New on OnlySky: How to warn the future

New on OnlySky: How to warn the future

I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about the philosophical problem of how we can warn the distant future about long-lived hazards we’re creating today. In 2011, I saw a documentary called Into Eternity, about the Finnish government’s plan to dispose of high-level nuclear waste. They’re digging a deep subterranean vault, named Onkalo, where spent fuel rods and other radioactive material will be permanently interred. Fourteen years aft…

How can we get a warning to the distant future?

In a subterranean vault a quarter mile below the Satakunta region of Finland lies Onkalo, a repository for radioactive waste from the country's nuclear plants. More than 20 years after the start of construction, Onkalo reached a milestone in 2024 as the first test casks were interred on-site. It was a successful test of the burial procedure that they'll follow for the real thing:At the repository, used fuel will be placed in the bedrock, at a de…