Willy Wonka and the Radiation Factory
The Habog Facility in the Netherlands is a massive warehouse for decaying nuclear waste, cheerily painted orange and inscribed with pastel-colored physics formulas by Einstein and Planck. According to Dutch law, all nuclear waste must be securely stored for 100 years, so the Habog facility will be repainted a lighter, less radioactive color every twenty years to symbolize the slowly decaying radiation. That's a few years short of U235's 703,800,000 half-life, but even Dutch bureaucracies aren't so optimistic as to plan the scope of their public art projects so far in advance.
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They should add a big countdown timer:
Only 703,799,999 years 364 days and 23 hours to go!
Who gets to paint it?
Only the dutch, I swear. Who hotboxed the conference room at this brainstorming session?
"That's a few years short of U235's 703,800,000 half-life, but even Dutch bureaucracies aren't so optimistic as to plan the scope of their public art projects so far in advance."
Actually, they have planned it out. The plan is to store the waste in this facility for 50-100 years and then move the high-level waste to an underground storage facility for long-term disposal.
Anyway, according to Wikipedia,
"Storing high level nuclear waste above ground for a century or so is considered appropriate by many scientists. This allows for the material to be more easily observed and any problems detected and managed, while the decay over this time period significantly reduces the level of radioactivity and the associated harmful effects to the container material. It is also considered likely that over the next century newer materials will be developed which will not break down as quickly when exposed to a high neutron flux thus increasing the longevity of the container once it is permanently buried."
Orange, how appropriate. Looks like uranium-glazed Fiestaware.