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I don't think that actually meaningfully helps all that much. Storing it for 2 years, 30 years, or 500 years, are nearly the same problem from a political persp
by delecti 4y ago
I don't think that actually meaningfully helps all that much. Storing it for 2 years, 30 years, or 500 years, are nearly the same problem from a political perspective. "Where to keep it" is really the question "where to put it", and then you leave it there because moving it is dealing with the problem "where to put it" all over again.
- 8note 4y agoToday already gives an answer -- just keep it where it is. It grows extraordinarily slowly, so neither the problem not the solution changes on human timescales
- godelski 4y agoOh, I got your answers. > "Where to keep it" On site. That's what we're doing and that's what works really well. Honestly, it is only the high level stuff that will outlive the powerplant. I know this might not be the answer you want to hear, but the truth is that we probably won't do any significant huge waste repositories (like Yucca Mountain. Though we do have smaller ones) until the waste reaches a significant volume and it actually becomes a problem. Human nature and the inability to do long term planning or something. The good news is that even if we increased our nuclear output, globally, by say 10x or something, we'd still have many decades to resolve that problem because so little waste is actually produced that it can be stored on site relatively easily. Maybe we put things off because in the future we're usually more knowledgeable and have better technology so things are cheaper. Maybe we're just dumb. Either way, it doesn't seem like a huge worry.