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Comment by redwood | Hacker News Reader

The costs of nuclear power have never appropriately included the costs of disposal and handling of wastes which will become a permanent long-running tax on all of society for thousands of years.

It's similar to how the fossil fuels based externalities are also never included in the true cost.

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> The costs of nuclear power have never appropriately included the costs of disposal and handling of wastes

Of course, they do:

- Hinkley Point: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Hinkley-Point-C-contrac...

- France [French]: http://www.sfen.org/sites/default/files/public/atoms/files/n...

- Switzerland [French]: http://www.swissnuclear.ch/fr/couts-_content---1--1050.html

One big problem is the political resistance of deep underground nuclear waste disposal repository. One should realize that currently there are already thousands buckets of nuclear waste waiting for proper disposal, and without a deep underground repository, by doing nothing and leaving them in temporary storage, the risks for the environment is much more higher.

Unfortunately, I think it's stupid, but as long as the political resistance exists, it adds a huge cost to everything nuclear. Not to mention the environmental risks of continue producing more nuclear waste without a repository. As long as there's no solution, it only makes the existing problem even greater.

There is almost no "real" deep underground disposal repository currently in operation at large scale anywhere in the world (!!!), the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the U.S. is the most active one, but it's still more of an experimental site and cannot replace a real one. The ones in Finland and Sweden are small.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

Does the cost of wind and solar include the disposal of the panels? What about the cost of the rare mineral mining needed for the batteries that make solar and wind viable?

Hinkley Point C is supposed to. Which is a significant part of why the price per MWh is so high. Though I bet there'll be significant overrun come decommissioning.

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