Climate Change and Will FUSION Stop it

[DDE]

40 minutes ago, Pixophir said:

They are importing energy because they have unexplained stress corrosion and no maintenance people and material to repair it.

So the problem isn't with nuclear as a technology, it's with the execution.

40 minutes ago, Pixophir said:

Renewable energy production overtook thermal production in many countries. Some rely totally on the former.

Ah, yes, the vaunted industrial powerhouse of *checks Wiki* Albania.

40 minutes ago, Pixophir said:

Now we're getting personal

Are we? A demand for evidence is not an ad hominem.

Edited August 2, 2022 by DDE

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

The last one, in case people haven't heard, France has massive problems with partly unexplained stress corrosion in more than half of their reactors.

Really? Why others don't?

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

Replacement of solar panels is just trivial and can be done by everyone.

Just send'em all to China and let them do their job.

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

Replacement and recycling of nuclear material (and that includes fusion reactors of the Tokamak type like ITER) is an unsolved, even unsolvable problem.

There is not so much nuclear material to recycle compared to the yearly mined amount of minerals.

And Tokamak and ITER aren't the only fusion designs, they are just the experimental ones.

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

: A solar installation doesn't need much ado in that time.

Stable, photoelectrically active, semi-conductor materials are definitely that what requires a lot of chemistry to recycle.
And the chemicals don't just appear, they are manufactured by plants which use a lot of energy and exhausr a lot of wastes.
Just at the other ocean coast. But in same air.

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

Renewable energy production overtook thermal production in many countries.

Volcanic Iceland with 300k population and industrial giants like Norway and Estonia.

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Don't blaspheme against Atom, or be divided in His sight.

I obey Atom better than you do!

Edited August 2, 2022 by kerbiloid

[SunlitZelkova]

25 minutes ago, DDE said:

Are we? A demand for evidence is not an ad hominem.

Here is a pretty good article covering @Pixophir's claims regarding DIY solar panels- https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/how-to-build-your-own-solar-panel-system

Key quotes-

Quote

Yes, it is possible to build your own solar system - and even the solar panels - from scratch.

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Solar panels are made by soldering together solar cells into strings, joining these strings together, and connecting them to a junction box. Once joined together, the components must be sealed so that the active parts of the solar panel are waterproof. Then the front is sealed with a transparent waterproof product for protection. Silicon is then used to seal the panel around the edges so that moisture does not get in.

It is not technically difficult to make a single solar panel, it is mainly soldering wires and solar cells.

-

The biggest issue is finding quality material to build the panels. Normally, the materials are purchased in an ad hoc fashion from many different distributors, so quality is hard to track. Building solar panels from non-quality equipment can lead to damaged panels or risk of fire from faulty craftsmanship [Emphasis added].

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If you want to build your own panels, we recommend building them on a smaller scale, for things like running electricity to your shed, instead of an entire house [Emphasis added]. Small projects will keep power demands low, which makes DIY installation manageable and less likely to break.

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For someone with little to no experience in solar equipment, it can be dangerous to build and install a system large enough to power your home [Emphasis added].

I would lean towards his claims being "somewhat correct", but also having many risks. They emphasize the threat of fire again later in the article-

Quote

Safety is the biggest concern with homemade solar panels. Moisture can get inside and ruin them and there is the potential for improperly built panels to catch fire from the sun’s heat [Emphasis added]. Mastering the soldering and electrical wiring is a challenge that generally takes the knowledge of a skilled electrician or engineer.

I don't see how these risks can be alleviated. The deaths per terawatt-hour from nuclear energy is second only to solar, but that would probably change if everyone was putting DIY panels on theirs and their mother's house.

I am citing this site for that figure. The data is below- https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#putting-death-rates-from-energy-in-perspective

By the way, that is a great article dispelling myths about nuclear power safety. I highly recommend for anyone concerned about it.

Quote

Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let’s try to put it in perspective.

Let’s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which – as I’ve said before – consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let’s call this town ‘Euroville’.

If Euroville was completely powered by coal we’d expect at least 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.  Most of these people would die from air pollution. 

This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:

• Coal: 25 people would die prematurely every year;
• Oil: 18 people would die prematurely every year;
• Gas: 3 people would die prematurely every year;
• Hydropower: In an average year 1 person would die;
• Wind: In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;
• Nuclear: In an average year nobody would die – only every 33 years would someone die.
• Solar: In an average year nobody would die – only every 50 years would someone die.

But remember that this is predominantly government approved/certified, trained technician installed solar power, not DIY stuff.

52 minutes ago, DDE said:

Ah, yes, the vaunted industrial powerhouse of *checks Wiki* Albania.

Here's some info from an Australian renewable energy advocational site- https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-100-renewable-grid-isnt-just-feasible-its-already-happening-73505/

Quote

According to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, there are seven countries already at, or very, near 100 percent renewable power: Iceland (100 percent), Paraguay (100), Costa Rica (99), Norway (98.5), Austria (80), Brazil (75), and Denmark (69.4).

This claim of his seems somewhat legit. I can't help but remain wary of confirmation bias, however. Googling "can a country run completely on renewable energy" yields many a positive example, but I am not seeing what problems may actually lie or any instances of failure. These should be addressed even if they have already been solved.

Furthermore, these articles all claim the reason why the rest of the world is not doing as well as those seven is an almost hand-wavy "lack of policy interest" or something to that effect. There is certainly a policy aspect to the lack of clean energy initiatives, but due to the lack of evidence, I can't help but wonder if we are missing other parts of the picture regarding feasibility.

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

Now we're getting personal and reverting to common arguments of type "not even wrong". I've posted the data. I run an off grid house soon. And I am just one of many.

In contrary. Renewable energy production overtook thermal production in many countries. Some rely totally on the former. And, btw.(edit), had Europe put more effort in rolling out renewables, they wouldn't have that many problems now because of the horrible circumstances. Countries with high renewable share are better off. France's plans are changing, apparently people are understanding that relying on nuclear put them on wrong track. Though they also speak of new coal plants, which is irresponsible under the global threat of climate change.

They are importing energy because they have unexplained stress corrosion and no maintenance people and material to repair it. The reactors are shut down because they are unsafe. The nuclear lobby's plan didn't work out. Lot of rotten fruit :-)

 

In general it is understood that these issues relate to management practices. Chernobyl and Fukushima were also caused by poor management.

What you are saying about nuclear power is like if someone made a DIY solar power system for their home, set their neighborhood on fire, thus killing several families, and then people decided solar power was unsafe as a whole.

Netflix put out a good documentary series on Three Mile Island recently. A whistleblower related to the clean up operation was vehemently against the practices that led to Three Mile Island, but emphasizes at the end that he is an ardent advocate for nuclear power, going so far as to say it is the future- just not under the current management system and practices.

[DDE]

8 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Yes, it is possible to build your own solar system - and even the solar panels - from scratch.

-

Solar panels are made by soldering together solar cells into strings

So, after the bulk of fhe dirty work is already done, and all that's left is within the capabilities of a regular electrician.

10 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Googling "can a country run completely on renewable energy"

And that's another interesting bit. Places may report as having a purely "green" electrical grid, but there's the question of consumer and indistrial heating sources. Iceland doesn't have a problem there, but what about everyone else?

[Superluminal Gremlin]

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

Though they also speak of new coal plants, which is irresponsible under the global threat of climate change.

theres a hell of a lot more coal than oil though.

 

I do wonder just how well those DIY solar panels you got compare to other commercial systems. Politics is just making energy so much more complicated than what it needs to be. 

To get rid of nuclear waste we could, ummm... chuck into the earths mantle? i dunno, im out of ideas.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Pixophir said:

Replacement and recycling of nuclear material (and that includes fusion reactors of the Tokamak type like ITER) is an unsolved, even unsolvable problem.

Missed that bit on the first read.

Challenge accepted.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Reprocessing-contract-signed-for-fast-reactor-comp

[Pixophir]

Allow me to stay with the technical stuff because else it gets too fluffy for fruitful discussion.

Yes, cracked panels should be exchanged. They are designed for impact of hail grains and to resist wind, it's all in the technical description, but they are not indestructible ofc.

My claim was some rely 100% and a lot have a large percentage of renewables in their mix, large being 30% (like for instance France) or 50% (like for instance Germany, but varies from year to year). And it was a response to "magnitudes off" for nuclear power which doesn't coincide with reality in most countries.

There are other problems emerging for thermal power plants, that's a heating environment in which it becomes difficult to get rid of waste heat. Reactors already have to shut down during heat waves because of overheating of the connected water bodies.

@TKMK: It was an example, a response to the claim that it could not be done, one could DIY a solar panel from parts (I actually had single cells in mind, like those for use on tiled roofs), but I wouldn't recommend it. I would actually recommend highly efficient bifacial panels on a reflecting roof, if local regulations allow. They are incredible even under diffuse lighting conditions like clouds cover. But than again, some people do things just because :-)

@DDE: I repeat: nuclear waste disposable is an unsolvable problem and it is getting worse every day. It can be swept under the carpet, stored somewhere for a limited time (100 years is limited, such repositories are not a solution), transported and re-processed, but it can not be solved. I am a scientist, not a politician.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Pixophir

[DDE]

2 minutes ago, Pixophir said:

I am a scientist, not a politician.

It's rather hard to tell, since you insist on treating solar as a spherical cow in a vacuum, while taking the absolute worst examples of nuclear energy mismanagement and declaring them to be daming for the concept as a whole. It's an approach about as scientific as posting a video of a burning wond turbine and delcaring that all renewables are over.

[SunlitZelkova]

3 minutes ago, DDE said:

So, after the bulk of fhe dirty work is already done, and all that's left is within the capabilities of a regular electrician.

I think that was what he meant anyways. After all, "home built aircraft" are a thing, but it is a given that that doesn't involve mining the metals or beating the curves of the fuselage by hand. Just putting pre-fab pieces together.

4 minutes ago, DDE said:

And that's another interesting bit. Places may report as having a purely "green" electrical grid, but there's the question of consumer and indistrial heating sources. Iceland doesn't have a problem there, but what about everyone else?

My nitpick is that all of the estimates rely on current energy needs. But to truly have a dent on climate change, everyone will need to use EVs (assuming it is impossible to drastically restructure people's lifestyles around public transport).

So what then? Can energy requirements be met by renewables alone still, if everyone is trying to charge their car at night?

3 minutes ago, TKMK said:

To get rid of nuclear waste we could, ummm... chuck into the earths mantle? i dunno, im out of ideas.

Launching it into solar orbit would be my preferred option. Just burn to escape Earth SOI and done, and the probability of it coming back around and hitting us is low.

However, when I asked a similar question on this forum, I was told more of something like the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant should not be problematic.

[Pixophir]

@TKMK "Out of ideas", yep summarizes it :-) So am I, so is everybody.

No, we can't even bore through the crust. Pressure/temperature conditions are too hard for any material we have. People tried to store waste in the mines in salt domes, defined it under political pressure (Chancellor Schmidt that was) as a "final storage" ("Endlager" in German) while geoscience warned because even for a first semester student this is a ridiculous idea, salt is highly mobile in the crust. Didn't take long until stuff started to leak and radioactive contamination cannot be excluded. Access is not possible in some areas because of radioactivity, or simply because stuff got under groundwater.

Finland/Sweden have built a long term storage, to hold 100 years or so. But first that's nothing and second those such pledges are worthless.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Pixophir

[kerbiloid]

23 minutes ago, Pixophir said:

I repeat: nuclear waste disposable is an unsolvable problem and it is getting worse every day.

"In fifty years the London streets will be buried under the horse manure to the level of the second floor", or how was that early-XX estimation sounding.

For several decades the radiowastes will be stored underground, then burned in the fusion reactor, that's all.

("Burned" = irradiated by neutrons, turned into short-living isotopes, decay, turned into stable light elements, of course).

Edited August 2, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Pixophir]

27 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I think that was what he meant [..]

The electrician question came up: well, partly. One does not need to be an electrician to build a photovoltaic installation. One does need a certified electrician for connecting such an installation to the grid. This has to do with regulations, and technical details of the local or national grid system and how to prevent damage from the own installation.

This is not to say that something flies off and hits somebody, but (example) such things as the own inverters for feed-in need to shut off in case of a grid failure or when line repair work is done across the road. This must be guaranteed under all circumstances to avoid that grid-workers are being hurt or even killed because one neighbourhood still feeds in. Solar panels can't switch off when the sun shines, this is functionality in the converters. There are other more complicated things to observe that have to do with conversion from DC to AC.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Pixophir

[Superluminal Gremlin]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Launching it into solar orbit

but what is the rocket blows up. then like, what, 300 ish tons of solid, highly radioactive debris is scattered over many kilometers, depending on when it blows up.

 

Also, a quick google search reveals it would take 833 launches of the Starship in fully reusable mode to send it all away. And that's just put it into orbit. Uh oh. How are we going to eject out of earths orbit?

Weird, unconventional power source. Hydrogen on the moon in ice. Apparently there's enough to support a space shuttle launch every day for 28,000 days. Getting it off the moon isn't the hard part. Its getting it past that dammed atmosphere.

 

And someone said something about electrifying the ocean. Well, needless to say, we wouldn't run out of fish for a long time. They would all be dead. And touching the sea would be scary, i bet.

 

 

[SunlitZelkova]

1 minute ago, TKMK said:

but what is the rocket blows up. then like, what, 300 ish tons of solid, highly radioactive debris is scattered over many kilometers, depending on when it blows up.

 

Also, a quick google search reveals it would take 833 launches of the Starship in fully reusable mode to send it all away. And that's just put it into orbit. Uh oh. How are we going to eject out of earths orbit?

Weird, unconventional power source. Hydrogen on the moon in ice. Apparently there's enough to support a space shuttle launch every day for 28,000 days. Getting it off the moon isn't the hard part. Its getting it past that dammed atmosphere.

 

And someone said something about electrifying the ocean. Well, needless to say, we wouldn't run out of fish for a long time. They would all be dead. And touching the sea would be scary, i bet.

 

 

Such an operation could only be carried out once Starship has reached a sufficient level of reliability.

Orbital refueling would be utilized and the Starship would be thrown away.

From a risk point of view I can't see there being a massive difference. The trucks that would otherwise be used to transport them to underground sites can crash, after all.

If anything Starship would be the safer option. Trucks would be at the mercy of traffic, roads can't be closed just for such transport. Starship is looked over by hundreds of technicians and tested multiple times before launch.

I too was merely spitballing with the idea though, and even if the risk might be "low", I recognize it is still there 

[Superluminal Gremlin]

ok in unreusable mode thats like, what, 500 launches. 500 starships!!!!!! thats a lot. And i think roads can be closed, or at least traffic lights dealth with if something needs to come through fast. There might be 1 or 2 failures, and maybe the abort system might save them. But good luck landing a 500 ton heavier than optimal starship. That will  be interesting. And the trucks wouldn't be doing 120 in a 60 zone (maybe Jeb might if has feeling lucky). They would be doing at max probably 40. Maybe. And there's a lot of trucks. And a lot of radiation from those trucks. And those trucks are now radioactive. What do you do with those. And how do you get it all onto starship? Shielding to heavy, not an option. And once we have caught up the backlog, we need to do 4 launches a year to keep up. And how do you transport all this material? 

The longer this thread goes on, the more i feel like humanity has not a lot of hope left.

Edited August 2, 2022 by TKMK

[kerbiloid]

27 minutes ago, TKMK said:

And someone said something about electrifying the ocean. Well, needless to say, we wouldn't run out of fish for a long time.

The fish will just change.

Spoiler

 

 

32 minutes ago, TKMK said:

but what is the rocket blows up. then like, what, 300 ish tons of solid, highly radioactive debris is scattered over many kilometers, depending on when it blows up.

Blue light + red sunset = a year of purple sunsets.

[Superluminal Gremlin]

that made me laugh, sooo hard. that was hilarious.

Also, if your phone low, just stick the charger in your local ocean. No one will notice.

[kerbiloid]

26 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If anything Starship would be the safer option. Trucks would be at the mercy of traffic, roads can't be closed just for such transport.

Spoiler

 

 

Upd.
Corrected link.
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6rYwQIHM8Q

(Embedding is restricted by owner)

 

[SunlitZelkova]

2 hours ago, TKMK said:

ok in unreusable mode thats like, what, 500 launches. 500 starships!!!!!! thats a lot. And i think roads can be closed, or at least traffic lights dealth with if something needs to come through fast. There might be 1 or 2 failures, and maybe the abort system might save them. But good luck landing a 500 ton heavier than optimal starship. That will  be interesting. And the trucks wouldn't be doing 120 in a 60 zone (maybe Jeb might if has feeling lucky). They would be doing at max probably 40. Maybe. And there's a lot of trucks. And a lot of radiation from those trucks. And those trucks are now radioactive. What do you do with those. And how do you get it all onto starship? Shielding to heavy, not an option. And once we have caught up the backlog, we need to do 4 launches a year to keep up. And how do you transport all this material? 

It is a lot, but this isn't something I am thinking of for the near-term, this only after we have so many launches happening we are able to build 10km long space based solar power satellites.

Now that I have thought about it, the launches could be conducted from a sea launch platform (converted oil rig like they have). That way if a problem happens, it will occur over deep water, so when it splashes down it will sink so deep it doesn't present a hazard.

Trucks shouldn't have an issue, they already have been used to transport waste to the WIPP and others. If ships can transport nuclear missiles (the Soviets built SLBM replenishment ships) they shouldn't have an issue transporting radioactive waste out to the sea launch platform.

It wouldn't be a speedy process, it would take years, but eventually the backlog would be cleared and the waste would be mostly gone.

2 hours ago, TKMK said:

The longer this thread goes on, the more i feel like humanity has not a lot of hope left.

It is not a good idea to derive a view of the general state of humanity from an internet forum thread 

[Terwin]

To start with, the vast majority of 'nuclear waste' are just things that had neutron activation due to being in proximity to a nuclear reaction.  For the most part these are no more radioactive than natural materials like granite.  Thanks to the linear approximation method that is still in use even after being proven wrong, all of these bits, pieces, and structural materials must be locked away for 10,000 years in a geologically stable environment.

 

For real radioactive waste, like 'spent' fuel rods, just discarding them like we are is terribly wasteful, as something like 80%+ of the fuel is still there, it is just 'poisoned' by reaction byproducts.  These could easily be recycled into new fuel rods, leaving only a small amount of actual reaction waste products.

These, often highly radioactive, waste products could then be put in to a fast 'breeder reactor'(the navy had one for processing spent nuclear fuel, producing both useable fuel and energy, but it was decommissioned, and no one else was allowed to have one due to the risk of proliferation, as they can also produce weapons-grade materials).

 

Once you start ignoring things that are less radioactive than common, naturally occurring materials, and re-processing 'spent' fuel, you are mostly left with highly energetic materials, that have short half-lives.  Generally these are things that could be put in a storge pool for at most a decade or two, then discarded normally as being in the 'low radioactivity' category mentioned above.

 

The only thing that makes nuclear waste management 'impossible' is FUD driven politics.

[Nuke]

8 hours ago, TKMK said:

ok in unreusable mode thats like, what, 500 launches. 500 starships!!!!!! thats a lot. And i think roads can be closed, or at least traffic lights dealth with if something needs to come through fast. There might be 1 or 2 failures, and maybe the abort system might save them. But good luck landing a 500 ton heavier than optimal starship. That will  be interesting. And the trucks wouldn't be doing 120 in a 60 zone (maybe Jeb might if has feeling lucky). They would be doing at max probably 40. Maybe. And there's a lot of trucks. And a lot of radiation from those trucks. And those trucks are now radioactive. What do you do with those. And how do you get it all onto starship? Shielding to heavy, not an option. And once we have caught up the backlog, we need to do 4 launches a year to keep up. And how do you transport all this material? 

The longer this thread goes on, the more i feel like humanity has not a lot of hope left.

i think the problem is people want to tout their own preferred solution at the expense of all the others. there are enough resources to explore all avenues. its a better strategy than putting all the eggs in one basket. im definitely pro fusion, pro fission and pro renewables. we need all the technology. we might have beamed solar before we have fusion, but that's no reason to defund iter. and we could have had nuclear today if not for the fear mongering of the past. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Nuke

[Superluminal Gremlin]

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It is not a good idea to derive a view of the general state of humanity from an internet forum thread

true.

The oil rig sounds like a good idea. You have made some good points. About the satellites though. How do they work? Im quite curious.

@Terwin So how much 'true' radioactive waste would be left by the end of that which couldn't be dealt with and would have to be launched on starship?

[Pthigrivi]

No. It'll slowly come online in maybe 10-15 years but it will be ludicrously expensive and take even longer to scale. PV and wind will be much cheaper, but we'll still have problems with grid scale storage that can meet base-loads reliably. Radioactive waste or not nuclear is already too expensive and will only get worse over time as plants continue to age. Worse, as temperatures rise so will the demand for power to run AC in more and more places for more and more days out of the year. All of these problems are completely solvable but as there's no direct profit in saving lives in most of the world we just won't. We'll continue to drag our feet for another 50 years, falling further and further behind as huge swaths of the globe become practically uninhabitable, ecosystems and crop yields collapse, and wars over dwindling resources consume the globe. The obscenely wealthy will become nightmarishly wealthy, try to burrow themselves in bunkers piled with useless extravagances and guarded by paid armies. Billions will die along with half the biosphere, but some will adapt as best they can in northern Canada and Siberia. You may even see significant settlement of Antarctica. 

So I guess fusion will be a nice go-to for trillionaire bunker-dwellers at least. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Terwin]

38 minutes ago, TKMK said:

@Terwin So how much 'true' radioactive waste would be left by the end of that which couldn't be dealt with and would have to be launched on starship?

According to here there is roughly 3.14g per day per MW of U235 consumed by a thermal fission reactor.

According to this the US produced 843 bln kWh from nuclear power in 2019

1 MW-day would be 24MWh

843 bln kWh/24MWh = 843 M/24= ~35M  multiply that by 3.14 grams for ~111 metric tons of U235 converted to by-products for all US powerplants in 2019

According to Wiki, those by-products are  iodine, caesium, strontium, xenon and barium.

I do not know the percentages produced, but the most radioactive products have short half-lives and are all but gone in a few months, then the radioactive signature is dominated by less radioactive isotopes for the next couple of years, followed by longer-lived isotopes after that.

 So with just fuel-rod recycling to recapture un-spent uranium, all nuclear waste produced by power generation in the US in 2019 could be carried in a single Starship.  If you let those rods sit in a holding pool for a few months or a couple years, you probably reduce that amount significantly.

Note: in 2019 19% of US power was from nuclear, so even scaling up to 50-80% nuclear power, you are probably looking at 1-2 SS/year or less to dispose of the waste.  

Note 2: Electricity consumption in the US went down in 2020, then up in 2021, but still less than 2019.  Numbers for 2022 are not yet available.

[Codraroll]

12 hours ago, TKMK said:

Also, a quick google search reveals it would take 833 launches of the Starship in fully reusable mode to send it all away. And that's just put it into orbit. Uh oh. How are we going to eject out of earths orbit?

Eight hundred launches to rid the Earth of all radioactive waste products produced so far? In a scenario where one Starship can be prepared for launch every day, it'd take less than three years to clear the storage? That's great news if true. Or less than three decades if you launch one-tenth the amount at a time, to shield it in containment units in case of RUD-ing. Heck, you could divide by ten again, and possibly once more, and it'd still not be too shabby considering the alternative is to maintain storage sites for many millennia.

Then again, as @Terwin says, the radioactive energy left in the waste could potentially be put to use rather than throwing it all away. Parking it in high orbit for future prospection would probably be more useful than throwing it into the sun.