Re:Nuclear power looks to regain its footing 10 years after ...
by godelski on Thursday March 11, 2021 @04:10PM
(#26429035)
So the main part of my comment was really at the end, discussing what is fuel waste and what is auxiliary waste. This is often a difficult conversation with nuclear. Most people don't realize how little the waste is. They then don't realize that only 3% of that tiny amount of waste is the concerning high level radioactive waste. The honest reason we don't invest more into breeder reactors or re-enrichment plants is because the fuel is cheap and we don't create enough waste to worry about it. America had and used the same technology as France, but gave it up because it was too expensive. But this tiny amount of waste is generally why many think you can just bury the waste from the plant on site and move on. Place the high level lowest, medium, then light waste (which is 90% of the material and 1% of the radiation) on top (or we could make a container this way). We're not talking about much physical material from a single plant. We're talking a coke can per person per year (total nuclear, not a single plant) where 3% of that coke can is concerning. Nuclear is already extremely expensive, why increase the cost? Cost is the only real argument against nuclear.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor)
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix