Finland Might Have Solved Nuclear Power’s Biggest Problem
Finland is building the largest and most powerful nuclear reactor in Europe - and may have worked out what to do with spent nuclear fuel once and for all. Discover how to build in 2030 with Bluebeam - bit.ly/3v8uTER
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Alot of engineers and architects will thank you one day for inspiring them.
I can second this. The B1M has always been an inspiration to me ever since i started studying civil engineering in university
That’s the value of channels like this
I like these types of channels
I’m not even an engineer but I love this stuff
I wish I could afford to support you via pateron et al because you're definitely worth it! I don't know what you're patreon/membership count is but KZhead and Paytreon are only accounting companies, when you get to a certain size you might want to disambiguate the role taking parts in house and subcontracting others. Have a look at what youtuber Rick Beato has done with his club!
And as a bonus, they found a lot of diamonds, redstone and lapis lazuli.
Unfortunately due to miscommunications they accidentally mined at y 17, and found no diamonds
then fall to diamonds
Based
I was like “oh wow cool, good for them!! Neat, redstone?! And lapi…. Oh lol”
Cringe
"guys, burying this isn't a good idea." -"... Bury it deeper." "Genius mate, bloody genius"
@@miraclemaker1418 why ?
Hey, it works!
@@GiorgiGoguaTuzo because its very obviously a scammer
@Pinned by The B1M And many decide against trusting scammers like you. Google should eliminate the ability to have users phone numbers be used in the comment section I swear. And for OP, @Timothy Shane , Lmfao, damn right. I thought they were going to find a way to recharge this or something that would prevent having to bury it. But no, instead they simply said "ah yes, use the same old method!"
@@jxkc.3941 Burying it is not a bad idea. It came from the ground already. If was already there it shouldn't be too much of a problem to simply put it back.
Environmental groups that are against nuclear power absolutely blow my mind. If they truly did their research it is clear that a transition to sustainable energy requires the use of nuclear as a baseline.
My biology/geography teacher wasn't at all happy about the new plant getting permission to be built. Nuclear power is the future. It's very clean and it doesn't even have that many downsides. My teacher should be more worried dams being built for hydropower. Those are very bad for fish etc. The only thing that worried me a bit about nuclear power was that the power plant may only have about 100 years till its gotta be rebuilt but bro 100 year is a LONGG time.
@@polardabear People will still be against nuclear power for 2 obvious reasons, accidents do happen unfortunately, Chernobyl Fukushima and Three Mile Island most famous ones there are 56 minor accidents reported in USA alone, second problem is storage of radioactive waste, nobody wants to live next to it, just remember the uprising Yucca Mountain, billions were lost because citizens blocked this idea that government storage nuclear waste in the mountain next to them... I dont see these problems being solved any time soon?
Because nuclear is not clean as the industry keeps attempting to convince us. How can a process be considered clean when it produces highly dangerous byproducts that will remain a huge risk to life for hundreds of thousands of years? We rightly criticise the dumping of toxic byproducts by other industries and those byproducts are probably only harmful for a matter of decades! We cannot rely on our current civilisation to have a continuous unbroken 100,000 year future. So all we are doing is leaving a massive existential threat for future lifeforms on earth. Doesn't matter how deep this stuff is buried, there is absolutely no way to guarantee it won't be disturbed by future natural processes or by lifeforms tunnelling underground. And I haven't even discussed reactor malfunctions, human error or terrorism.
@@TheStarBlack+ They don't pollute. The stuff coming from their smoke pipes is steam/water vapor. "dangerous waste" we have already found a way to store it properly without damaging anything. They produce a lot of energy without much downsides. For a country like Finland, nuclear power is a must to be able to handle the future. Finlands power grid is too small to handle for example every citizen having an electric vehicle. Edit: And you talking about future generations, there will be no life in the future if we don't change to clean energy which nuclear power is. Lets keep using coal or gas (lpg) and the earth will be Venus2.0
@@polardabear life is in now way contingent on nuclear power, don't be ridiculous. We would be transitioning to 100% clean renewables if it wasn't for the equally greedy, dishonest fossil fuel and nuclear industries. They don't pollute huh? What was Chernobyl, 3 mile Island, fukushima? Was that just steam?!
The concern about nuclear waste is amazing considering that waste products from fossil fuels like coal are produced in far greater numbers for the mount of power each produces
well, difference is one gives you cancer by just standing a few hundreds meter next to it the other just fucks nature and gives you asthma lemao
Ummm... If we're making tons of radioactive waste that's going to be poisonous for hundreds of thousands of years, and we don't have a sane way of disposing it, I would say that's something to worry about...
I agree, and by its nature it influences a significantly larger area then radiation. Radiation is still obeying inverse square law, unlike CO/CO2 and small particals (not only pollutants from coal power plant) which follow gusts of wind, possibly miles and miles away. Bare in mind that CO and CO2 on its own don't loose its harmful capabilities over time, unlike uranium, which slowly turns to lead and other elements during decay. I am not saying, that nuclear waste is not harmful, it is. But burrying it deep is basically the best way (all puns aside) to deal with it. And we do have technology for that, most of the time it can be even done locally on site of the power plant, reducing cost and other pollution from transport.
But it's nuclear waste! It's scary! Didn't you see what it did in that one super hero movie? Nevermind the fact that coal and natural gas power plants are literally poisoning the air we breathe.
@@thundersheild926 its crazy to think we could been fully powered by solar wind and water by now if politicians didnt pumped trillions into coal gas and nuklear while preventing actual building of green energys to safe theire interests.
“While burying the problem might sound alarming, rest assured we’ve buried it REALLY well”
@@Semper_Iratus Huh?
@@gregorygrimm5540 Yes, it will leak in bedrock which has remained stable for hundreds of millions of years. They sure just picked any place arbitrarily without any thorough geological survey... The only way it'll leak is if future generations are exceptionally stupid and start digging into really dreary looking tunnels thinking they might discover some "ancient hidden treasure".
@@McLarenMercedes Human stupidity should never be under-estimated…
It comes from the ground, it goes back in the ground.
Scot Fretwell okay racist
I thought you were going to tell us they'd perfected some kind of breeder reactor that would re-enrich spent fuel into a usable product so it didn't need to get buried anymore. Instead I learned they are just burying it bigger better and harder than ever before
The type of reactor you're talking about is called a breeder reactor or fast breeder reactor, and they do already exist. They can be more expensive to maintain and also directly produce more fissile material than is put into them once they're up and running. This is a great plus in terms of efficiency but also poses many security concerns regarding control of weapons-grade nuclear material. For these reasons less-efficient and more wasteful reactors like the one in this video are often preferred, despite the effectively permanent waste. There is also always the concern with water-cooled reactors of catastrophic failure, such as the events at Fukushima and Chernobyl, which is still present in uranium-based breeder reactor designs. One proposed solution to the water problem is Thorium-based molten salt reactors, though these still have the security concerns of any breeder reactor. PBS Spacetime recently did a good video covering Thorium reactors if you're curious!
@@ganonfan98 there is no problem of control over weapon-grade material. Plutonium that is produced other than Pu239 contains Pu240, which means no nuclear bombs. Pu240 can cause spontaneous explosion if its used in weapon (because it "combusts" 30000 times faster than 239, so chain reaction can be caused by normal decay), and no one likes your own bombs exploding in your own storage facility. And you can not separate atoms that are only one unit of mass apart, no centrifuge can do so.
Yeah having a permanent disposal solution is so stupid when you instead you could use a risky temporary solution that requires constant active upkeep
@@bbbbbb3734 molten salt reactor designs have walk-away safety, actually. I suggest you look into it!
@@ganonfan98 I recommend you look into technology that does not exist.
Something people seem to forget is that natural rock is also radioactive, and deep within the Earth, strongly radioactive rocks (such as uranium) are relatively common. So burying the waste is generally equivalent to making a radioactive place slightly more radioactive. It's not like you're creating a death chamber underground.
Radioactive rocks under the ground are not going to kill someone on contact though are they? These waste dumps are exactly death chambers.
Hell, people love granite countertops in their kitchens. Just don't tell them granite contains a lot of elemental uranium.
@@Waldemarvonanhalt About 90 tons of uranium, from natural sources, flows down the Columbia River every year. The figure is probably the same for many other large rivers. Natural radiation is abundant.
@@comment8767 Exactly.
lol people here. natural uranium.... unrefined, un concentrated... reactor uranium is a specific isotope and is extremely concentrated. usually 235 and not its stable cousin 238 your akin to stating whats so bad with carbon monoxide? its everywhere and is natural.... ill let you come up to why and when it becomes dangerous
thank you so much for this very thoughtful and well-supported video! amazing information thank you.
Bury it deeper is Amazing?
wait. this whole video boils down to "just bury it good."
Turns out that's just fine, overkill really, that should be the takeaway.
bury it better than before it was mined should be the only standard.
I mean, yeah, you can boil down lots of things to a few key words, but it doesn't mean it's easy.
@@RedRocket4000 Yeah, but the material is much more concentrated once it's been used industrially. Storing it in a place that is geologically inert seems like a decent solution from a natural disaster standpoint, though. It would take a natural disaster so big that nuclear waste would be the least of our worries from that standpoint. I'd still be concerned about terrorists digging it up and exhuming it from its tomb, though, to create dirty bombs. We should probably dilute the waste so that the radioactivity per cubic meter is at acceptable levels and _then_ dispose of it how you say.
Yeah that’s really what I was expecting. I thought for sure he was going to have some sort of new experimental solution in destroying spent uranium rods but I guess not. We really should be focusing on a way honestly to try and get it into space and sending it into the Sun. I know that still just throwing it away, but at least that way it will genuinely be completely destroyed with nothing left whatsoever.
They buried it deep underground, with clay, and backfilled with dirt. Saved you 7 mins.
Thank you for these details !
Old solution: stuff it underground and forget about it. New solution: stuff it waaay underground and forget about it.
Like the stuff that hasn't been mined yet and is all over the worl in potentially catastrophic locations?
Remember in the old days when people would talk about blasting it into space or the sun?
@@james3876 do you mean the non-enriched stuff !?!? pointing out the extremely obvious difference.
@@user-nf9xc7ww7m I still think the “shoot it in to the sun” option should be explored.
@@james3876 just to be clear - I’m not saying it’s a *bad* solution. I’m saying it’s not really different from the old one contrary to the PR. I’ve heard a lot of arguments that burying it underground is perfectly adequately. Maybe that’s true, but I would say that fourth generation fuel cycles are a preferable solution.
"Just bury it deeper, that should do it." - some Finnish engineer, probably There is honestly a tiny bit more to the hole than it would appear, a big part why this is viable in Finland is because we don't have that much unpleasant geological activity here. No fault lines, no volcanic activity, no earthquakes... basically just a lot of boring old rock. But that's perfect if you want something to remain nice and sealed in the spent fuel depository.
I thought there was a development years ago that increased the efficiency of, how much of the rod gets used. Why does this endeavor even exist? They mostly use up the rod, this is unnecessary.
@@HaloWolf102 I'm not a nuclear expert. But I bet the Finns who designed their super efficient ERP are. So if those guys think it is necessary or sensible to bury their spend rots I would guess they know what they are doing.
Hoping they find a huge lithium reserve under that thing... "Change in plans boys..."
@@Bryan-fy7od energy can neither be created or destroyed but transformed from one form to another. so essentially it's all free lol
LOL, the Brazilian geologic morphology shares the same characteristics that you have described. I am wondering if would be ecological the idea of burring radioactive side product under the amazonian forest.
Thanks, this really helped for my speech I had to give in college about nuclear power in my country.
It's not just how deep it's being buried, it's the encasing that it's buried in, sealing it completely for however long is needed for it to decay.
And how do we know that encasement can definitely last hundreds of thousands of years? Has that bean tested?!
@@TheStarBlack It doesn't need to. It needs to last a few hundred years. After that, the waste will be in a state where the most dangerous isotopes are gone and the remainder is of the "don't eat it or decorate your house with this stuff" variety.
@@TheStarBlack Good point!
This channel is really a great source of info for whats happening around the world in construction.
Ah thanks so much! That's what we strive for!
Agreed
@@TheB1M would you consider doing a more frequent less production-intensive "news" video? I am sure there is material for 1 to 2-min long videos 15-sec per segment; though I don't know if that translates to revenue through YT or partner/sponsor-ships...
@@TheB1M what happend African construction we want African content like Egypt new capital or south African projects there are interesting things happening in Africa
If you believe ANYTHING YOU HEAR ! How does burying something deeper solve the problem. They have been using this encapsulating technique for a minute now!!!!
Everyone "You can't just sweep your problems under a rug guys" Finland "What if we sweep it under the rug that's under the rug though"
I don't see the "problem solved" part anywhere in this video.
@@frozenhorse8695 Nor I.
@@frozenhorse8695 there’s another darker video out there about this. It addresses among other things, the issue of signage. Given that this waste will be radioactive for 10,000 years WHAT warning signs do you erect for generations that may stumble upon this after civilization collapses, which is arguably quite possible. They may not speak our language or recognize any of our cultural icons. So this presents a moral issue about dumping the problems of THIS generation upon others we have no inkling of. The calm rational film fails to address any of that.
@@MikeCarrick I've watched several videon about radioactive waste, some of which addresses the issue. Skulls and bones does seem to be a world wide known symbol for death, but even so, people are to curious for their own good. Some of the ancient tombs are good examples, they were full of death warnings, but little did it do. Some people are willing to meet certain death in order to satisfy curiosity.
@@frozenhorse8695 The problem: “human intervention to keep waste stored” the solution: “we don’t have to intervene anymore.” Your “problem” is different from what this video is trying to address. Rewatch it maybe?
That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Our ability to adapt to change is truly amazing. We need to remember that. Way to go Finland!
Decades ago, Canada was planning a facility like this in the Canadian Shield.
Watching this during my lunch break at a nuclear power plant 😁 love these types of videos
What plant are you working in ?😎
Do you want to be Superman? Then steal and inject some radio-active material into your arms. Real talk son.
Don’t want to say anything bad about NUCLEAR ! don’t want to interrupt privilege or job security
lol you think you're special because you work at a nuclear power plant?
@@sparrow56able Don't gaslight other people or put words in their mouth. He was just saying he watched the video at work which, fittingly is at a power plant :) In my opinion that's a pretty interesting comment. :) I watched this video eating lunch on heavy duty machinery after which we'll continue building a bridge over a huge river. Nothing special, we're just sharing how it is.
It’s not a true B1M video without them immediately telling us that this project was massive and that it will revolutionize its area of engineering for decades to come.
...bury it deeper demands the nobel prize though , doesnt it :-D
Any one who is serious about reducing reliance on fossil fuels, reducing carbon foot prints, reducing energy costs for consumers and economies and securing energy security has to push forward nuclear energy. Geo, solar and wind are great for domestic and small scale energy production but as soon as you include heavy industry and large cities they are a currently a pipe dream as Germany learned the hard way, I was shocked to learn that one smouldering plant with a few hundred workers can use more energy than a city with over half a million people, shocking pill to swallow when you really understand the magnitude of how much energy we use in heavy industry. Nuclear energy design and production has come along way the last 30 years and unless someone invents a new energy source that can be used on a massive industrial scale, the only realistic option to move forward with is Nuclear the for the next 10-50 years and perhaps beyond.
Not exactly true, renewables on average are enough to support heavy german industries, on average germany even exports more renewable energy than it can use and during high times even has to shut down and take renewable plants off the grid, because they are risking frying their grid. The problem they faced rather was: there are times when no sun shines, tide is not changing and no weather change is taking place, leaving them with hydro plants and bio gas power plants and those are not enough to support everything. The problem is not producing enough energy, they produce more than they need, the problem is that they need to figure out how to create at least the bare minimum of power during those shortage times. Afaik their government is currently focusing on geothermal for the bare minimum power production, I read somewhere that they are building a test geothermal power plant with the energy output of a medium sized nuclear reactor.
@@fatalityin1 Right. That's why shutting down their nuclear power plants and switching to renewable energy sources where possible has resulted in a net increase of emissions from Germany and a massive increase how much oil and natural gas they have to import every year... Nuclear energy is great for a baseline electric output because it turns out that renewable energy sources are highly variable. Go figure.
And the batteries needed to make renewables more viable are quite terrible environmentally. I also wonder what effects mass production of solar, wind and water energy devices will have on the local environment. Wind captured is no longer blowing elsewhere like it would have. If everyone, everywhere, globally is "stopping the wind", what will that do to things that rely on that wind? Damming a river impacts the local wildlife.. can we dam every river or tide and not impact wildlife? Solar panels are the least impacting (as long as it's on existing buildings), but it is the most unreliable without heavy battery use. Can we get enough energy without impacting pollination processes, or animal migratory behaviors. When we look at the energy output, and compare to the draw, and look at what we'd need to have to accommodate existing and future growing power concerns.. we'd have to take into account the impact batteries and local environment this will start to cause. Nothing is free. This is why efficiency needs to be a huge factor in deciding what to do. Those ideas of using spent reactive material as an alternate fuel source, drawing out the most from the process, is the best idea I've seen so far for energy production.
@@kaisokusekkendou1498 Reusing and recycling spent fuel rods isn't just theoretical. They've done it successfully to the point where the remaining fuel rod at the end of the very long process is no more radioactive than the average background radiation from Earth. Ofc it costs more to recycle spent fuel rods than it does to just buy new ones, so you can guess which route our for-profit private electric companies choose to do...
@@kaisokusekkendou1498 yes, energy storage is the big hurdle of renewables, but what are you talking about with "stopping the wind"? (also you can "dam the tide")
I remember them talking about this in Canada 25 years ago, as they also have this very ancient and stable bedrock they called the " Canadian Sheild" I hadn't really followed it since?
This channel is one of the reasons why I am pursuing architecture as a career
Isn’t that more structural engineering? Do you study both as architecture?
@@springbok4015 People will move in and out of those structures. That requires an architect. But yeah structural engineers are also required. This video can inspire anyone since it requires many professionals to accomplish.
Engineering - look what most architects actually do these days. Good luck getting in and say goodbye to your fingertips
Pay more income tax.
@@toomuchdebt5669 no u
That computer diagram of the tunnels. Was expecting little red and white umbrella logos and Milla Jovovich to appear.
I would have enjoyed an appearance from Milla 😏
Welcome to Raccoon City 😂
It's all there, they just don't want people to know about it. Shhh!
😅
Hah good one ! Fellow Resident Evil fans I greet you
Congratulations to Finland to solve the solution of disposing nuclear wastes in constructing deep tunnelling with safe sealed containers. Others countries with nuclear plants should collarabrated n studied with Finland in this respects of disposing nuclear wastes. It made mankinds in the world to live safely without harms.
I like the long term deep undergeound storage because if we can iron out the kinks of reactors running on waste then we can just go get the waste and use it and use the tunnel for the much shorter double burned waste
It's a little frustrating that when people mention Fukushima, they show pictures of the results of the magnitude 9.1 earthquake and 13 meter tsunami instead.
facts. fukushimas disaster was that the plant went oopsie daisy due to being hit by an earthquake and tsunami while it was still running. and it cant really be compared to chernobyl. the impact that they had is completely different and the aftermath is no where near as bad.
@@andresacosta5318 Not to mention that Fukushima Daini, a nuclear power plant 12km to the north of Daiichi (the one everyone talks about) was hit by the same earthquake and same tsunami but suffered no significant damage (some coolant water escaped from its tanks but that was about it). Yet thanks to anti nuclear """"green"""" activists it never re-opened and was decommissioned in 2019.
@@crazeelazee7524 because those """green""" groups are funded by oil companies. Nuclear and specifically thorium reactors should be playing a way bigger role in our power generation.
@@ZAVB3R3R I love how everyone thinks that nuclear is the future. It is the most expensive source of electricity. The waste could be buried but what happens when you let it run for 100 years? And no one talks about the mining of uranium and it's impact on the environment. Nuclear could be a future but not in its current state.
@@TheBlobPod it’s the Future of our problems… at least for a few hundreds of thousands of years
We went there (Olkiluoto) 2 years ago on a schooltrip in high school. We got to get in one of those massive copper cylinders, went deep underground to look at the pools and other stuff, what a cool place!
Best school trip ever!
How radioactive are you now?
No babies for you 🤣
@@downundabrotha his babies will glow in the dark, can't loose 'em at night
@@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music I could say I've had a glow up since then
No matter what will happen next in the industry, Finland is already 10 steps ahead
"So much more than just burying it." The solution? Burying it.
This is like the most scientific version of hide it under the carpet.
That's what we do with most of the non-biodegradable stuff we produce
Sweep it under the rug and call the place CLEAN.
This is ignorant and we can do better as a planet...
You sir, are a FRAUD!!
It’s about the best thing we can do other than launching it into space, which has its own risks.
"This video was powered by..." I really thought he'd say "nuclear fusion"
"nuclear fusion" is the future. For now we have to settle with nuclear fission, which has all these problems people are trying to solve. Until then, the only clean energy is water, wind and solar. I use 100% water energy.
@@tohtoriTurvotus A proper "aCtUAlLy" move but, yeah. True.
@@Shadowrusa 💀
@@forseen-6731 did you forgor? 💀
@@tohtoriTurvotus Depends how you define "clean energy". If you mean "causes 0 pollution" then none of them are "clean".
Thanks!
Just curious, when the waste is entombed and is decaying, does this process produce any heat? If so, is there any risks that may have not be accounted for? BTW...awsome videos. Very well done and thank you for your efforts.
The heat is accounted for, as well as groundwater flow around the waste
Thought this going to be about new systems that use spent fuel rods as usable fuel, only to see the revolutionary idea is to bury it in a deeper hole.
You might be better off watching Chinese cartoons. Clearly you dont understand.
@@fridolfmane1063 or maybe the thumbnail only showed the elevator shafts of the hole and the intro was intentionally vague to hook people and make it sound like a new idea even though its an old idea that the US stopped because people protested it. And as good of an idea as it is, it still falls shorts because its wasted space in the earths crust, where as building a reactor that can actually use the fuel would be a much better. Knowing what I know about fission reactors and seeing a title of "Finland Might Have Solved Nuclear Power’s Biggest Problem" I entirely expected to see a video about something like the LFTR or a MSR. Not yet again more high pressure solid fuel liquid moderator reactors with waste being shoved back into the earth........
@@fridolfmane1063 nah I understand enough, Finland hasn't solved anything all they've done is just dig deeper which isn't revolutionary to the world of nuclear energy, reusing that fuel or being able to quickly slash the half life of the waste is considered revolutionary and solves the problem of nuclear energy, storage was never a problem just bad politics and public perception that's extremely out dated
Thorium reactors are dangerous because MOXX fuel can easily be heated up and separated into weapons grade material. Imagine having an energy plant that runs on hydrogen bombs. Sure the technology itself is clean, but the fuel is a threat to national security.
@@elinope4745 of it were at high concentration which it's not
I hoped for a technological invention and instead they just developed a "new" way to bury it.
But what's wrong with burying it? So long as the facility isn't on a fault-line, isn't near a groundwater source, and is sufficiently deep as to shield all the radiation it seems like a perfectly adequate solution. The downside is the cost of excavating such a massive facility, but this repository "only" cost 3.4 billion dollars. To put that in the perspective of a piece of infrastructure, the US spends about $175B on Federal funding to maintain its highway system every year. No one seems particularly disturbed by all the radioactive ores that naturally occur in the earth's crust, but suddenly once we start talking about putting nuclear waste underground no solution is sufficiently advanced.
@@rossvolkmann1161 My problem with this way of handling nuclear waste is future human stupidity. That aspect is excellently explained in this video by Wendover: kzhead.info/sun/qLlsm7B6ppGoqKc/bejne.html
@@rossvolkmann1161 6:16 shows the suitable regions... I was at least hoping for a "solution" that could be used by more countries.
STORED not buried. The fuel elements have over 90% of their energy left
Well the thing is, there is already a way to deal with it: burning in in new technology reactors But that doesn't make clickbaity titles nor does it scare the viewer
"incredibly clean way to produce energy" .... as long as you totally forget about the spent nuclear rods and another issue that everyone fails to mention: the relationship of green house gasses and cement. cement production is a major producer of carbon dioxide. that facility is almost entirely cement and it is HUGE
We have a similar idea in Canada, but they spent the last 10 years Re iewing it. I worked on the same idea for the Swedish nuclear waste company not too long ago. It is the way to go and the best solution.
It’s not simply buried, it’s buried really deep and expensively.
yeah, exceptionally smart way to make reusable fuel an unmovable waste
@@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov which makes it quite stupid :) western Europeans...
@@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov Absolutely! According to one seriously reliable source (go find a copy of James Lovelock's document titled 'Our Nuclear Lifeline'), the amount of so called 'waste' generated by Britain's nuclear energy production since the mid '50's amounts to a little over 10 cubic metres. Lovelock also suggests the 'waste' contains more energy than all of the known oil reserves in the North Sea. Lovelock also contends, had envionmently conscious busineeses refurbished the 'waste' rods until they could not be refurbished any further, the total amount of 'waste' would be a few buckets full. But, greedy governemnts (including the Australian government under which I live) and mining companies want the revenues generated by mining rather than being environmentally responsible.
and it will still be there in thousands of years
@@jimmcqueen16 At a location that affects no one.
We have a saying in Finland about digging a hole deep enough to reach China. The waste is their problem now.
And China will use 1.4b people to dig a even deeper and wider hole to Finland
@@sheepgoesmoo4281 good luck with that. We dont need yo worry
Invade Finland? Bad idea
That’s a saying everywhere in the world LOL
@@jorgesalas4314 Not in Finnish.
Just a thought on this one. Do the significant construction activities involved in first building a nulcear facility and then building the waste disposal facilities negate the emission savings. As with all major infrastructure projects I'm sure promoters have done the maths. Energy security is a very tricky beast to be solved.
A fancy burial procedure, Stanford U was supposed to have found a way to regenerate spent fuel rods but I have not heard anything from that yet.
Humans 500 years later: dig deep we found a historical treasure.
They'll know what it is and have the right equipment to get it out.
@@dpg227 How will they know what it is? Often we don´t even know what 500 year old scripts and archaelogical sites mean. Noone was able to decipher Linear a and Linear b. Then how should a civilisation in 500 years be able to decipher our current warning signs and texts?
@@tosche774 They see a strange substance, they analyze it, they understand what it is, no need to decipher anything! Completely different than the example you're putting forward, that would only apply they had to read the sign before digging.
@@tosche774 They'll have instruments that detect the radiation.
TOSCHE The radioactive symbol, as well as the biohazard symbol, were designed with that in mind, in case future generations lose the meaning. At the end of the day, no ancient ruin is idiot proof, there’s only so much a sign can do to deter someone who thinks they’re discovering cool shit.
India too has a solution. It will use nuclear waste in it's three stage Thorium program. It's a unique process.
Nice, last time I bothered checking the reason most places didn't use Thorium reactors and/or use the waste in secondary reactors ( it's still radioactive, it's still giving off energy, use it damn it! ) was because there were worries about them being used as 'breeder' reactors to make weapons material. Well other reasons too but that was one of the big ones last time I poked at the idea ( not even remotely an engineer, just someone interested in the subject )
@@MrGoesBoom I don't think that's right. The reason Uranium reactors were used in the 60's and not Thorium, is the fact that with Uranium reactors you could make weapons, and not with Thorium. For this reason, no one developed Thorium reactors, although they would be much better.
Johnny Bhai ye chuttad log India ki izzat nahi karte. Don't tell them anything.
@@albex8484 Could be wrong, not an expert. could just be mixing my facts up
@@albex8484 The way i understood, the main reason why the world does not use thorium reactors is the unsolved very difficult technological obstacles.
Great video
Burying a finite element thus creating a large issue for future engineers to the nuclear industry. Sounds like a great idea for the immediate future but long term I would rather have a chance to enrich the fuel and continue to utilize the energy maximizing production.
2:37: Smithers,who is that man? Huomi Simpsonanen, sir.
bruh
Definitely smithers
Perkele!
Smithers, turn on the surveillance monitors
This will inevitably be the backdrop for a Christopher Nolan film at some point
It'll simply be called "Power"
the china syndrome.
Seeing just a vido about Finland makes me automatically smile but hearing this stuff that i didn't even know my country was doing... Holy balls.
Thurmal venting would be the best way to go for power and heat 🔥 and we can just do away with that nukler monster all together..
Lmao the bunker looks like a strip mine to find some diamonds
Yep, looks like one of my Minecraft bases.
I knew instantly I would find this comment here
How does one call a thousand year very dangerous radioactive nuclear dump? Finland: Repository.
Branch mine. A strip mine is where you just dig a huge hole to bedrock to find diamond and ore. You end up with a LOT of cobblestone for building though.
@@steveaustin2686 No, that’s a quarry. A strip mine is exactly what’s shown in the video.
The problem isn't figuring out what to do with the "spent" fuel... we've known how for decades. And several countries have been using them. Canada uses heavy moderated reactors to be able to run it thru again. Multiple fast breeder designs are in the works or already operating in countries like Russia, China and India that use a fuel cycle that not only leaves no transuranics but can take existing "spent" fuel and use it completely It's wading thru the politics of it all that has been the real problem which is why we end up burying it a lot which is literally the worst thing to do with it.
Yeah, it's not like we don't have machines to use the spent fuel. We need to convince people that it's safe. I heard recently that Canada plans on making a line of mass-producible small reactors in place of large ones in power stations.
What do you even mean with that sentence - the problem was politics all along for deciding to bury it? And absolutely not, we cannot reuse all of it. There are waste products.
@@christian2i If you are referring to me yes politics and fake public perception is a huge role. There will be waste true but not because we can't reuse any of the actual fuel. Might have been a little too technical but to break it down more simply most reactors only use something like 1-3% of the uranium in them before being considered spent and put into storage... there are ways to literally use 100% of that. The waste left over would just the fission products which are all short lived and whatever material that got irradiated.
Love seeing people talk about Canadian nuclear. Yes, it exists--it's been around for quite a while, and gotten quite good. Our old CANDU reactors are still happily humming along, 19 in Canada currently and 31 running globally right now, including derivatives like the Indian CANDU-likes.
@@christian2i We can reuse the majority, it’s waste products that can be turned into more fuel and used in lower-grade reactors. The problem with nuclear is the restrictive political situation, preventing much-needed replacement facilities and the *decades* of innovation that have happened since the first facilities from being implemented. It’s seen as dangerous, despite the fact that it’s less dangerous by far than fossil fuels, and that makes people put heavy restrictions on it that don’t really need to be there.
This sounds like a quest location in fallout. Gone Fission, Help the [insert faction] defend the Onkalo Nuclear waste site from [insert faction]!
There needs to be a ‘Manhattan project’ type effort. Total international cooperation all of mankind focused on nuclear fusion.
Reminds me of that joke: "Doctors don't make mistakes... they bury them instead."
Haha
Bury it well I say and then it won't effect someone
I chuckled at this joke.
NAILED IT
They have that luxury for sure.
Thorium “catalyst” reactors solve that problem. Can “cook” those hot nuclear waste fuel rods down to 300 year hazardous life remaining. “Cook” & “catalyst” are simplistic terms covering up a complex chain of reactions, easy to understand. Let the engineers make it so.
At what costs ?
@@robertbiolsi9815 4 dollars
@@robertbiolsi9815 80% cheaper than Uranium reactors. Source: medium.com/illumination-curated/9-more-benefits-of-thorium-energy-354395ad38b3
@Ghost Samaritan Illuminating article; thank you for sharing. I'm glad to see thorium has made so much progress since I last read about it.
@@robertbiolsi9815 Tree Fiddy.
this is cool, thanks
The video title suggested Finland found a new way to deal with spent nuclear fuel. Burying it is not a new idea. That possibility has been thought of long ago.
I was expecting something else, not a nuclear cemetary.
Join my club, where we pray for a nuclear amusement park
Exactly. As a Finnish person, I'm not overly excited about this. The solution can't be to sacrifice our country, first to mining business (batteries) and then to nuclear waste. Especially since the scarcity fresh water will be the next big crisis.
They haven't eliminated the problem, just a better way of burying it and ignoring it.
Right!!! Nothing has changed...still a burial place. UTOPIC people always say that "Waste is just material that is not properly allocated"... LoL... Well, try to PROPERLY allocate 200,000 tons of radioactive waste!!! hahaha
Fr nothing new
One day we will be digging out this "waste", as it will become valuable again when we learn to utilize it
🤣🤣
@@Embassy_of_Jupiter true. Maybe one day
Probably true, as will landfill sites be future mines.
@@Embassy_of_Jupiter can I hear more about that nuclear waste kinda scares me
@@Embassy_of_Jupiter they're not being built because of a reason , they're untested on large scale. Have unreliabile large scale efficiency and meltdown security
This video reminded me of the Norm McDonald joke where he was saying every time he reads about somebody murdering someone they always find the victim in a shallow grave and he said if he ever murders anyone he's going to bury them in a really really really deep grave which made me laugh thinking about the Finland solution to nuclear waste.
NE is the best most logical way forward for generating power.....with the caveat that safety / regulation is paramount
I remember years ago I watched a documentary about the Onkalo facility and all the issues it faces. Absolutely fascinating, and I'm very glad to see it discussed here on the channel!
It was called 'Into Eternity'. A very good documentary.
im glad they found out that you can dig deeper
Sounds like they hit bedrock tho, so we’re done with deeper
The Finnish bedrock starts from the surface and reaches very deep. It's a very stable and thick piece of bedrock. It's called the Baltic/Fennoscandian shield. "It contains the oldest rocks of the European continent with a thickness of 250-300 km." It's very easy to bore (blast) because it's so stable.
@@McSlobo sounds like it was a treasure
Late to the party here, but, like everyone else has already said, your content is top notch!
Ah, a cosy night time programmme for me!
"Georgi, what do we do with the spent uranium ?" "easy, put it back where it came from!"
It isn't spent uranium. It is 100s of fission by-products never created before 1940 and 1000 to 1,000,000 times more dangerous with half-lives of seconds to millions of years.
Except the uranium used in reactors is refined. It's not the same stuff.
@@AaaaNinja Is it stable down there.
@@jackfanning7952 Longer half life = less radioactive. More radioactivity = shorter half time. Most of the dangerous byproducts are gone within a few years.
@@ivarkahrstrom7653 Would you care to revise your statement about the most dangerous by-products are gone within a few years? 200,000 years from now inhaling one millionth of an once of plutonium will guarantee that you get cancer.
Eh, a little disappointed that B1M is saying Finland may have solved Nuclear's biggest problem by waiting til 90% of the video is over just to tell me "they've dug deeper and will bury it better".
IKR? This isn't really the kind of solution I expected... I was going for refining/reusing!
@@MaN-pw1bn France does that
Very disappointing.
Always watch videos on 1.5 and always skip to the 3/4 mark to find shit out and if it's good watch the video ;)
Watch Tom Scott's video about the same topic as this video it explains more than this video
This could also be furthered with the now decade old technology of modern CANDU reactors who's multi-stage technology utilizes waste from one stage of generation to fuel the next. The end result is 1 barrel for where there used to be 1000 barrels.
But making such tunnels in that depth must be extremely expensive
The process at Onkalo is so much more than simply burying the problem. We bury it very deep in special containers and gave it a fancy name.
The fancy name sealed the deal for me
@@alessiofe a friend of mine says fancy names account for over 50% success of any engineering idea: neural networks, gradient descent through time, support vector machine... Then he came up with the name: "shotgun gradient". Now he only needs to invent something actually useful he can name.
Special operation containers?
@@busterbiloxi3833 DeBuCesr: Deeply Buried Copper Encased Spent Rods UADS: Unattended Deep Storage
Dumb statement, stick to topics you actually know something about, maybe?
I'm glad they're moving forward, but there are other reactor designs that would a) reduce the amount of waste b) produce less dangerous waste and c) be capable of consuming uranium/plutonium waste products in their cycle. Continued opposition to nuclear power hinders funding for these designs and is largely based on a misconception about the dangers of nuclear power.
Repeat after me: Molten salt eats reactors.
Absolutely 👍 If Government's around the world are actually serious about cutting carbon then nuclear energy needs to become a top priority. Unfortunately there's a stigma surrounding nuclear power and countries like Australia who have made it illegal to use nuclear are going to fall behind and miss their targets.
moving forward? with burying nuclear waste? wake up bro
@@dougaltolan3017 dumb
@@paulfisker Wake up.. it literally produces more power and less waste then solar .. witch is still fucken useless without the aid of fossel fuels... Wake up bro and do some research before commenting.................... Dumbass!
Good vid, but it didn't mention comparative prices; and those are (or should be) the ultimate determinants of what kind of power generation is best. If the total price per KwH, including disposal costs, is lower than that from burning fossil fuels, well and good; otherwise, the "world" should not be "transitioning away" from the latter.
I still say the real solution is the Thorium reactor, also know as a Liquid Salt reactor.
Burying nuclear waste "deeper" is hardly an advance in nuclear technology. Thorium is the future of nuclear generated electrical power, IMHO. It is safer and can be made in sizes tailored to the needs of the consumers, whether they be a small or large community of people or an industrial/manufacturing center.
NO... but It is a *very FINNISH solution* ... _they bury _*_everything_* 😒
@@dasalekhya LOL!
@Omniscient_ Turnip yeah cos burying something extremely dangerous deeper isn’t gonna cause any problems? Cos nothing happens deep down inside the planet, no.. FFS.. Short term gains and all that...let the next generations deal with it while the current ones profit and fill up their pension pot!!
@@cd66061 That's why they only do it in certain areas. The bedrock of most of Scandinavia+Finland is very old and very stable. It's almost as if people who have studied this for years somehow know better than some rando on the internet, imagine that.
@@cd66061 Where do you think the shit comes from?
I was actually expecting a way to use it back as an energy source or a fuel or You know... anything other than burying it deeper
They make bullets out of it in America !!! Lol shoot it at your enemies !! Thats how we do it !!
@@darkone9572 madman
All of that unspent uranium fuel can be used to initiate fission in a thorium reactor. Thorium is 'fertile' - not fissile. It is radioactive, but in order to support a nuclear chain reaction, thorium requires an external neutron source. That is exactly what that unburned fuel - 'radioactive waste' - is. When the world figures it out, thorium reactors will provide the critical non-carbon energy that can run our economy and our lifestyle 24/7. Small, modular reactors will finally start to happen whenever the fossil fuel industry loses its influence in Congress. Those SMRs have already been invented.
@@BillLeavens this, we should not bury it (at least not for long), we should be depleting nuclear fuel (and existing waste) even further using multiple processes such as thorium reactors and other in development methods, not only could doing so decrease the amount of time that this "waste" stays harmfull from many 100s of thousands of years to just a few centuries, it also makes it much more practical and economical and potentialy less waste as well overall. i just hope these processes such thorium reactors become economically viable sometime soon. the problem in many cases doesn't even seem to be money, but a public stigma and bad reputation causing those with money not wanting to fund and go near nuclear which is a damn shame....
@@darkone9572 Those rounds are not radioactive, they're spent, only the metal is extremely tough. How do you NOT know this? It's in the name: DEPLETED uranium.
Let's hope that it will be possible in the future to recover this buried material for some future use.
Breeder reactors can greatly reduce the amount of nuclear waste, however politicians seem opposed to them.
It's also important to recognize that even though reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to separate fission products (arguably the real waste) from uranium, plutonium and minor actinides is not cheap, it doesn't have to be if your supply of fresh fuel is not a constraint. That means that deep geologic repositories such as Onkalo are really an absolute overkill. Most of the cost from reprocessing is associated to the fact that all steps have to be operated remotely, and no maintenance is possible while equipment is hot due to gamma emissions and heat evolution from mainly two isotopes and their daughters, namely Cs-137 and Str-90. Given that both of them have half-lives around 30 years, this means that after ~300 years separating the actinides from the remaining stable decay products and few long-lived fission products could be done rather cheaply, and probably way before that. So it's arguably enough to design a surface repository capable to isolate the spent fuel for a few centuries, and then go back and retrieve the stuff to separate the unused fuel (plus any other useful fission products) instead of having to deal with the hot material today. And unlike in the 1960s, we now know that uranium is rather plentiful; thus we have plenty of time to develop and perfect breeders.
Or you use a molten salt design and separate the fission products on-line and continuously.
Wow a comment that is actually somewhat insightful and thought out...I bet this won’t get any likes
A solution to nuclear waste has actually been found. Look up the safire project. Electromagnetic transmutation of elements.
There are many proposals for what you might do with the waste in the future. But the whole idea here is "We created this mess, we have a responsibility to deal with it." Just leaving it in storage for 'few centuries' and hoping the future generations clean it up is precisely what they don't want to do.
My God-given geo-thermal solution is waaay cleaner. Not like any existing method.
My parents actually worked there once! My mother was a director for painting or smth like that and my dad was one of the engineers. Sadly they stopped working there when the work has been delayed,and they didn't get their loan.
This is just “sweep it under the rug” but super expensive
Very interesting.
This video would have been better with more depth on how the storage works and less on the pumping up of Finland.
They were pretty descriptive about the plans for burial, or do you mean, why do they use boron? And then copper?
I agree probably should of been about the process instead of all the other shit.
EDF PR video paid for by Gordon Brown's brother using your taxes. Let Finland be the crash test dummy for the EPR. French have ensured Flammandville is not first. Wise move.
@@tuberroot1112 that’s pretty random… like everyone who watches this lives in Finland or EU? I’m more worried about that BoJo a-hole than some irrelevant Labour loser.
The method name are mentioned. But most information will probably be in Swedish if you search for it.
I always feel that Finland does not get enough credit for how industrious it is as a people and nation. This vid touches on that - great work
Nobody in Finland can afford a "slow life" unless they won lottery or got big inheritance. Thus finnish people work and work and work ... only for the greedy bosses and landlords to collect the benefits.
@@sleeptyper I dont think you live in Finland :D
@@Petri_Pennala Mielenkiintoinen väite. Ilmeisesti Hämeenkyrö on Sinun kartallasi jossain toisessa maassa..
@Armnel Angeles He is from finland xd its hard to confuse your own country with some other one
@Armnel Angeles Let me elaborate then. Normal people can not afford to work less than 37.5 hours per week. If you work part time, you're either disabled and already on some social benefits, you are rich, a pensioner or piss poor that learned to live in a moldy cow shed. Other options surely exist as well. But if you want a house, family 2.3 dogs, you need to dedicate at least 1/3 of your life to serving the system.
Looks like Finland Black mesa on thumbnail😂
Imagine the surprise when archeologists open those up in a thousand years. Lol
"The worlds happiest country..." Including Bottas?
Yes ofc, he's happy with his bowling shenanigans that hindered both red bulls.
You don’t see his face when he gets his payslip
No but I bet he got quite a bonus for last race.
you mean Valteri?
he was happy at williams at least
Got my hopes up they found a way to actually use it. Instead they just reinvented how to hide it.
Same. Good that they have a way to ensure it's okay without human intervention (and screwing with it would be very difficult) but using it would be so much better.
We figured out how to use it more than 30 years ago, it just costs more money in the short term, and takes too long before it becomes profitable. www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/integral-fast-reactor.shtml Note: there are a lot of designs that solve the same problem, that one is just an example.
Watch the documentary abouy bill gates on netflix, he has invented new ways.
It’s funny so many people are expecting the impossible deletion of matter. Where is it suppsed to go? Uranium has a half life regardless of weather or not humans know about it
@@unfetteredpatriot1000 actually, expecting a nuclear reaction that would break it down to another element with a significantly shorter half life but whatever floats your boat.
Fascinating nuclear waste disposal methods!
Awesome.
we couldn't bear witness to the environmental impact of burying it™ so we decided to bury it deeper™
We are literally returning it to the environment as that's where we got it from in the 1st place
@@NadeemAhmed-nv2br Bullshit....its a far more concentrated form unlike the uranium ore it originated from.
@@NadeemAhmed-nv2br expect in an entirely different, more dangerous state then when we took it out.
Well, the concern with burying nuclear waste would be potential contamination of groundwater and it's certainly not gonna be contaminating any groundwater when it's too deep for that to happen, below layers of solid rock. Radiation has no measurable environmental impact if it isn't interacting with biological material (the heat produced by decay in some deep tunnel is not gonna cause the climate to get warmer and rock surprisingly doesn't grow extra arms or get cancer from the radiation).
@@tiikerihai Exactly. Putting it in these capsules and burring it where it won't get wet pretty much defuses this. It kinda just isn't a problem anymore. but hey people who are against nuclear energy seem to be overwhelmed with the fear of something going wrong so they won't listen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gonna be a hell of a time capsule for our kids to have fun with.
It is ok as it is carbon neutral 🤣
Who would put that much effort into breaking tons of containes sraled in meters of concrete and metals
If another civilisation finds that, they will either be advenced enough to open it and find out what it is, or they won't be able to open it at all
I wonder which lives will matter in those days lol. "Radiation is racist!"
@@ranchdressing1037 What was the point of even bringing that up. Something that has nothing to do with racism and you brought it up.
Well, it (uranium) came from the earth, where else better to put it than back in to the earth? Although, that's quite the intricate process. To be wrapping up the fuel cells completely with copper and sealing it within to concrete.
that is scary , is that just always the same application of tomorrow? between yesterday and tomorrow its scary!
What about the reprossesing it? Or Thorium reactor re-using or changing it? (As I've heard).
While it will stretch the useful lifespan of the spent fuel rods, how will we deal with spent spent fuel rods?
@@dbclass4075 The spent spent one can be stored safely inside this kind of bunker storage as the recycled waste would have less weight and volume This kind of storage will work very nicely with spent spent fuel
Send it to Russia for their next-gen breeders.
Even thorium reactors (if they ever get the idea to work and that's not yet certain) will generate radioactive waste materials (such as the reactor casing) and will still need a long term waste solution. Waste will always come in two categories. That which can still be processed back into fuel, and that which is just lethal radioactive trash for disposal.
@@dbclass4075 LFTR Is completely Backwards to conventional nuclear energy. The fuel is liquid and the moderator is the graphite rods.
7 minutes to say they're going to bury it in the ground... groundbreaking!
But how are they going to bury? Buy breaking the ground first! Duh!
That was a rock solid pun 😎👍
i understand that it is a more stable way of burning it but it seems to waste even more materials eg. Copper to do so - eventually we will run out of precious metals as well. I guess we are still in a lose-lose scenario either way :P
Brilliant Use an alloying material (boron) that is not in particularly good supply on the planet.