CDR: Re: Nuclear waste

[jim bell]

----- Original Message -----
From: petro <petro at bounty.org>
> >At 9:02 PM -0700 10/21/00, petro wrote:
> >> I've never really understood why we don't just put this stuff
> >>in some *really* tough polycarbonate containers aboard "mature"
> >>technology rockets and launch it into the biggest heat source in
> >>the solar system.
> >> I realize that there is a lot of it, but still.
> >
> >This is a very old idea, rejected for good cause many, many years ago.
> >Need I elaborate?
>
> The only things I can think of are:
> (1) Cost of pushing heavy shit up the gravity slope.
> (2) Danger of rocket "catastrophically" failing and blowing
> radioactive material all over hell and gone.
> (3) Not a chance in hell of selling it to the tree huggers
> and the ignorant.
> (1) Is the only one that makes sense, but we should be able
> to find a cheaper way of getting up there. We should be able to
> engineer around (2).
> (3) Is probably the toughest nut to crack.
>
> So, I am not asking for much elaboration, just a bit of a clue.

Angular momentum.   Putting waste into the Sun requires the removal of
nearly all of the angular momentum associated with the revolution around the
sun, about 66,700 mph.  Since energy is proportional to the square of the
velocity, that's about 6 times greater energy than achieving earth's escape
velocity, or maybe 15 times greater than low-earth-orbit energy.   Extremely
inefficient.

A far better solution, I'd think, would be to drill a 5-mile deep hole
(perhaps on the ocean floor, for good measure) and fill the bottom couple of
miles with waste, and the rest with concrete.

Jim Bell