The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recognized in the 1980s that it was accumulating nuclear waste, which could remain hazardous for at least 10,000 years.
- Discarding it into oceans or launching it into space was deemed too risky, leaving burial as the only feasible solution.
- The challenge: How do we warn future generations of the dangers buried underground? Enter nuclear semiotics, a field combining experts from various disciplines to create an enduring “language” that can effectively communicate danger for millennia.
Nuclear semiotics explores ways to communicate danger to future societies thousands of years into the future. The difficulty lies in the fact that language evolves.
- Even the oldest living languages are only a few thousand years old. Symbols like skulls and crossbones are universally understood today but might be meaningless in the distant future. Researchers also face the challenge of designing warnings that can survive the test of time, aiming to create monuments or markers that will outlast civilizations.
The Sandia Report: In 1993, Sandia National Laboratories created a report focused on preventing intruders from entering the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the nation’s only deep geologic long-lived radioactive waste repository, located 26 miles southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
In it, they originally suggested putting giant granite spikes to “intimidate” and creating a “black hole” made from concrete.
- Ultimately, Sandia settled on erecting 32 25-foot granite pillars surrounded by a wall, with a granite room at the center containing warnings in multiple languages and leaving room for others to be added over the decades.
- They suggested messages would include phrases like: “This is not a place of honor.” “The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.” “The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically.” Sandia is still formalizing these plans and will submit them to the U.S. government in 2028.
Warnings or silence?
Ideas for warning future generations range from monumental structures to outlandish proposals, such as breeding radiation-sensitive animals or establishing an “atomic priesthood” to pass on cautionary tales.
- While WIPP has set the standard for nuclear waste disposal, the best method for alerting future generations remains undecided.
- Some argue that perhaps no message is necessary at all, hoping future societies will recognize the dangers themselves.
- The field of nuclear semiotics continues to wrestle with this existential question.