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Xjsar t1_is7oecm wrote

Reply to comment by CloudiusWhite in Ethics of Nuclear Energy in Times of Climate Change: Escaping the Collective Action Problem by CartesianClosedCat

Nuclear waste management is already here man, I saw an article not too long ago about a scientist developed a system to use lasers to reduce the half-life of the spent fuel rods, while others were working on recycling and reusing the nuclear material as new rods.

The actual amount of waste can fit inside of a football field, and of that only a small percentage is the really bad waste. The vast majority of it can be recycled and with the laser tech (once fully developed), reduce its effects to something far manageable.

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CloudiusWhite t1_is7oqkv wrote

That was my point, its not an issue we have no solutions for, and it only gets better as we grow those technologies. Honestly I tend to consider people thinking nuclear waste is some big problem are people who haven't actually looked into nuclear technology and are just parroting things they heard.

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PAXICHEN t1_is9jyfk wrote

From what I have read…it’s not so much the spent fuel (which can be reprocessed but it’s really expensive) but the radioactive fittings and stuff that you need to deal with when decommissioning a plant. The spent fuel takes up a really small volume.

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Sumsar01 t1_is9ljjp wrote

Its still not a big problem. You can just store them in the ground. There already exist natural underground nuclear engines and we can always place it away from ground water if that worries people.

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