> Around the canisters there was no snow for about a 1 m (3.3 ft) radius, and the ground was steaming.

I recall a discussion on HN about securing radioactive waste sites so that future, possibly illiterate, generations would understand the danger and keep off.

Reading this I'm starting to doubt it's possible. I mean, no snow and steaming ground? Clearly suspicious. And this was the 21st century - these people must have been at least vaguely aware that nuclear power exists.

Thanks for that source. Maybe it's impractical for domestic use but it looks like they found uses for it in isolated locations for industrial purposes. Obviously it needs to be handled responsibly.

> needs to be handled responsibly.

Yes, for the next 10000 years. Plutonium's half life is annoyingly long.

RTGs don't use things with 10,000 year half lives, because they need to have meaningful amounts of decay happening to make heat.

238Pu is pretty common, because it produces just alpha decay and has a half life of 87 years. Within 1000 years, the main remaining activity is 234U with a half life of 240,000 years: still an alpha emitter but much, much less active.