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In the end, geological repositories won out. But some initial ideas for disposing of spent nuclear fuel were literally out of this world.
“At one point, people looked at putting the waste in rockets and orbiting it around the sun,” says Michael Voegele, Bechtel SAIC senior technical advisor. However, it would take 13,000 space shuttle flights to transport the 63,500 tonnes of nuclear waste that exist today. While costs and safety concerns ensured that the astral alternative never blasted off, other choices, such as deep-sea burial, didn’t hold water, either. Along the way, researchers suggested storage under the polar icecaps, on remote islands, and in holes drilled hundreds of meters into the earth.
“All those options were discarded in favor of geological disposal in an engineered facility, because the science backs it up,” says Voegele. “This is the only safe, ethical way to deal with the issue.”
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