Out of curiosity, is there a single death that is directly attributable to nuclear waste from a reactor? (want to add that last clause because I do not think nukes should get blamed for someone improperly dumping medical equipment with cobalt or cesium isotope generators) For some reason I want to assume this happened at some point, maybe back in the 50s or 60s when we were really sloppy with nuclear waste but I can't seem to find any.
Re:Ultra Safe Nuclear
by selectodude on Thursday September 17, 2020 @08:53PM
(#24511823)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident
That's the one you're thinking of. Brazil, 1987.
Yeah, that was the one that made me add the medical waste clause in my question. There have been a couple of cases of poor handling of these devices, but as far as I can tell there do not seem to be any deaths from actual reactor waste.
We're stuck with the gaseous waste from fossil fuels for millennia. We're stuck with megatons of radioactive coal ashes forever. We're stuck with toxic chemical compounds necessary to build anything industrial at scale (including solar panels, batteries, windmills etc) forever too.
We use only tiny amount of the energy available, then have waste to deal with through the ages.
I'm in favor of nuclear, but wow are we ever terrible at innovating & trying to make a respectful, compelling go at it. Kerry shutting down the Integral Fast Reactor keeps coming back to haunt me as one of those strong indicators that America doesn't want to put itself up to the challenge of doing nuclear responsibly.