I m in environmental engineering and some of the ideas for nuclear waste containment are fascinating. There s also hostile architecture designing buildings that inspire fear in the viewer so they re left alone. Experts are trying to come up with the best way to warn earth s future inhabitants whether 10 000 or 100 000 years from now what precisely lies under their feet.
10 the radioactive lifetime of nuclear waste makes it an entirely unique problem for humans. 9 for comparison the species homo sapiens is on the order of 100 000 years old. Some nuclear waste repositories including onkalo in finland however are being designed to keep the nuclear waste isolated for an astonishing 100 000 years.
The waste isolation pilot plant the intermediate level repository dug into the salt beds of new mexico is intended to receive 800 000 55 gallon soft steel drums of military origin trans uranium waste holding among other substances the radioactive shavings from u s. Or to decide there shouldn t. With nuclear waste accumulating at the surface society needs a repository in the next century or so but we have much more time than that to decide on the messages.
A 1993 report from sandia national laboratories recommended that any such message should. Nuclear semiotics is an interdisciplinary field of research first done by the human interference task force in 1981. Long time nuclear waste warning messages are intended to deter human intrusion at nuclear waste repositories in the far future within or above the order of magnitude of 10 000 years.
