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Wednesday, February 12, 1975
University Daily Kansan
Nuclear waste solution may be a solar shoot-out
By BARB HANN Kansan Staff Reporter
A solution to the problem of nuclear waste disposal could be out of this world if enough attention is turned away from the more publicized earth bound solutions.
practical solution is to shoot containers of nuclear waste clear out of the solar system, Howard Smith, professor of aerospace engineering, said Friday.
Smith said this idea had been developed far beyond the theoretical stage. NASA, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Aerospace Corporation of Sacramento, Cal., have jointly studied the idea since 1971. The Environmental Protection Agency has followed the study from its beginning, he said.
The attention given to these plans of barryg the waste on earth has blocked out the news about the plans for sending it into outer space, Smith said.
Other proposals for nuclear waste disposal include sinking the waste into the Antarctic ice or the ocean floor, storing it in salt mines and burying it in selected land areas.
"Sending this waste out of the solar system turns out to be the cheapest, neatest and most long-term solution," he said. "This process of disposal would relieve future generations from the responsibilities of protecting themselves from radioactive waste material left over from past generations."
this disposal system proposes several destinations for the waste, Smith said. One is a high orbit orbital, where containers of waste would stay in the sky until the orbit is a solar orbit, that is, the containers would orbit around another solar body.
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Solar impact, in which the containers would hit the sun, is another possibility, he
The most permanent disposal but also the most expensive, according to Smith, is solar system escape. This process requires the installation of this solar system into deep space, an indeterminate place.
Smith said shooting the waste into the sun wasn't feasible because present technology can't provide a source of energy great enough to support a nuclear reactor, send something from the earth to the sun.
The problem with trying to orbit the waste is the risk of the container coming down on the earth somewhere, Smith said, before the waste was actually placed in orbit.
These risks have to be balanced against the greater disadvantages of earthbound disposal, Smith said. If the waste was stored on earth, an earthquake could cause a
dangerous accident, he said.
"If you bury nuclear waste somewhere on earth, transporting it is a problem," Smith said. "Accidents are going to happen what matter of transportation you use whether it's by train or by space shuttle or we need permanent disposal of this waste."
Smith said low-level radioactive waste would be separated from high-level waste. The low-level waste could be safely disposed of and the high-level waste could be disposed of permanently in space, he said. The high-level waste would be placed in containers for storage and the high-level waste could be held in container and carried by space shuttle away from the earth, Smith said.
Smith called this a dixie cup philosophy because the containers would be cheap and easy to carry.
Smith said that approximately 100 space shots would have to be made each year by the year 2000 to dispose of nuclear waste. An extensive system of earth disposal sites would be required to handle this amount of waste, he said.
rely on to generate the large quantities of energy we need. If we accept this form of energy, then the next thing we have to accept is getting rid of the waste."
"garbage trucks" would return to earth, he said.
"Economy wise, at this time we have to look to the future," Smith said. "Prices for the fuel we use today are rising fast and will become more expensive in the energy that don't look so economical now."
But the expendable sources of energy, gas and oil, are going to run out. Then there will be no energy for transportation.
Smith said the cost of disposing nuclear waste by shooting it into space would result in only a five per cent cost increase for waste disposal.
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