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It's not that simple. Check out the documentary "Into Eternity" on the impracticability and difficulty of "burying" nuclear waste which remains deadly for 250,

• fulafel 11y ago
  The burying part is just (materials|nuclear|mining) engineering and it's practical. The forecasting and risk modelling over > 100k years is the uncertain part, even in deep bedrock in very seismically stable areas. IIRC the documentary makes a point about how difficult it is to signal to post apocalyptic stone age generations 100k years in the future not to go there. Though many people think the used fuel will get dug up before then to be reprocessed into fuel...
• erkkie 11y ago
  That's because you're burying usable fuel, breeder reactors eliminate the waste problem for all practical purposes, the reason they're not being built has been entirely political. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Waste_reduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Waste_reductio...
  • jld89 11y ago
    Look at the Breeder reactor controversy section of the article you linked. The reasons aren't entirely political. But rather financial. Capitalism is the culprit.
    • erkkie 11y ago
      Most of the financial reasons are political. NIMBYism makes nuclear in general very expensive, even though coal blatantly kills more than even existing nuclear tech, not to mention potential next gen reactors. In case of breeders, the 2nd argument that makes them expensive is that they're an "proliferation risk".
• agumonkey 11y ago
  That documentary was the deepest SF thing I ever watched.