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Re:U.S. Nuclear Comeback Stalls as Two Reactors Are Abandoned by mikeash on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @12:50PM (#14902741)
There's lots of highly dangerous non-nuclear waste which stays dangerous forever, and we don't worry about this.

The best answer to those questions is to do our best to ensure that civilization doesn't collapse in the first place.

Re:U.S. Nuclear Comeback Stalls as Two Reactors Are Abandoned by beat on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @01:10PM (#14902947)
I don't wear a seat belt, because I do my best not to get into accidents.
Re:U.S. Nuclear Comeback Stalls as Two Reactors Are Abandoned by mikeash on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @01:21PM (#14903065)
What's the plan for warning future civilizations away from mercury, arsenic, and other long-lived toxic waste? The current approach for those things is to dump it in a suitable landfill or similar, and let it be. Nobody seems worried about what happens when some future civilization discovers it thousands of years hence.
Re:U.S. Nuclear Comeback Stalls as Two Reactors Are Abandoned by beat on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @01:26PM (#14903132)
Maybe we should be worried.
Re:U.S. Nuclear Comeback Stalls as Two Reactors Are Abandoned by mikeash on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @03:41PM (#14904563)
Maybe. But I find it really weird that people constantly wring their hands over a few thousand tons of nuclear waste because it remains dangerous for ten thousand years, yet pay almost no attention to millions of tons of chemical waste that remains dangerous until the end of time.

I realize people can't worry about every single thing, and worrying about one thing doesn't mean other things aren't a problem. But at the same time, I see lots of people say that nuclear is worse than fossil fuels because of the waste problem, which makes no sense to me at all.

Re:U.S. Nuclear Comeback Stalls as Two Reactors Are Abandoned by wbl on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @03:18PM (#14904333)
They already have places full of mercury naturally: cinnabar mines.