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Comment by goatinaboat | Hacker News Reader

Is nuclear waste even still a problem?

That problem was solved long ago, just reprocess it through breeder reactors and get even more energy!

The problem with the anti-nuclear lobby is that they block progress, then point at 50-year-old problems - that they have blocked implementing the solutions for - as current and unsolvable. They don’t actually want clean power. They want a reversion to a pre-industrial society, with themselves in charge.

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> That problem was solved long ago, just reprocess it through breeder reactors and get even more energy!

That problem is far from solved, as you can see by the near-zero number of breeder reactors currently in activity around the world.

Breeder reactors are a proliferation nightmare. Any waste processing is an automatic proliferation issue.

If we reprocess-- the government should really do it because of proliferation concerns.

It takes a very specific design of breeder reactor to make weapons grade plutonium. Proliferation concerns are a red herring by anti-nuclear activists who intentionally conflate non-weapons grade plutonium with weapons grade to make ALL breeders sound dangerous.

"Weapons grade plutonium" obfuscates that you can make a nuclear weapon from non-weapons grade plutonium, albeit with an increased risk of only getting the fizzle yield.

Nuclear weapons that are "only" a couple kilotons are scary enough for me, kthx.

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