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Comment by grepfru_it | Hacker News Reader

Nuclear replaces one problem with another (waste). Renewables are the only way

Nuclear "waste" is barely even waste, it's still full of a bunch of energy that could be put to use if we improved the reactors. It's just unusable in what we have now.

It's also miniscule.

The US to date has primarily approached the problem of civilian nuclear waste by planning for and building a single facility, then cancelling the entire thing before any waste was ever moved there. There are a couple pilot plants, those are exactly what they sound like.

The US will never solve the problem of nuclear waste.

Maybe 20 years ago. Something tells me if the nuke guys could get their shit together and grab the ear of the current admin, they could get their hole in the desert that they have always wanted. But instead they are more likely to play Nobody's Favorite as Big Oil continues to Big Oil and solar/wind continue to reap decades of subsidies.

Encase it in a big block of concrete. Dump it in the ocean. There, solved it. I know it sounds horrid because of the public perception issue, but it's really not a bad solution. Yes, I mean it. Be aghast!

Dropping nuclear waste in the Marianas trench is not a bad idea.

This is not true for any of the nuclear waste generated in the US. Your talking about a fantasy world, not the current state.

> It's just unusable in what we have now.

I really hate all of the defense of nuclear based on hypotheticals that realistically will never become reality by conveniently ignoring externalities like capitalism.

Our regulatory and governance environment is so unstable and can change significantly every 4 years. Companies play the long game and delay or resist change to outlast administrations.

This prevents any meaningful advance of the technology preventing it from becoming a viable solution.

Nuclear waste is not a substantial problem, technically. It's a NIMBY problem. It's just tradeoffs. Nuke is a wonderful power source that works today. That's better than tech that will work once we have 30 years of investment into storage and transmission networks. We do need renewables. We also need something to fill the gap in the meantime that isn't spewing carbon into an ecosystem that is already past a tipping point.

Nuclear waste is in no way comparable to the environmental damage incurred from the use of hydrocarbons in our economy.

this is nothing more than FUD. Waste can be repurposed, sometimes decades after the fact, as reactor technology improves. In fact, the latest reactors in service elsewhere in the world can recycle a portion of the waste as fuel, further minimizing it.

We also know its dangers and how to store it properly, and compared to the waste that simply oil and gas extraction creates, its significantly less (up to 90% less), and its exceedingly predictable.

Even if we know how to store it properly, that doesn't mean that we will store it properly. I don't see any reason why we should trust the MAGA regime (and the Democrats aren't much better) to handle it properly or to make things right if there is an accident.

Nuclear fission replaces one problem with another (waste).

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