Re:How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment
by ljf on Monday October 17, 2016 @12:20PM
(#12726472)
The waste is not simply the spent nuclear fuel, but much of the machinery and systems around it, plus the discarded items used daily in the management of a plant (clothes etc).
This low level nuclear waste while 'only' dangerous for 100 to 500 years, is huge - vastly bigger than the 76000 metric tons of spent fuel:
http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/On-Si...
I don't have the tonnage of the low level waste to hand, but it is certainly much larger than the high level waste.
> Cost
This follows directly from unfounded fear from the next two reasons. If coal, that causes 7 000 000 deaths/year is appropriately and proportional regulated what would it cost ?
> Waste
What waste ? The small university library sized cube of waste that simply sits there doing nothing ? Where do you want that, in the air you breathe as waste from coal plants, or under a few meters of topsoil beneath a park somewhere.
> Security and safety
Zero lives were lost due to radiation poisoning after a level R9 earthquake and resulting tsunami killed 25000 people. All harm from Fukishima will come from people's panic and fear, fuelled by people like you that perpetuate nuclear FUD.