3 ms·
Lack of storage in the US is a purely political issue, not a technical one. Other countries are either successfully building such storage (Finland) or invest in
by fuoqi 6y ago
Lack of storage in the US is a purely political issue, not a technical one. Other countries are either successfully building such storage (Finland) or invest into fuel recycling and breeder technologies (France and Russia), which significantly reduce amount of waste which has to be stored and its long-term danger.
- rich_sasha 6y agoYes, hence the “mostly”. For a variety of blocking reasons though, this is an unresolved (if not unresolvable) problem.
- vimy 6y agoI don’t think we even need to store it. Nuclear waste has been sitting in regular storage for over 50 years now, seems to be perfectly safe. We should just keep doing what we’re doing. Why do we even need to bother putting it underground except for some unlikely what if scenarios 1000 years in the future.
- tbihl 6y agoMostly corrosion. The half lives involved, combined with the great expense of safely adjusting these things after they're put to rest, means that you would really like something really dry and remote. Fear of contaminating ground water is incredibly sensible to me, at least. It'd be a hell of a thing to get Yucca Mountain un-cancelled...
- mlyle 6y ago1. Expecting current political and economic structures etc to remain for thousands of years is silly, so we do need a more permanent solution to a long-term problem. 2. Keeping lots of nuclear waste in spent fuel pools just increases the risk picture unnecessarily.