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From: barry@ames-lm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: nuclear waste products
Message-ID: <229@ames-lm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-May-84 16:36:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames-lm.229
Posted: Fri May  4 16:36:42 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 6-May-84 07:41:38 EDT
References: <454@burl.UUCP>
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 26

[]
>  With regards to the current debate about a safe way to get rid of
>  nuclear wastes:
>  
>  Has anybody givin serious thought to launching it into space and
>  tossing it at the sun?  Are there practical considerations that
>  would prohibit this?
>  
>                                  --Bill Buie

        Throwing nuclear wastes into the sun has been suggested before.
Unfortunately, there is a practical difficulty: the delta-v (read "energy")
needed to get something to the sun from earth orbit is large (either 20
km/sec or 20 miles/sec, I forget). It would probably be cheaper to shoot
the stuff clean out of the solar system, then to throw it into the sun.
        Fortunately, there is another solution which is much more
economical: sell the stuff to any country (like France) that uses breeder
reactors. Breeder reactors can use spent fuel from light-water reactors
like the US's as 'breeding' fuel. If breeders become popular, I would bet
that our nuclear 'wastes' might be worth quite a bit of $$$.

                                                Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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