To throw away all our nuclear wastes to a volcano looks a good and organized solution to get rid of 26.000 tonnes of uranium fuel that are saved around all the world. But there is an indispensable condition that a volcano must have for we could let there all the wastes and this condition is the hot. The lava wouldn’t have only to melt the bars of fuel, in addition it would have to neutralize the uranium radioactivity and unfortunately the volcanos aren’t enough hot.
The hottest lava of a volcano can raise until 1316 ºC. It is not an enough temperature to melt the uranium, the uranium that is usually used in most nuclear plants which melting point is about 2865 ºC. Higher temperatures are needed to break up the uranium atomic nucleus and for its radioactivity will be null. A thermonuclear reaction would take place as one of an atomic bomb, which is not an excellent idea to get rid of nuclear wastes.
In addition, a volcano wouldn’t even
swallow the materials. The liquid lava in a volcano tends to emerge, so the
bars wouldn’t sunk very much. Instead of this, the wastes would stay on the
highest part of the solidified lava of the volcano, at least until the magma
pressure would be so powerful that the volcano would erupt, and that would be a
huge problem.
The lava of a volcano that has been used to
save radioactive wastes would be extremely radioactive. At the end, it would
solidify and the mountains would be covered by nuclear materials during
decades. The ash and the gas in an eruption, can lift until 10 km and then go round
around the terrestre globe several times, and we would have a very serious
dilemma.
