Probably not, if using casks and storing on site which costs nearly nothing?

Reactors don’t generate a lot of waste by volume, and it gets less of a problem over time by it’s very nature.

The required storage time for nuclear waste in Germany is 1 million years. Storing anything safely for one million years in one of the most densly populated continents is a huge challenge and certainly not as easy as "just dump it somewhere in the desert".

Also: uranium is a finite resource. After it will have run out, it humanity will have to maintain and check these storage sites for that amount of time. Who is expected to pay this? People who don't profit from the power anymore? In my eyes the only solution is either transmutation into less harmful wastes (very costly) or paying the future storage cost for that timeframe upfront (very, very costly).

Which points out the absurd safety requirements and paperwork. That regulation (if true, I haven’t seen it) is just trying to make it impossible to do anything, not actually protecting anyone in any real way.

1) In far less than a million years, the contents of the cask will be well below background radiation levels. Literally less dangerous from radiation than sitting at home.

2) It’s been less than 100 years since Germany had a raving lunatic trying to conquer the world at the helm, and less than 50 since they were split in half between two world superpowers. It’s ridiculous hubris to think anyone could predict or plan more than 100 years in advance with any certainty, let alone a million. And by setting a million year milestone, they’re saying ‘don’t even try to make something that could work now’

3) more people will die from the economic fallout of what the gov’t is doing (and the burning of Coal, wars, etc) than would die from any halfway likely outcome of a nuclear disaster here. They could have multiple Fukushima’s and still be better off.

4) as a species, anything recognizably human has been around AT MOST a single digit multiple of that number. Recorded history and civilization is a tiny fraction of that number. It’s a fun mental game, not a pragmatic limit or has any real meaning in this context.

Also, while Uranium is finite (as is everything else), we’ve got plenty to last the foreseeable future even without any fancy technology advancements. And there is plenty of avenues for that.

It’s the picture of ‘the now is unacceptable, the future is impossible.’

1) In far less than a million years, the contents of the cask will be well below background radiation levels. Literally less dangerous from radiation than sitting at home.

heck even a time scale of 10.000 is beyoned the current civilized world, do you even realize that? how stupid to talk even about millions, if the modern world didn't even exists for a few HUNDRED of years.

and it's stupid to dump shit into the earth without knowing what will happen at point x.

If we never did anything until we fully understood all the ramifications forever, we’d literally have never existed. I’m not saying ‘don’t figure out what will happen next’. That’s dumb.

I’m saying ‘don’t set some impossible to achieve goal and fall into analysis paralysis while doing things with far worse known outcomes right now’. Because that is also dumb.

We know putting it in giant steel casks is pretty much foolproof, and will ensure no leaks for at least 40+ years. They’re literally bulletproof. It’s what every major reactor has been doing for 40+ years. Works surprisingly well.

> "It’s been less than 100 years since Germany had a raving lunatic trying to conquer the world at the helm, and less than 50 since they were split in half between two world superpowers."

It is an absolute mystery why this does not inspire utmost confidence in the future of safe nuke waste storage...

Chernobyl went from glowing pile of smoldering glass to ‘just don’t dig it all up and play in it, idiots’. In half the time.

And yeah, Putin did send folks who did dig parts of it up - and play in it. They are idiots. They might die from it. However, conservatively, at least 10,000-100,000x the number of people already have, or will shortly be dead from more classical methods - artillery, gunfire, incendiaries, etc. Horrible ways to go, all. Near as I can tell, the idiots doing the digging are also likely to be the only ones seriously impacted by it, unlike the others.

Nuclear waste isn’t super healthy or anything, but it’s not even on the radar of ‘nasty shit a maniacal dictator will use to kill people’. Except maybe a bond-type spy ironically.

You know the last Hitler literally had his folks invent ICBMs and setup mass death camps, right?

Even if all the nuclear waste in the world right now went back in time and got spilled in the worst places possible, the mess and ensuing death would be way less than they made.

It is not about "using to kill people". It is about sane administration.

Which matters…. Mostly if not having it will kill people, no?

If it’s entombed in glass or in giant steel casks requiring no further work to keep safe, then the only real danger would be them pulling it out and using it for evil. Which, they’ll already have plenty of evil things at their disposal, and things far easier to use and more scalable for evil too. So not likely to be all that interesting.

How is the storage costing over time? I thought you'd dig an expensive dump and that was it.

You generally need monitoring at a minimum, and maintenance to shore up degradation of any unstable containment materials (i.e. those used to prevent water leeching, etc).

Plus security. You need to keep people out- there's always going to be some idiot who wants to get too close or use it for Evil.

That said, I imagine the costs are far less than the alternatives. Rebuilding the grid to satisfy continental-wide wind will produce a lot of CO2.