What's the isotope composition of waste? What are the half-life periods for them? What are the possibilities of remaining radioisotopes to contaminate water/air/soil? I'm watching nuclear arguments quite a bit and don't see this level of details, which would allow making a decision. I've studied physics, yet I should admit I can't see the rational argument for nuclear industry - not yet, I only see declarations "it's safe".
How can those waste products be processed? How they can be stored? What are the supposed difficulties? Costs? What we have learned so far? All of this matter is nowhere to be seen in discussions about waste. Those 83,000 tons you mention - what's that? Can we use it somehow? Can we separate it into less problematic and, say, more energetic material? Can we put it into reactors? What have been tried?
I do think it's amusing that anti-nuclear folks are so worried about waste issues when the current solution for carbon fuel waste is "dump it in the environment and let the kids deal with it". With nuclear fuel the waste is solid and in small enough quantities that it can be managed.
If that would be trivially available, surely there would be some page which can be easily linked to with all answers to questions like these?
"2. The U.S. generates about 2,000 metric tons of used fuel each year.
This number may sound like a lot, but it’s actually quite small. In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards."
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...