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1. Forever. Uranium is a heavy metal, it's toxic regardless of it's radioactivity. 2. The US already has one [1]. Congress stopped it's opening, but it's sitti

1. Forever. Uranium is a heavy metal, it's toxic regardless of it's radioactivity. 2. The US already has one [1]. Congress stopped it's opening, but it's sitting there built ready to be used. Europe also is constructing a disposal site [2] 3. Like I wrote in my comment, bury it in an area with no groundwater. 4. France does recycle it's nuclear waste. 5. We do, as I pointed out above. And for the second time, this waste is fuel for some of the reactors currently being built. The reality is that nuclear waste will have minimal if any impact on the rate of uranium contamination. Naturally occurring uranium is responsible for vastly more contamination than nuclear waste. Streams and rivers flowing down from mountains pick up uranium in the sediment and bring it downstream: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uranium-contaminates-drinking-water-in-us-west/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uranium-contaminates-drinking-w... 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste... 2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_re...

merb 6y ago
both your links actually say the following: 1. yucca mountain can not sustain a million years due to strong seismic activity 2. onkalo stores the waste in iron that is probably corrosion prone well no matter the waste is a problem and humans can't handle it, because money is the problem. as long as somebody can make it cheaper the cheapest option is always used which probably can harm people. nuclear technology was NEVER the problem, people were. even the safest plan is still unsafe, because people and money. fukushima, failed because of money and people. tschernobyl failed because of money and people. and money will be even a bigger issue when there are cheaper technologies. also no nuclear plant is emission free, even most construction emissions are already pretty high and lots of studies talk so nicely about that, but undervalue most of that by a high margin.
- manfredo 6y ago
  > 1. yucca mountain can not sustain a million years due to strong seismic activity Where does it say this? Here's the paragraph under earthquakes: > DOE has stated that seismic and tectonic effects on the natural systems at Yucca Mountain will not significantly affect repository performance. Yucca Mountain lies in a region of ongoing tectonic deformation, but the deformation rates are too slow to significantly affect the mountain during the 10,000-year regulatory compliance period. Rises in the water table caused by seismic activity would be, at most, a few tens of meters and would not reach the repository. The fractured and faulted volcanic tuff that Yucca Mountain comprises reflects the occurrence of many earthquake-faulting and strong ground motion events during the last several million years, and the hydrological characteristics of the rock would not be changed significantly by seismic events that may occur in the next 10,000 years. The engineered barrier system components will reportedly provide substantial protection of the waste from seepage water, even under severe seismic loading. It sure doesn't seem to conform to what you're saying. Later in the article there is one sentence claiming it's unsafe: > Nevada National Security Site officials in April 2019 assured the public that the Device Assembly Facility on the Nevada security site was safe from earthquake threats. In contrast, Nevada officials claimed seismic activity in the region made it unsafe for the storage of nuclear waste. But this is a one-off statement that doesn't seem to be backed by any sort of studies. > onkalo stores the waste in iron that is probably corrosion prone And when those containers corrode, how does the waste escape the bedrock that's surrounding it? Nuclear power represents the only way for countries to decarbonize their energy sector. Solar and wind offer cheap bandaids, throw up a few solar panels and you can reduce daytime use of electricity. But they do not offer a real path to decarbonization without spectacular breakthroughs in energy storage. By comparison, France has successfully produced more than 2/3rds of their electricity with nuclear power since the 1980s.
  - atlasunshrugged 6y ago
    As a Nevadan who is semi-involved in local politics, I can also tell you that Yucca is so contentious and such a career killer for politicians that I have no doubt that any Nevada state or local agencies would be under tremendous pressure to find any and all reasons to make Yucca an unacceptable place to store the used material.
    - manfredo 6y ago
      Is it really? Yucca mountain is basically right next to the site where the military conducted over a hundred nuclear weapons above ground, and a few hundred more below ground. Putting nuclear waste in an area that's already contaminated essential presents no change.
      - atlasunshrugged 6y ago
        Yes, and that history is partly why people in Nevada dislike the idea of more nuclear waste there. Here's an article from a local paper about it https://lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/23/nevada-is-winning-the-war-but-yucca-mountain-is-no/ https://lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/23/nevada-is-winning-t...
noja 6y ago
> Forever How can anything with a cost that lasts forever be cheaper?
- philipkglass 6y ago
  Most toxic elements last forever. That includes the toxic elements in coal ash. Both coal ash and spent nuclear fuel need indefinite safe storage. It can be cheaper to store spent nuclear fuel because it's so much more compact than fossil fuel waste. Remember that the status quo already has a large forever-waste cost of its own. Nuclear waste is a trade off vs. other kinds of waste, and it is cheaper than the status quo.
  - arawde 6y ago
    Wanted to leap in here to mention tailings from minings projects. The gold that goes into a circuitboard comes from a mine which likely has a tailiings facility and associated dam, which is essentially an open pit filled with water into which tailings are dumped. They're incredibly toxic materials. We had an engineer go out to the field and take a sample of some tailings, and after 6 months of being left in a lab, the materials had eaten through the stainless steel tube containing the sample. It's not just power generation that has a negative externality in the form of waste. ALL resource extraction has associated waste.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Not to mention, industrial chemical processes in general. Toxic waste requiring indefinite safe storage is the default state. Spent nuclear fuel is actually nice here in a way, because in some cases, it's a self-solving problem (dangerous stuff decaying into less dangerous stuff over time).
- hcurtiss 6y ago
  Because most reasonable people discount future costs, and those sufficiently distant to zero.
- manfredo 6y ago
Reason077 6y ago
> "2. The US already has one [1]. Congress stopped it's opening, but it's sitting there built ready to be used. Europe also is constructing a disposal site [2]" France is also developing a deep geological storage facility for nuclear waste, known as "Cigéo": https://www.andra.fr/cigeo https://www.andra.fr/cigeo
- selectodude 6y ago
  As is Finland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

merb 6y ago

both your links actually say the following: 1. yucca mountain can not sustain a million years due to strong seismic activity 2. onkalo stores the waste in iron that is probably corrosion prone well no matter the waste is a problem and humans can't handle it, because money is the problem. as long as somebody can make it cheaper the cheapest option is always used which probably can harm people. nuclear technology was NEVER the problem, people were. even the safest plan is still unsafe, because people and money. fukushima, failed because of money and people. tschernobyl failed because of money and people. and money will be even a bigger issue when there are cheaper technologies. also no nuclear plant is emission free, even most construction emissions are already pretty high and lots of studies talk so nicely about that, but undervalue most of that by a high margin.

manfredo 6y ago
> 1. yucca mountain can not sustain a million years due to strong seismic activity Where does it say this? Here's the paragraph under earthquakes: > DOE has stated that seismic and tectonic effects on the natural systems at Yucca Mountain will not significantly affect repository performance. Yucca Mountain lies in a region of ongoing tectonic deformation, but the deformation rates are too slow to significantly affect the mountain during the 10,000-year regulatory compliance period. Rises in the water table caused by seismic activity would be, at most, a few tens of meters and would not reach the repository. The fractured and faulted volcanic tuff that Yucca Mountain comprises reflects the occurrence of many earthquake-faulting and strong ground motion events during the last several million years, and the hydrological characteristics of the rock would not be changed significantly by seismic events that may occur in the next 10,000 years. The engineered barrier system components will reportedly provide substantial protection of the waste from seepage water, even under severe seismic loading. It sure doesn't seem to conform to what you're saying. Later in the article there is one sentence claiming it's unsafe: > Nevada National Security Site officials in April 2019 assured the public that the Device Assembly Facility on the Nevada security site was safe from earthquake threats. In contrast, Nevada officials claimed seismic activity in the region made it unsafe for the storage of nuclear waste. But this is a one-off statement that doesn't seem to be backed by any sort of studies. > onkalo stores the waste in iron that is probably corrosion prone And when those containers corrode, how does the waste escape the bedrock that's surrounding it? Nuclear power represents the only way for countries to decarbonize their energy sector. Solar and wind offer cheap bandaids, throw up a few solar panels and you can reduce daytime use of electricity. But they do not offer a real path to decarbonization without spectacular breakthroughs in energy storage. By comparison, France has successfully produced more than 2/3rds of their electricity with nuclear power since the 1980s.
- atlasunshrugged 6y ago
  As a Nevadan who is semi-involved in local politics, I can also tell you that Yucca is so contentious and such a career killer for politicians that I have no doubt that any Nevada state or local agencies would be under tremendous pressure to find any and all reasons to make Yucca an unacceptable place to store the used material.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    Is it really? Yucca mountain is basically right next to the site where the military conducted over a hundred nuclear weapons above ground, and a few hundred more below ground. Putting nuclear waste in an area that's already contaminated essential presents no change.
    - atlasunshrugged 6y ago
      Yes, and that history is partly why people in Nevada dislike the idea of more nuclear waste there. Here's an article from a local paper about it https://lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/23/nevada-is-winning-the-war-but-yucca-mountain-is-no/ https://lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/23/nevada-is-winning-t...

noja 6y ago

> Forever How can anything with a cost that lasts forever be cheaper?

philipkglass 6y ago
Most toxic elements last forever. That includes the toxic elements in coal ash. Both coal ash and spent nuclear fuel need indefinite safe storage. It can be cheaper to store spent nuclear fuel because it's so much more compact than fossil fuel waste. Remember that the status quo already has a large forever-waste cost of its own. Nuclear waste is a trade off vs. other kinds of waste, and it is cheaper than the status quo.
- arawde 6y ago
  Wanted to leap in here to mention tailings from minings projects. The gold that goes into a circuitboard comes from a mine which likely has a tailiings facility and associated dam, which is essentially an open pit filled with water into which tailings are dumped. They're incredibly toxic materials. We had an engineer go out to the field and take a sample of some tailings, and after 6 months of being left in a lab, the materials had eaten through the stainless steel tube containing the sample. It's not just power generation that has a negative externality in the form of waste. ALL resource extraction has associated waste.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Not to mention, industrial chemical processes in general. Toxic waste requiring indefinite safe storage is the default state. Spent nuclear fuel is actually nice here in a way, because in some cases, it's a self-solving problem (dangerous stuff decaying into less dangerous stuff over time).
hcurtiss 6y ago
Because most reasonable people discount future costs, and those sufficiently distant to zero.
manfredo 6y ago

Reason077 6y ago

> "2. The US already has one [1]. Congress stopped it's opening, but it's sitting there built ready to be used. Europe also is constructing a disposal site [2]" France is also developing a deep geological storage facility for nuclear waste, known as "Cigéo": https://www.andra.fr/cigeo https://www.andra.fr/cigeo

selectodude 6y ago
As is Finland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...