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It does not. Nuclear waste is incredibly easy to safely store. Dig a deep hole, encase the waste in concrete, and bury it in a remote location (or in a location

It does not. Nuclear waste is incredibly easy to safely store. Dig a deep hole, encase the waste in concrete, and bury it in a remote location (or in a location already poisoned by nuclear weapons testing). There are digs in Finland and Yucca mountain that have enough capacity for generations. And if that's still not enough room >98% of waste can be reprocessed. France does this, and their total volume of nuclear waste in only a few cubic meters. The hypothetical scenarios in which nuclear waste can contaminate humans are borderline hyperbolic. Yes, if society collapses and all records of disposal sites are lost, and if some future civilization digs a mile deep in a location with no natural resources, and if they crack open a nuclear waste casked, and if they manage to do all this without knowledge of radiation then they will be irradiated.

e12e 7y ago
> There are digs in Finland and Yucca mountain that have enough capacity for generations. All we need is safe transport across large distances? It's not something we're very good at..
- manfredo 7y ago
  No, it's actually quite simple. Encase the waste in concrete, and ship it in a shipping container [1]. The concrete caskets have enough radiation shielding that it is not dangerous to stand near them. Burying the waste is really just a safeguard against potential long-term leakage. 1. These concrete caskets look like this: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/avery-w2/images/f1big.jpg http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/avery-w2/images...
  - yencabulator 7y ago
    Meanwhile, > An average of 1,390 containers have been lost at sea each year over the past three years, [...]
    - manfredo 7y ago
      To be more explicit, that is 1,390 containers per year out of all shipping containers shipped in a given year. That's a fairly low failure rate. And most waste doesn't need to be shipped overseas, just within continents. And besides, losing one (or even dozens) of these caskets at sea will not result in any noticeable increase in radiation. Multiple nuclear powered summaries have sunk with fuel still in their reactors. The point remains: nuclear waste is a non-issue, and it is extremely difficult to use it as an objection to nuclear energy in an intellectually honest manner.

e12e 7y ago

> There are digs in Finland and Yucca mountain that have enough capacity for generations. All we need is safe transport across large distances? It's not something we're very good at..

manfredo 7y ago
No, it's actually quite simple. Encase the waste in concrete, and ship it in a shipping container [1]. The concrete caskets have enough radiation shielding that it is not dangerous to stand near them. Burying the waste is really just a safeguard against potential long-term leakage. 1. These concrete caskets look like this: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/avery-w2/images/f1big.jpg http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/avery-w2/images...
- yencabulator 7y ago
  Meanwhile, > An average of 1,390 containers have been lost at sea each year over the past three years, [...]
  - manfredo 7y ago
    To be more explicit, that is 1,390 containers per year out of all shipping containers shipped in a given year. That's a fairly low failure rate. And most waste doesn't need to be shipped overseas, just within continents. And besides, losing one (or even dozens) of these caskets at sea will not result in any noticeable increase in radiation. Multiple nuclear powered summaries have sunk with fuel still in their reactors. The point remains: nuclear waste is a non-issue, and it is extremely difficult to use it as an objection to nuclear energy in an intellectually honest manner.