this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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As it stands. Nuclear (fission) is the cleanest and safest form of energy available at the moment. When we get to fusion it’ll get even cheaper without even the miniscule amount of (stored)waste fission produces.
It is not the "cleanest" it is the most "climate friendly". Commitment to nuclear waste is a thousand year long process of monitoring and processing waste products and our record on a short term commitment of like 50 years to climate change is not a good record. Its not clean and in the long term not likely cheap.
However its certainly not as destructive to the world as gas is right now so relieving climate change before some other catastrophic milestone occurs is probably a good idea. Folks saying "its too late" misunderstand climate change; there's always another level bad we can hit and nuclear provides stable, reliable power.
It really isn't a thousand year long process though. The containers they have for them are very long lasting. Bury it in a large containment facility deep in the mountains (Norway is making a large underground system specifically for this iirc) and just seal it up. Maintenance will be minimal.
Aren't you able to recycle spent fuel for additional fuel and a lower amount of waste?
Yes, we could reduces the nuclear waste by recycling it and the technology for that exists since nearly the beginning of nuclear energy.
But the political pressure and the fearmongering of nuclear, paid by oil money, prevented the necessary longterm investmenst in that area.
To put the amont of nuclear waste in perspective.
Nuclear waste is merely a dent in comparsion to alle the problematic waste we create. At least are able to contain it, while we are not able to contain a lot of the other stuff.
Adding a random comparsion for scale. The skyscraper Burj Khalifa in Dubai weights 500 000 tonnes.