Talk:High-level waste

About final disposal

I have to agree with previous comment (made over 3 years ago). This conclusion about final disposal being not urgent is somewhat misleading and biased. It would maybe be correct to say that final disposal is not yet a critical issue and there is still time for deeper research, but this problem is becoming substantially more important (especially when one takes the time to calculate through these given numbers). I suggest rephrasing this sentence to make it free from slight subjective flavour; or add a reference to a valid scientific work that backs up this statement. --88.196.228.192 (talk) 11:09, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

final disposal

Issues for final disposal are not urgent?? How is this the conclusion from the numbers given? Wagsbags March 6 2007

Merge

I posted the Merge today. There is no article on Spent nuclear fuel, so I redirected that term to Radioactive waste. Simesa 01:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that the merge could be a good thing, the current article has the potneital to confuse the reader as it does not explain the difference between spent fuel and so called high level waste (which is PUREX first cycle (Highly active cycle) raffinate). You might want to consider merging with the Nuclear fuel page, as I have added a section on spent fuel there.

In short.......

Spent fuel is used nuclear fuel which has been used in the form of the used fuel without chemical processing.

High level waste is the mixture of minor actinides and Fission products which results from the chemical processing of used nuclear fuel to recover the major actinides (U and Pu).

Cadmium 22:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

4/9/06: I say keep it a seperate article, but note the relationship. I came here looking for the difference between low-level and high-level nuclea material, and "radioactive waste" does not explain this difference. Chris O.

I believe the article should be separate. The publics' perception of waste as unimportant and that all waste is the same needs to be challenged and the differences between different waste streams with different waste management processes be made clear. --Alex 12:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Units

I had an issue with the following quote from the article:

"A typical large nuclear reactor produces 25-30 tons of spent fuel per year. If the fuel were reprocessed and vitrified, the waste would be only about 3 cubic meters per year."

25-30 tons is a lot, and 3 cubic meters doesn't seem like a lot, but it wouldn't surprise me if this is extremely dense stuff. How much does 3 cubic meters weigh? Changing the units for comparison purposes doesn't seem smart. - MordredKLB 01:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Can I second that? Any kind of external source would be nice. 200.144.0.5 (talk) 13:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I was about to write about the exact same problem in the article, hopefully someone can change that at one point. --69grammarnazi69 (talk) 17:54, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

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Definition

The first line of this article has an erroneous definition of high-level nuclear waste.

"High-level waste (HLW) is a type of nuclear waste created by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel."

HLW does not depend on what process created it. The spent fuel from nuclear reactors for making electricity is also high-level, without reprocessing. I'm not able to find the reference providing this definition. Can anyone provide the text of the quote regarding this definition? --Gnuarm (talk) 05:16, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Nowhere does this page include a definition. Low-level radioactive waste has a radioactive content not exceeding four giga-becquerels pertonne (GBq/te) of alpha activity or 12GBq/te beta-gamma activity.Intermediate-level radioactive waste is more radioactive than low-level radioactive waste, but does not generate enough heat to require this to be taken into account. High-level radioactive waste is radioactive enough for the decay heat to increase significantly its temperature and the temperature of its surroundings.

Thus it explains why waste from a reactor begins as high level-waste with a number of radionuclides with half-lives of about 2 years, but the level of radioactivity quickly decreases.Graemem56 (talk) 02:24, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I detest the anti-nuclear movement which I believe is destroying the planet by preventing an effective response to climate-change, and part of the issue is natural environmental radioactivity. The human race could use nuclear energy for 1000s of years without significantly changing the amount of radiation on the planet, whereas fossil-fuels have doubled CO₂ in 200 years. So I'd wish to educate people as to natural environmental radioactivity.Graemem56 (talk) 02:24, 15 September 2021 (UTC)