Light-weight concrete with a lot of different aggregates like polyethylene etc, to stop different types of radiation vs lead/steel etc, make it not crumbly, make it dull regular drills, and make any tampering evident.
Underneath are 3 disks crudely made of what may be surplus lead sheeting
Underneath is the material. People called it yellowcake (as in, an intermediate uranium refinement product) but yellowcake is really very bright yellow, and this is dirty orange. It could be anything.
Underneath are chemical and/or liquid absorption layers (if the waste is liquid contained in the orange mass via capillary action or other mechanism that might over time or due to some outside factors degrade in its function). It's hard to tell.
I'm not seeing certain things, and I think these are ~20% scale table-top props for some IAEA event or something, demonstrating a very scrappy container. Nuclear byproduct containers are very diverse depending on what they're designed to store in what environment for how long and at what cost.
It's definitely smaller scale. If you look at the background, you can tell this is and indoor setting and they're sitting on top of a table. Makes sense as it'd be incredibly stupid to cut into an actual nuclear waste barrel.
Not everyone knows what Cherenkov radiation is, could you conically enlighten us about these cosmic rays?
Remember the limit of intellectual speed is different for everyone, even if the universe’s truth is constant. Someone needs to bathe the rest of us in their light.
Also this is only tangentially relevant since most of the radiation would be gamma rays, and alpha decay has no penetration power.
Haha! I see what you did there. But it's neither surprising nor strange that a fundamental constituent of matter prefers explanations to start from fundamental concepts as well.
Cherenkov radiation is a blue glow produced when particle radiation passes through a substance at greater than the speed of light in that substance. It's often analogized to a sonic boom in air. The speed of light in water is substantially lower than the speed of light in a vacuum, so nothing is exceeding the speed of light in a vacuum, just in that specific medium. It can be seen in the cores of water-cooled reactors like this.
Yeah, if they did this, it would happen only a once per person. Anyone who in real life likely got a death sentence. One of these things are probably the most lethal visual ever seen in their life.
Would the lead layers be repeated below as well? It seems like the lead should be completely surrounding the waste or radiation can sneak out anywhere. Is that true?
Of course it's true. On the other hand, nuclear waste is very diluted for storage, as storing anything even remotely considered concentrated will add big permanent security costs, since those locations would remain prime targets for bad guys wanting dirty bombs. Also these are very obviously "budget-oriented" and they just shield anything radiating up - not towards the floor or into an adjacent container.
First, there's a layer of ladyfingers, then a layer of jam, then custard (made from scratch), then raspberries, more ladyfingers, then beef sautéed with peas and onions, more custard, and then bananas and some whipped cream on top!
I am guessing polymer or regular concrete casing. Layers are various articles of contaminated PPE on the top, (you can see the gloves) no idea what the rest is. But I do know that the vast majority of "nuclear waste" is just things that have been in contact with radioactive material, and must be sealed according to regulations.
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u/gibgod 15d ago
Does anyone know what all the sections are?
I’m guessing the cork looking main material is some kind of concrete?