Video: Nuclear waste storage container integrity testing underway
S. Himmelstein | December 20, 2020Research is underway at U.S. Sandia National Laboratories to provide the data needed by the nuclear power sector to validate and guide technology for long-term management of waste storage canisters.
Three stainless steel storage canisters are being equipped with heaters and instrumentation to simulate nuclear 
The canisters will be used to assess the potential for cracks caused by salt- and stress-induced corrosion. Source: Randy Montoya, U.S. Sandia National Laboratorieswaste and determine salt accumulation with time. Future tests will examine cracking mechanisms associated with salt- and stress-induced corrosion.
Without a permanent geologic repository, spent fuel is currently stored at commercial nuclear power plants in storage pools and dry storage canisters designed with a service life of a few decades. The study will assess the impacts of salt-induced corrosion on the integrity of welds in the 22.5 ton, 16.5 ft long canisters.
Decay heat from the 32 spent fuel assemblies typically encased in these structures will be simulated with 32 electrical heaters. After thermocouples and other sensors are installed, the canisters will be relocated to a storage pad at a spent fuel storage installation on the West Coast for exposure to the conditions affecting in-use canisters. The evolution of chloride-bearing salts and other surface deposits, as well as the potential destructive influence of decay heat, will be monitored for three to 10 years or longer.
Three to ten years or longer? Aren't they supposed to last 10000 years? Has anyone calculated the amount of people that would die if one of the canisters is suddenly opened? Can humans keep this from happening for 10000 years?
In reply to #1
Yes, nobody would die....The waste is vitrified...Don't you ever do any research before you start posting? Why anybody would be so proud of their ignorance is a mystery to me....
In reply to #2
https://nuclear-news
In reply to #3
Well there's your problem...your source is bogus....these posts are all written by an anti-nuclear activist Christina Macpherson....you need to get your information from an unbiased source....
https://antinuclear.
Did you even read the disclaimer....
"Disclaimer
https://nuclear-news
Why don't you try sourcing your information from somebody who actually knows what they are talking about....and has no agenda...
https://en.wikipedia
In reply to #4
One doesn't need to worry about an investigation after the big release occurs.
In reply to #5
You know there are plenty of real things you could worry about that are actually happening....? The odds of getting killed by a lightning strike are much much higher than dying from radiation poisoning....
You have a 1 in 6,632,653 chance of dying by lightning strike...
I can't find any odds of dying from radiation poisoning but I do have this article to offer....
https://www.nytimes.
In reply to #6
"This spring, four years after the nuclear accident at Fukushima, a small group of scientists met in Tokyo to evaluate the deadly aftermath.
No one has been killed or sickened by the radiation — a point confirmed last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even among Fukushima workers, the number of additional cancer cases in coming years is expected to be so low as to be undetectable, a blip impossible to discern against the statistical background noise."
In reply to #5
Well, would you call the Fukushima disaster a big release? If the radiation is so deadly that it will kill people instantly and for 10,000 years, how do you explain no deaths? Could it be you have no idea what you are talking about? Could it be you are getting all your information from anti-nuclear activists that are lying, twisting facts, and misleading people?
In reply to #8
No. The accidents so far have been far from catastrophic. I believe that a big one, i.e. enough to kill every living thing on this earth is a possibility. The 10000 year storage is the big factor in my belief. All out nuclear war may do the same thing. We can keep it away from the people that want to be martyrs for just so long. Simply, I don't believe in taking the risk and you believe in taking the risk.
In reply to #9
So, Chernobyl wasn't catastrophic?
IMO that disaster teaches us that the danger of even catastrophic leakage from a radiation source is going to be primarily local and will diminish with distance. The idea that one big accident from manmade nuclear power will destroy all living things on earth doesn't hold up except as irrational fear mongering. The idea that any amount of exposure to the radiation from nuclear power waste or otherwise is deadly is also irrational fear mongering. The wanna-be martyrs you reference are counting on that fear.
Intentionally letting loose all the accumulated nuclear weaponry in the world ("all out nuclear war") is the only way anything manmade (that I know of) will be that destructive and even then the targeting would have to be designed to destroy all life. That's a political problem, be afraid of that.
In reply to #9
Using nuclear waste would be a most ineffective way of killing, biological warfare works much better, as we have witnessed with covid19...Besides terrorism is based on creating terror, not wholesale killing...The terrorists had their best shot they will ever get when security was so lax in the US that they were able to hijack airline flights and crash into high rise buildings...That was their last and best shot...Terrorists are tracked and watched now, and killed when necessary...Blowing up a pile of nuclear waste wouldn't do anything but create a mess to be cleaned up....
I am a nuclear engineer. Prejudice and misinformation have always got in the way of one of the most advanced technologies humankind ever devised. i see that those behaviors are still alive and kicking. That's really sad.
In reply to #12
It's also sad to believe that something as dangerous as nuclear spent rods can be stored safely for 50000 years.