium.Commercial power reactors inevitably generate plutonium as part of their waste. The question we must ask ourselves is whether the ultimate security of plutonium disposed at the NM Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) really matters if all reactors, including commercial ones, continue to churn out this super dangerous element. If our collective goal is to rid… Read more »
WIPP was originally designed for SNF–and a lot more plutonium than what we are discussing herein. That included building a hot cell to unload SNF from casks. The political deal to get it built was to remove SNF disposal from the goals of the repository. The basic safety case is simple, not enough water in the basin to dissolve a significant fraction of the salt. Any solution mining approach has the problem that salt is soluble and most plutonium not soluble. If your going to recover, its mine shaft strategy. We will need multiple repositories but most for heavy metal… Read more »
give president Musk the idea of putting it on one of his rockets and send it to the sun for disposal. **rolls eyes**
with repugnantcon state legislatures, like my state of Texas, firmly on board the anti-green power (wind/solar) it would be a tough sale to get them to take green energy seriously as they look to nuclear power for their solution. Nuclear is not the way forward for energy need.