What to do with spent nuclear fuel rods?

Hi everyone.

With the crisis in Japan shining some light on the issue of spent nuclear fuel rod storage (such as four times the prescribed amount at locations in the US), I had a thought. It doesn't happen often, but...

...What if spent rods were shipped to Antarctica for storage. I'm no expert, but between the ice and wind the temperatures should remain low enough to keep them permanently cooled off, and there is no permanent (human) life there. Natural wildlife could be relocated to a similar habitat, monitoring stations/facilities (and security, unfortunate but necessary) could be built on site, and a few specialized ships would have to be built to transport the rods, but I think it is doable.

What are your thoughts, for or against, and why?

PS: Mods, if this should be in a different area, please move. Thank you.

I think the only logical solution is to stop making them.... No matter where we bury them, the potential for disaster is way too high in my books. I thought about maybe shooting them into the sun, but imagine a failed rocket crashing to earth somewhere full of that crap....

Put them in the people's drinking water.

They prevent tooth decay.

Shoot them into space toward the sun.

But until we can ensure the delivery system is foolproof, like sending them up in an elevator then letting them go from space, it is too dangerous. If one of these rockets were to blow up in our atmosphere. . . it would be bad.

We should concentrate our efforts on Nuclear Fusion it is lightyears safer then the old school nuclear fission reactors. Fusion reactors are very much safer because--

1) They can't "run away"
2) They leave few radioactive products when worn out.
3) They have no radioactive spent fuel.
4) They don't become dangerous if anything fails, they just stop.

reply to post by TKDRL2


my mom recently asked this question, "why can't we just shoot all the spent rods into space" and i never really thought about it like that till you mentioned a failed launch. very good point.

what about those magnetic velocity guns...i forget the technical name......make a huge one and shoot it all out...

Many replies on this subject in other posts..that was my idea too..screw the money its ALL of us and earth at stake here...put em on a cheap rocket n launch em to the sun.
or how about...isnt thier 2 volcanos active thier in japan? why not drop the rods into the core of the volcano when its VERY active? or into a lava pool? would radioactive rods actually contaminate the lava too>? ide think the radiaiotn and all would simply be incinerated!

or maybe..store them piled under salt, sand and dirt? like i dunno 2 or 4 miles down? kinda like an exacavated cave for these rods, in a remote region...fill the damn place with sand, salt, dirt, concrete, the works* somethings gtotta be done NOW, and thats past tense* literally.

Originally posted by ziggy1706
or maybe..store them piled under salt, sand and dirt?

like i dunno 2 or 4 miles down? kinda like an exacavated cave for these rods, in a remote region...fill the damn place with sand, salt, dirt, concrete, the works* somethings gtotta be done NOW, and thats past tense* literally. [/quot
The nuclear plant is above the water table so thats a no-go. All the nuclear waste would/IS leaking straight into the ocean. :

Originally posted by AnteBellum

We should concentrate our efforts on Nuclear Fusion it is lightyears safer then the old school nuclear fission reactors. Fusion reactors are very much safer because--

Or we could just use thorium in our reactors. From what I hear they're extremely safe. Sadly, only China seems to be taking any real interest in it.

reply to post by CoincidenceX


I believe we are gearing up to use Helium-3 once we can obtain it cheaply, but for now you are right.

I'm still interested who is going to win the new race to the moon. A space shuttle full can power the USA for a year.

I would say give every one in Washington, District Of Criminals a rod of their very own...

Originally posted by Caji316
I would say give every one in Washington, District Of Criminals a rod of their very own...

Straight where the sun don't shine. Fixed for proper placement

Reprocess the dang stuff! That is what most countries do……….
Ow right…….. we have a ban on reprocessing……. Duhh.