I think the concern about long term storage is somewhat overemphasized. In theory it should be possible to choose a fairly remote, geologically stable area and

I think the concern about long term storage is somewhat overemphasized. In theory it should be possible to choose a fairly remote, geologically stable area and make it the storage site. The problems are more political than technical. If it turns out that finding such a site isn't possible why don't we just grind the waste into a very fine powder and disperse it into the atmosphere? Coal ash is radioactive too and that's what we do with it. That was originally meant to be tongue in cheek but now I'm legitimately curious about how big an area you'd need to disperse a nuclear reactor's waste to get radiation levels no higher than you'd see from waste from a coal plant.