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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

to where?

texas wont take it and no other state is willing to accept the political fallout for agreeing to it.

this is the biggest impediment facing the nuclear power proposal that shows up on HN every other month, and nobody talks about it. plants basically idle nuclear waste on-site. we have no comprehensive recycling or storage policy that isnt routinely usurped or derailed by serious environmental issues. we just run these plants until theyre 60 years over usable life and wait until they turn into a superfund site taxpayers have to clean up.

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Nuclear waste is tiny. It’s been stored onsite safely for half a century and never killed anyone. Why fix what ain’t broke.

Something can’t be used 60 years over usable life. Think about it.

What happened is that nuclear plants were given 40 year licenses in the US. After 40 years they applied for extensions. They were studied and it was found they had a lot more life in them. So extensions were granted. Why prematurely turn off a great carbon free generating asset that’s already been paid for. (That’d be peak German brain.)

The environmental issues relating to nuclear waste storage are entirely unserious. Buried nuclear waste poses no threat to people or the environment. The issues that derail the topic are based on anti-scientific FUD.

Yeah thats my biggest problem with people promoting nuclear as the end of all problems. The nuclear technology today is not good enough to be able to meet the world needs because of the nuclear waste it produces if they are able to get the tech to where the life of nuclear waste left over is less than 100 years than I think it becomes viable.

Now that the prices of solar, wind and batteries have dropped so much the need for nuclear is becoming less and less. Most of the world's population currently lives in the perfect area where charging batteries in the day and using at night can meet all the demand for electricity with solar, wind and batteries alone in summer or winter.

> because of the nuclear waste it produces

It produces very little long term nuclear waste whose overall impact is invisible compared to impact of other industries and landfills

We have the tech to make real waste dangerous for less than 300 years. With this tech about 90+% of existing waste can be reprocessed and reused multiple times. It's not a problem of tech, it's a problem of political will and somewhat of economical feasibility when buying refined uranium isn't that expensive

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