A: We can bury all of it, burn most of it as fuel and bury the rest, or send it into space. Option two is our personal favorite. Long-lived high-level nuclear waste is solid ceramic or metal, not green ooze. With proper care, it can be safely burying where it will stay out of our ecosystems. Go to the waste page for the whole story.
Q: What's a meltdown?
A: A melt-down occurs when a reactor heats up out so much that the fuel melts. This would happen in accident conditions, when the coolant has stopped flowing. The Three Mile Island accident was a partial melt-down, resulting in a economic loss to the utility company. When fuel melts, the core will shut itself down and will not melt through the earth to China.
Q: Do radioactive things glow?
A: In general, no. The green ooze stereotype is a fabrication of comics. Most radioation is impossible to detect without special equipment. However, when extremely radioactive material is placed underwater (such as in a nuclear reactor), it makes a blue glow. This is called Cherenkov radiation. It is an optical shockwave, like a sonic-boom, that occurs when charged particles (alpha particles, beta particles, fission products) are emitted faster than the speed of light in a medium. Since light travels through water slower than it does in a vacuum, this does not violate relativity. [Example]
Q: How long does nuclear fuel stay in a reactor?
A: A typical reactor cycle is 12-24 months, after which typically a third of the fuel is replaced with new fuel. Thus, the nuclear fuel stays in the reactor for between 3 and 5 years before it is discharged.
