mapj1 

So the fifty tonne blocks of concrete really are temporary?

www.wired.co.uk/.../inside-sellafield-nuclear-waste-decommissioning

 mapj1 

So the fifty tonne blocks of concrete really are temporary?

www.wired.co.uk/.../inside-sellafield-nuclear-waste-decommissioning

Most of the stuff that as been put in concrete is pretty stable, and you could sit on it and eat your lunch pretty safely - it is also handy shape for stacking and if need be moving about. To visualise,  50T of concrete is a small shipping container sized block - most new ones will be more sensible shapes and with lifting points etc cast in.

There is a problem with waste from very early on, when the need to know approach to records was rather over done, and there are some things that should be known and are not.This has to be treated as if all of it is the most dangerous - because some of it really is.  The material that is still really hot cannot yet be concreted in, and has to sit in ponds while it loses most of its fizz. Even so, a few metres of water is an adequate shield, it just needs to be guaranteed under all conditions - so that needs constant management..

The problem is the small fraction of the waste that remains dangerous for some centuries - the stuff that decays really fast produces a dangerous rate of radiation in a short time, but we can afford to keep it on the surface and wait for it to decay, and at the other extreme anything decaying over thousands or even millions of years will be so slow we can live with the very low radiation rate. But materials of half life comparable to a human lifespan, say half  century to a few centuries are awkward, as we need stable storage for those for perhaps some thousands  of years. Given how little we know about the era of the Eqyption pyramids, even though they predate Stonehenge by nearly a thousand years, how to encase and label things for that sort of duration, and be sure future folk will understand the significance and not try and dig it up,  is a problem. 

Mike.

It would certainly be an enhanced version of "the curse of the Pharaoh's"!