"More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after five years of operation in a reactor.
The United States does not currently recycle spent nuclear fuel but foreign countries, such as France, do."
But even if like US does (i.e. does not re-use the waste), less than half of olympic pool is pretty small given the amount of energy produced. Ideally US would re-use the waste, and vitrified the final waste, and then producing even less volume of waste.
Then store it. Properly packed it is not "in deadly form for thousands of years with no solution in sight". Most countries store it deep for 50 years, and then it is safe to dispose on near-surface disposal at ground level, or in caverns below ground level.
Radioactivity is everywhere e.g. with radon (https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2018-12/documents/ra...) at 4 pCi/L 7 our 1000 people will develop lung cancer. Flight attendants get their fair share too. Our body is prepared to fix itself when attacked by radiation. https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
In any case coal is not going away and there is no single “answer” to the planet’s energy needs. A resilient grid requires a portfolio of energy sources including nuclear but it’s by no means the single answer as the title of the post suggests.
Uranium is “carbon free” but “radioactive waste full” and creates multigenerational environmental debt in the form of waste - nuke proponents usually hand wave and talk in generalities when it comes to this topic. Note the comment that “90% of materials in a nuclear reactor can be recycled” deftly sidestepping the 10% that will live on in deadly form for thousands of years with no solution in sight.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3568623/
Google “Biswas Washington University Enhanced Electrostatic Precipitation” for more
[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3817794
Google “Axelbaum Washington University staged pressurized oxy combustion” for more