From: jtk@s1.gov (Jordin Kare)
Subject: Re: Why not...
Date: 12 Jun 1994 23:15:01 GMT

In article <2tdoo5$r45@search01.news.aol.com> clayyy@aol.com (Clayyy) writes:
>Will it ever be possible to send nuclear waste to the sun...would the
>payload really be that expensive...considering the alternative.  It
>wouldn't damage the sun...What would the current cost be...any ideas
>on trying to estimate this cost would be much appreciated.  
>
>clayyy@aol.comm

You don't want to send it into the sun.  You want to do almost anything
else:  put it in high Earth orbit, land it or crash it on the moon, put it in 
Solar orbit, say between Earth and Venus, crash it into Venus or Jupiter, or 
send it out of the Solar system on an escape trajectory, in roughly 
increasing order of delta-V required.  Even sending it out of the
solar system takes only about half the delta_V of crashing it into the Sun.

Given that, yes, it's been studied extensively.  NASA wanted to do it
with the Shuttle back in the 70's, and designed payload containers that
would survive a worst-case accident.  However, it only made economic
sense if a) you reprocessed the waste and only disposed of the
longest-lived, most toxic isotopes in space, and b) launches were
as cheap and frequent as NASA was predicting for the Shuttle in the
early 70's, i.e. $10M per flight and >>100 flights per year.  
(Those were the days...).  Oh, yes, and something like 1 chance in 
10,000 of a catastrophic launch failure.

I've seen references recently to using waste disposal to provide a
market for an SSTO; I'm dubious.  It still needs reprocessing, and
at the moment the U.S. not only has no reprocessing capability, it is
forbidden by law to develop any.  It's also essentially forbidden by law from
spending money on alternatives to waste burial, as part of the
politics surrounding the Yucca Mountain waste repository.

I've done some design/economic studies for disposing of nuclear waste
with a laser launcher, and it's much better than any alternative I'm
aware of, particularly from the standpoint of demonstrably safe
operation.  Laser propulsion might even be cheap enough to dispose
of "raw" waste without reprocessing.

Incidentally, the costs for disposal with laser propulsion range from
a fraction of a mill (0.1 cent) per kWh to a cent or so per kWh 
depending on assumptions; that assumes waste can be launched _out of the
solar system_ for a few $100/kg or less.

Also incidentally, a significant fraction of people with whom I have
discussed this object to launching waste out of the solar system
on the grounds that we'd be "polluting space."  Sigh.

	Jordin (Nobody's Back Yard!) Kare

Disclaimer:  The above comments are my personal views only and do not
represent positions of LLNL, DOE, or the University of California.

From: eder@hsvaic.hv.boeing.com (Dani Eder)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Waste into the Sun
Date: 13 Jun 94 21:22:07 GMT

In article <2tdoo5$r45@search01.news.aol.com> clayyy@aol.com (Clayyy) writes:
>Will it ever be possible to send nuclear waste to the sun...would the
>payload really be that expensive...considering the alternative.  It
>wouldn't damage the sun...What would the current cost be...any ideas
>on trying to estimate this cost would be much appreciated.  
>
>clayyy@aol.comm

Since I worked with a guy who was paid to study this, I'll comment
(The subject is 'Space Disposal of Nuclear Wastes' and Battelle
Memorial Institute was the contractor.  It was done in the early
80's)

Presumably your goal is to reduce risk to earthlings.  If you have
a fallible space transportation system, and you are trying to launch
something into the Sun (or to Solar System escape) your transport
may fail at the wrong time.  If it does, it may leave your nuclear 
waste in an elliptical orbit that intersects the Earth.  This isn't
so bad, as you probably designed your waste container to survive
reasonable re-entry velocities (in case of launch failure).  But
if the orbit intersects another planet, the waste may be perturbed
into an orbit that intersects the Earth at high velocity, up
to twice the Earth's velocity around the Sun.  This becomes a
very difficult container design problem.

Given current space transport failure rates, the safest place
to put the nuclear waste is in a circular solar orbit halfway
between the Earth and Venus (0.85 AU).  It also takes a lot
less energy to get there.  The orbit is stable for long enough
for the waste to decay.

The waste is contained in glassified form inside a steel shell
9 inches thick, which in turn is covered by shuttle tile type
exterior.  That way if your launch vehicle fails just before reaching
orbit, the waste ball will re-enter safely.  The steel shell
deforms on impact with the ground, but does not rupture (that's
why it's 9 inches thick).

Compared to simply burying these very strong waste balls, the
space disposal option costs about twice as much as hard rock
burial, and avoids only a couple of expected cancer deaths,
based on statistics.

The guy I worked with said he would like to have one of the
waste balls buried under his driveway to keep snow melted off
it, since it gives off about 2 kilowatts of heat from the
decay of the waste material, and it would be so rugged that
there was very little risk from the thing (less risk than
an airplane crashing into your house or a stray bullet from
a drive-by shooting detonating the lawn mower's gas tank)

Dani Eder

-- 
Dani Eder/Rt 1 Box 188-2/Athens AL 35611/(205)232-7467

Date: 16 Sep 92 20:04:23 GMT
From: Jordin Kare <jtk@s1.gov>
Subject: Drop nuc waste into sun
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <2AB776BF.791@deneva.sdd.trw.com> hangfore@spf.trw.com (John Stevenson) writes:
>Dear wise ones -
>
>Here's a commerical space application that always seems to make a lot of  
>sense to me, but I've never seen discussed.
>
>Why not drop all the longlived nuclear waste into the sun to permanently  
>dispose of it...

Generically, this alternative is called space disposal of nuclear waste.
It was studied extensively by NASA and DOE in the late 60's/early 70's.
I spent some time looking at doing it with laser propulsion.

The sun is the wrong destination, even though it is the most naively 
popular, because it's extremely hard to get to from Earth; you have to
kill Earth's _entire_ 30 km/s orbital velocity.  Alternatives include:
	Dumping in a lunar crater (lowest delta-V; "pollutes the Moon")
	Storage in very high Earth orbit (recoverable, but questionable
		stability over long times)
	Storage in L-4/L-5 points (ditto, and ties up valuable regions)
	Dumping on Venus/Jupiter (requires precise navigation)
	Storage in Solar orbit betw. Earth and Venus
		(NASA's preferred destination, recoverable)
	Ejection from the Solar System (My preference; requires 
		16 kms delta-V in _one_ burn, no final burn, no precision
		navigation.

>What little I do know:
>1. The volume and mass of the really nasty stuff is not unreasonable for  
>multiple launches.

Unfortunately, there's no current way to separate the "really nasty stuff"
(mostly long-lived actinides) from everything else, ranging from unburned
uranium to plutonium to "hulls and hardware" to inerts.  It is _illegal_
to do reprocessing in the U.S., courtesy of the Carter administration, 
and there is absolutely no sign that's going to change.  Furthermore, 
even cracking open the spent fuel rods to repackage the waste involves
a large fraction of the difficulty of full reprocessing, and the US
has no facilities to do so.

>2. Launch accidents can be designed for so that the waste material stays  
>contained and the container is recovered.

THis is true; NASA designed some amazing containment vessels for Shuttle
launch, that would survive things like landing in a Bessemer steel furnace
or landing on railroad tracks and being hit by locomotives.  On the other
hand, NASA designed the Shuttle to be .9999... reliable :-(

A laser launch system, unlike rockets, would use small inert vehicles
which could not explode, would follow precisely predictable trajectories
(no onboard propellant; if the laser shuts off you know exactly where
it will land at any time) and could be test launched (and test-reentered)
10,000 to 100,000 times before launching waste.

>3. Significant (space class) dollars are being spent on what appear to be  
>unacceptable alternatives.

Depends on who does the accepting :-)

>4. Waste disposal is the single biggest technical problem preventing  
>growth in the nuclear power industry. (technical, not pr).
>
>So, oh wise ones, enlighten me. What am I missing?
>Thanks
>
>John Stevenson

The cost for rocket-type launch would be enormous, even if reprocessing
were in full operation and only a small fraction of waste were launched.
NASA found that launching actinides was marginally reasonable assuming
Shuttle launch costs of $10 million per flight ($500/lb to GEO).
Even with laser propulsion, you have to build a big launcher ($20 billion
investment) before it's economical to launch un-reprocessed waste.
Current national policy and politics do not allow for such a route --
too much capital ($$, careers, and politics) is invested in the current
approach, while there is no motivation (pending the secession of Nevada
from the Union) for pursuing alternatives.

	Jordin Kare
[Statements and opinions here are my own and do not represent positions of
LLNL, DoE, or the University of California]

-- 

	Jordin Kare	jtk@s1.gov	510-426-0363

Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1992 17:33:49 GMT
From: Jordin Kare <jtk@s1.gov>
Subject: Drop nuc waste into sun
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <1992Sep16.233411.959@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>In article <1992Sep16.200423.18294@s1.gov> jtk@s1.gov (Jordin Kare) writes:
>
>>The sun is the wrong destination, even though it is the most naively 
>>popular, because it's extremely hard to get to from Earth; you have to
>>kill Earth's _entire_ 30 km/s orbital velocity.  Alternatives include:
...
>>	Ejection from the Solar System (My preference; requires 
>>		16 kms delta-V in _one_ burn, no final burn, no precision
>>		navigation.
>
>
>There's an easier way to get the stuff out of the solar system.  Shoot
>the stuff off into solar orbit, then blow it up (I mean really blow it
>up, to vapor, via a low-yield nuclear explosion).  The debris gets
>entrained in the solar wind and is swept out of the solar system at
>100 km/s.  This would reduce the delta-V needed to only 4 km/s or so.

Well, actually, I was giving the delta-V to get from the Earth's surface
to the destination; getting out into solar orbit requires 11+ kms, not 4.
However, the point is well taken.  Unfortunately, launching any kind of
explosive along with the payload drastically increases the risk -- 
how do you guarantee that it _will_ explode out in space and _won't_
explode under any conceivable circumstances on or near Earth?
There is one failure mode of the laser launch system that leaves the
payload in Solar orbit (if the laser fails between Earth escape and
Solar escape) and I did propose one possible "recovery" from that
failure as being to send an explosive out to rendezvous with the errant
payload and blow it up, as you suggest.


>It would be silly to dispose of most the fission products in space
>(most are too short lived), but one, I-129, is rather longlived (16
>million year halflife) and could simply be allowed to sublime and be
>swept away.

The main reason for disposing of more or less everything is that you
avoid reprocessing and associated risks of leakage, generation of
additional waste, etc.  If you _do_ reprocess, of course you 
separate out the short-lived stuff and let it decay on the ground
as much as you can.



-- 

	Jordin Kare	jtk@s1.gov	510-426-0363

Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 19:27:53 GMT
From: Jordin Kare <jtk@s1.gov>
Subject: Drop nuc waste into sun
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <komarimf.718477945@craft.camp.clarkson.edu>
komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Mark 'Henry' Komarinski) writes:

>That shouldn't be a problem.  The sun's gravity will pull it towards the
>sun, saving energy.

Sigh.  Presumably the waste is wearing heavy boots :-)

>  The problem is getting the radioactive crap into
>space.  If one of these rockets blows up, there will be mucho radiation
>all over the place and the world will soon be glowing in the dark.

Sigh.  An unprotected Russian reactor with a substantial waste burden
reentered a few years back over Canada.  As far as I know, Canada only
glows in the dark when there's a good auroral display...


>-Mark
>
>P.S. I think sending the waste outside the solar system is like dumping it
>in the ocean..it just sends the problem somewhere else.

Except that in the ocean, it can come back to haunt you.  Once it's
on a solar escape trajectory, it's _gone_.  "But what" you ask "about
the alien beings around distant stars??"  Well, given the velocities
waste packages would have (at most a few km/s once they're far from the sun;
why waste energy beyond what it takes to make sure they don't come back)
the travel times are of order 10^6 years.  The aliens may wonder why we;re
sending them blocks of lead, but that's all...

>--
>- Mark Komarinski - komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu

Why do we bother....

	Jordin Kare

-- 

	Jordin Kare	jtk@s1.gov	510-426-0363

Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Nuclear waste disposal to outer space.
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 18:18:45 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 35

In article <v01530503ace9933a3d1b@[199.108.6.109]> harpbard@ccnet.com (D. Peterson) writes:
>(5) If any rocket carrying Pu/U has a slight accident, we disperse its
>material into the upper atmosphere, then we die.

Sorry, wrong.  Tons of Pu/U (accompanied by *many* *many* tons of other
radioactive junk) have already been dispersed into the upper atmosphere by
nuclear testing.  We're still alive. 

Clearly it is *undesirable* to distribute radioactive junk into the air,
but it's not so utterly disastrous that we can't even consider a concept
that offers even the smallest chance of it.  And the chances *are* small,
given proper design.

This was looked at in some depth about twenty years ago, when shuttle
flights were supposed to become cheap and frequent.  The work on it got
far enough to design armored containers for waste launches -- containers
that could survive a shuttle explosion, uncontrolled reentry, impact on
railroad tracks, and being run over by a locomotive, all without any
significant release of the contents. 

>There is absolutely no chance that space would ever be approved by any sane
>society as a dump for radioactive waste.

A small distinction should be made here:  Pu/U is not waste, but fuel.  A
sane society would not be dumping valuable fuel anywhere.

As for the things which really are wastes, space is one of the safest
places for them.  A sane society would be much less paranoid about
nuclear-waste hazards than we are, but if it did want to be as safe as
possible about disposing of them, soft-landing them in a lunar-farside
crater or launching them to solar-system escape would be one of the best
disposal methods. 
-- 
Look, look, see Windows 95.  Buy, lemmings, buy!   |       Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead...            |   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Nuclear waste disposal to outer space.
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 15:13:57 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 17

In article <thomsonaDJDxC1.Ay5@netcom.com> thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson) writes:
>   As for shipping waste to Venus, Mercury, or the Sun (assuming the
>big problem of getting it into space in the first place is solved
>satisfactorily), what's wrong with light sails?  There's no hurry...

Except that then you have to worry about the reliability of your sails --
where does the waste end up if the control system fails?  There are large
practical advantages in choosing a disposal site/method which doesn't
require months or years of active trajectory control for the waste capsules.
If you want maximum reliability, then yes, you are in a bit of a hurry.

This is why I personally rate the lunar farside and solar escape as the
only realistic space-disposal methods (assuming there is no satisfactory
Earth orbit, which I suspect is the case).
-- 
Look, look, see Windows 95.  Buy, lemmings, buy!   |       Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead...            |   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Nuclear waste disposal to outer space.

In article <DJJ3tC.1zH@emr1.emr.ca> stephens@ngis.geod.emr.ca (Dave Stephenson) writes:
>: We don't know that Jupiter is lifeless; polluting it with our debris is
>: a mistake.  (The Jovians might return the favor. :-))  If you want a
>: garbage-dump planet, Venus is a better choice... 
>
>Perhaps not. Remember that nuclear waste is 'hot'. That is it is generating
>heat, and that has to be disposed of in a controlled manner. Venus is a 'hot'
>environment, admitedly a hot fluid environment, and one that is probably highly
>corrosive. Any long term storage has to be seen to be contained...

Why?  Just write off the planet.  Let the waste do whatever it wants after
it hits Venus's atmosphere.  If you want a controlled and contained
environment for the waste, you don't send it to a poorly-known faraway
planet!  If you're going to use another planet as a garbage dump, you pick
the most useless planet around -- which is fairly clearly Venus -- and
don't fret too much about exactly which areas of it get messed up.

If all you want to do is store the stuff outside the biosphere, there is
no reason to go further than the Moon (and several reasons not to).

>Jupiter has not
>surface and presumable the waste simply sinks, but Venus haas a surface that
>could be contaminated if waste is not contained.

Jupiter has an interior which would be contaminated in the same way.
Remember, only the very outermost layers of Jupiter are cold; the Galileo
probe melted soon after it died.
-- 
Look, look, see Windows 95.  Buy, lemmings, buy!   |       Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead...            |   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

From: Paul Dietz <dietz@interaccess.com>
Newsgroups: sci.space.tech
Subject: Nuclear Waste Into Space (was Re: Laser Launchers (was Maglev 
	Launchers *)
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 21:57:26 -0500

John Powell wrote:

> I know this is sci.space.tech, but I just have on thing to say about
> nuclear waste disposal: Bury it. Where did it come from? We dug it up.
> Where should it go? Right back where it came from, diluted and protected
> from ground water. Launching it into space is silly and wasteful.

This is true for most of the waste.  However, if nuclear energy is used
for a very long time, there will be a buildup of radioisotopes of
certain elements that are either volatile
or not easily prevented from going into solution in ground water at some
point in the future.  Among these: 81Kr (halflife 210,000 years),
(97,98,99)Tc, (up to 4.2 M years), 129I (16 M year), 135Cs (3 M years).
In steady state, the decay activity will approach the rate
these are produced, independent of the halflife (a longer halflife only
delays the time to this steady state.)

It could make sense to separate out these troublesome elements from the
waste, and launch into space.  It's not a near term problem, however.

The abundant fission product Xe could be produced in industrial
quantities from reprocessed power reactor fuel, enough dominate the Xe
market.

	Paul

From: "Paul F. Dietz" <dietz@interaccess.com>
Newsgroups: sci.geo.geology,sci.space.policy
Subject: Re: What should we do with radioactive waste?
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 04:03:56 -0500

> Nevertheless, burial of radwaste on earth is probably much cheaper
> than shooting it off into space.  I'd feel pretty comfortable with
> radwaste being stored in my backyard, provided it was at least two
> miles below, with constant surveillance of the radiation being emitted.

There may be some exceptional components in the waste for
which space disposal is, over the very long term, the
better option.  Some elements are inherently more mobile
than others, due to their chemistry.  If they have long lived
radioisotopes, they may be hard to keep underground over
the very long term.

Examples include some Tc isotopes, 129I, and 81Kr.

Because these isotopes are longlived, the activity is low,
so the problem doesn't become acute until we've accumulated
a great deal of waste.

We could also try to destroy these isotopes by transmutation.

	Paul

From: "Paul F. Dietz" <dietz@interaccess.com>
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
Subject: Re: What should we do with radioactive waste?
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 20:36:48 -0500

John Savard wrote:

> Krypton is an inert gas, but couldn't iodine - a halogen - be bound in
> a stable fashion to some large molecule?

The problem with iodine and technetium is that they
form negative ions.  Negative ions are more mobile
underground than positive ions (which tend to bind
to the negatively charged surfaces of clay particles.)

	Paul