It’s worth noting that he also fired many of the staff who know how to ensure that they’re actually safe, as well as the staff who would approve financing.
It’s worth noting that he also fired many of the staff who know how to ensure that they’re actually safe, as well as the staff who would approve financing.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities
The amount of waste produced by the nuclear power industry is small relative to other industrial activities. 97% of the waste produced is classified as low- or intermediate-level waste (LLW or ILW). Such waste has been widely disposed of in near-surface repositories for many years. In France, where fuel is reprocessed, just 0.2% of all radioactive waste by volume is classified as high-level waste (HLW).a
Many industries produce hazardous and toxic waste. All toxic waste needs to be dealt with safely, not just radioactive waste.
The radioactivity of nuclear waste naturally decays, and has a finite radiotoxic lifetime. Within a period of 1,000-10,000 years, the radioactivity of HLW decays to that of the originally mined ore. Its hazard then depends on how concentrated it is. By comparison, other industrial wastes (e.g. heavy metals, such as cadmium and mercury) remain hazardous indefinitely.
Most nuclear waste produced is hazardous, due to its radioactivity, for only a few tens of years and is routinely disposed of in near-surface disposal facilities (see above). Only a small volume of nuclear waste (~3% of the total) is long-lived and highly radioactive and requires isolation from the environment for many thousands of years.
International conventions define what is hazardous in terms of radiation dose, and national regulations limit allowable doses accordingly. Well-developed industry technology ensures that these regulations are met so that any hazardous waste is handled in a way it poses no risk to human health or the environment. Waste is converted into a stable form that is suitable for disposal. In the case of HLW, a multi-barrier approach, combining containment and geological disposal, ensures isolation of the waste from people and the environment for thousands of years.
High Level Waste makes up .2% of all waste generated by nuclear facilities, Plutonium being a minority of that. Geostorage was implimented because of military applications of plutonium that expired and had to be stored. Over a third of all nuclear waste in the US is military waste. But because Plutonium is part of high level waste all HLW is treated as if it’s plutonium because of the overzealous safety standards. You can not produce plutonium from uranium in a fissile reaction. That’s not how fission works. The actual fissile products from spent fuel decay below background radiation in under 100 years.
About 400,000 tonnes of used fuel has been discharged from reactors worldwide, with about one-third having been reprocessed.
The only misinformation I’m seeing in this conversation is you not understanding what nuclear waste actually is, how much is actually produced, and how long it persists. A process we are getting better and better at reducing the amount of waste every decade inspite of people like you trying to kill nuclear for no other reason than you buy into all of big oil’s lies and misinformation about it.