This means that rockets carrying nuclear waste could explode during the launch or break apart and crash back down to Earth. The rocket failures could lead to a release of radioactive particles. The particles would travel in the wind, falling either in the ocean or on land.
Space disposal of nuclear waste is an option which offers permanent disposal of the waste, and has the unique characteristic that the mission risk period in which critical failure can occur is limited to a few days in the case of the lunar surface mission, and to approximately 6 months for the solar orbit mission.
Disposal in space consists of solidifying the wastes, embedding them in an explosion-proof vehicle, launching it into earth orbit, and then away from the earth. A wide range of technical choices exists for launch systems, including electromagnetic launchers, gas guns, laser propulsion, and solar sails.
The cost is too high
The cost of such a large-scale space mission is bound to be very expensive. In fact, the cost is so high that no space agency will waste time at all considering whether to send nuclear waste on Earth to the sun or the moon.
It needs a $375 million, 733,000 kg (1,616,000 lb) launch vehicle to get it out of Earth and into the right position at Venus to get within 6,000,000 km (3,700,000 mi) of the Sun — let alone whatever extreme requirements would be needed to fall into it.
Australia is committed to providing safe and sustainable radioactive waste management over generations. The National Radioactive Waste Management Facility will be a highly-engineered, state-of-the-art facility for the: permanent disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
In line with agreements negotiated by ANSTO, the waste returning to Australia will actually come from a different UK nuclear fuel reprocessing facility, Sellafield, to where the spent fuel was originally reprocessed in Dounreay.
One is the risk: What if a rocket carrying tons of highly radioactive waste exploded on takeoff? Another is the cost, which would be vastly higher than the already high price of storing it safely on Earth. There is also a lot of “space junk” already orbiting the planet, including broken satellites and meteor debris.
The radioactive elements (radionuclides) cannot be destroyed by any known chemical or mechanical process. Their ultimate destruction is through radio-decay to stable isotopes or by nuclear transmutation by bombardment with atomic particles.
If the explosive device detonated on the surface, and not in a lunar crater, the flash of explosive light would have been faintly visible to people on Earth with their naked eye.
Incineration can be an effective method for radioactive waste disposal but it does have some drawbacks related to managing and storing the ash produced. Incineration combusts or oxidizes wastes at high temperatures, forming ash, flue gas and heat.
After being cooled in a pool for about seven years, used nuclear fuel is separated into non-recyclable leftovers that are turned into glass (4% of the material), plutonium (1%) to create a new nuclear fuel called MOX, on which around 40% of France's reactors can run, and reprocessed uranium (95%).
That's right! Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts. More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after five years of operation in a reactor. The United States does not currently recycle spent nuclear fuel but foreign countries, such as France, do.
The bottom line is that blasting our nuclear waste off into space, into the Sun, is just too expensive – by several orders of magnitude. Not to mention incredibly dangerous for the inevitable rocket failures that will compound the problem. No, we need to learn how to recycle nuclear waste, to make it less toxic.
Debris left in orbits below 600 km normally fall back to Earth within several years. At altitudes of 800 km, the time for orbital decay is often measured in centuries. Above 1,000 km, orbital debris will normally continue circling the Earth for a thousand years or more.
Most of this waste is stored in tanks at 3 DOE sites. According to federal law, certain high-level mixed waste must be vitrified—a process in which the waste is immobilized in glass—and disposed of in a deep geologic repository.
Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure.
However, the time it will take for the radioactive material to decay will range from a few hours to hundreds of thousands of years. Some radioactive elements, such as plutonium, are highly radioactive and remain so for thousands of years.
Diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA).
This substance binds to metals. DTPA binds to particles of the radioactive elements plutonium, americium and curium. The radioactive particles pass out of the body in urine, thereby reducing the amount of radiation absorbed.
There are just two problems: humans produce an enormous amount of garbage; and rocket launches are extremely expensive. It's been estimated that launching material on the space shuttle costs about $10,000/pound ($22,000/kg).
What risks does space junk pose to space exploration? Fortunately, at the moment, space junk doesn't pose a huge risk to our exploration efforts. The biggest danger it poses is to other satellites in orbit.
As space debris orbits around the earth at tremendous speeds - about 15,700 miles per hour (25,265 kph) in low Earth orbit - it could cause significant damage to a satellite or a spacecraft in case of a collision.
As a non-nuclear-weapon state, Australia engages with other countries to advocate disarmament and non-proliferation. Australia consistently promotes cooperation within existing disarmament architecture based on the cornerstone Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Nuclear power does not currently provide an economically competitive solution in Australia. Lead author of Gencost, Paul Graham says the main area of uncertainty with nuclear is around capital costs. There is a lack of robust real-world data around small modular reactors (SMRs) due to low global use.
Australia's radioactive waste is produced by the use of radioactive materials in scientific research and industrial, agricultural and medical applications.