6 ms·

Seems like you'd end up with even more waste in the end. For example, the navy's nuclear reactor graveyard: https://interestingengineering.com/military/trench-9

Seems like you'd end up with even more waste in the end. For example, the navy's nuclear reactor graveyard: https://interestingengineering.com/military/trench-94-the-eerie-final-resting-place-of-us-navys-nuclear-submarines https://interestingengineering.com/military/trench-94-the-ee... You could probably just sink it all in the ocean near a subduction zone.

pfdietz 19d ago
I wish this subduction zone idea would just die. It's dumb. Things move so slowly it wouldn't help, and subduction zones have large amounts of volatiles coming back up via mud volcanoes and, later, actual molten rock volcanoes. If you want to dispose of waste deep in the sea floor do it far away from subduction zones. Or just store it cheaply in dry casks and minimize the net present value of the cost of dealing with the waste.
- bell-cot 19d ago
  Short-term, subduction zones are deep, maximizing the difficulty for malicious actors trying to get their hands on the waste. The subduction itself is more a marketing feature, for folks who oppose putting the waste anywhere on the surface of the Earth. Longer-term - it's mid-ocean ridges, not subduction zones, where you find all the volatiles and volcanoes. Yes, millions of years in the future, some micro-percentage of the subducted material will re-emerge, hundreds of miles away, via volcanoes. So will vastly more natural radioactivity, whether or not we dispose of nuclear waste in the subduction zone.
  - pfdietz 19d ago
    > Longer-term - it's mid-ocean ridges, not subduction zones, where you find all the volatiles and volcanoes. That's simply not true. Yes, there are volcanoes at mid-ocean ridges, but subduction zones also have plenty of activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_volcano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_volcano "There are 10 active mud volcanoes in the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc which can be found along a north to south trend, parallel to the Mariana trench.[43] The material erupted at these mud volcanoes consists primarily of blue and green serpentinite mud which contains fresh and serpentinized peridotite material from the subduction channel. Fluid from the descending Pacific Plate is released by dehydration and alteration of rocks and sediment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_arc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_arc (for description of how subduction zones create magmatic volcanoes) Subducted material is very wet, and as it descends the volatiles ascend to melt the rock above, creating magma (water reduces the melting point of rocks just like it reduces the melting point of sugar.)

pfdietz 19d ago

I wish this subduction zone idea would just die. It's dumb. Things move so slowly it wouldn't help, and subduction zones have large amounts of volatiles coming back up via mud volcanoes and, later, actual molten rock volcanoes. If you want to dispose of waste deep in the sea floor do it far away from subduction zones. Or just store it cheaply in dry casks and minimize the net present value of the cost of dealing with the waste.

bell-cot 19d ago
Short-term, subduction zones are deep, maximizing the difficulty for malicious actors trying to get their hands on the waste. The subduction itself is more a marketing feature, for folks who oppose putting the waste anywhere on the surface of the Earth. Longer-term - it's mid-ocean ridges, not subduction zones, where you find all the volatiles and volcanoes. Yes, millions of years in the future, some micro-percentage of the subducted material will re-emerge, hundreds of miles away, via volcanoes. So will vastly more natural radioactivity, whether or not we dispose of nuclear waste in the subduction zone.
- pfdietz 19d ago
  > Longer-term - it's mid-ocean ridges, not subduction zones, where you find all the volatiles and volcanoes. That's simply not true. Yes, there are volcanoes at mid-ocean ridges, but subduction zones also have plenty of activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_volcano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_volcano "There are 10 active mud volcanoes in the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc which can be found along a north to south trend, parallel to the Mariana trench.[43] The material erupted at these mud volcanoes consists primarily of blue and green serpentinite mud which contains fresh and serpentinized peridotite material from the subduction channel. Fluid from the descending Pacific Plate is released by dehydration and alteration of rocks and sediment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_arc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_arc (for description of how subduction zones create magmatic volcanoes) Subducted material is very wet, and as it descends the volatiles ascend to melt the rock above, creating magma (water reduces the melting point of rocks just like it reduces the melting point of sugar.)