Dear Hotater and other illustrious group members,
Just to get a little fact check, here's a typical quote concerning one of the isotopes we have to deal with from high level nuclear waste:
"The rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is called its half-life, the time in which half the initial amount of atoms present takes to decay. The half-life of Plutonium-239, one particularly lethal component of nuclear waste, is 24,000 years. The hazardous life of a radioactive element (the length of time that must elapse before the material is considered safe) is at least 10 half-lives. Therefore, Plutonium-239 will remain hazardous for at least 240,000 years."
So even if you compute some ridiculously low number for storage cost per kg per year, the sum is still fantastically high, making nuclear more expensive per kwh than hiring poor people to run on treadmills to make electricity. Many very smart engineering types think it's not just difficult to store the waste securely and safely for that long, it's impossible.
So ignoring the nuclear proliferation problem of plutonium (an unavoidable byproduct) which make lovely bombs for terrorists (even dirty bombs just to distribute the stuff), and ignoring the fact that we have less than two decades worth of mineable uranium, and ignoring the decommisioning costs, which typically run 1x to 2x the cost of building the plant, and ignoring the typical cost overuns to get it built in the first place (1.5x to 3x original projected cost are typical), and ignoring the costs of a big whoops (the USSR lost more money on chernoble than all the money it ever saved on energy costs from all of its nuclear plants), it all boils down to the right tool for the right job.
Nukes are not that tool. It's just too expensive to deal with the waste for a quarter of billion (with a B) years. (strike that. It's Million with an M. EMMMMM. Million.)
Facts supplied to support all of that upon request.
Not a tree hugger, more like a spreadsheet guy. I do like trees though...
Not a flamer, not a troll, I want an answer just as bad as you guys do.
Finest regards,
troy