Thread: Bacteria cleaning up nuclear power plant waste?

Has anyone checked into developing a highly radioactive strain of bacteria like the radiodurans strain into being able to oxidize, process, etc nuclear power plant waste into a inert substance so we could use nuclear power plants to provide our energy needs?

Radioactive decay occurs in the nucleus, so it is not affected by oxidation or any chemical process. We do, in fact, use nuclear power plants to supply our energy needs.

so theirs no way to speed up the decay of radioactive waste, or to process it into a relatively safe form?

It can be processed into a form that will not leach into the water supply. It is called vitrification. But it will have to be buried and kept in a safe place while it decays off.

how long would that take?

Effectively forever.

Hey why not sink it at a tectonic plate convergence, so it's carried under and lost forever? Oceanside of Aleut or Kurile island chains? I'll bet we wouldn't have to drill deep.

According to this article it would be on the order of a few hundred years for reprocessed fuel (plutonium removed) and 10,000 years for non-reprocessed fuel with the plutonium still in it to decay to a level equivalent to uranium ore.

http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htm

The anti-nuke sites will claim hundreds of thousand or a million years, but they aren't going to be happy with a toxicity equivalent to ore. They want it all gone.