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Comment by jay_kyburz | Hacker News Reader

Nobody takes into consideration the cost of managing nuclear waste either. I understand there is not much anymore, but I believe its still dangerous and requires armed security effectively forever. (making the cost effectively infinite).

I guess those costs are for future generations and not our problem. (Kind of like CO2)

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Wow, what an argument. Solar panels don’t last forever and have to be maintained and replace effectively forever making the cost infinite too by that argument.

The cost of solar often takes into account replacing the panels every few decades.

Most home solar panels have a 10 year warranty so you want to make sure your payback period is less than 10 years.

I believe we should be doing a better job of calculating how much it costs to dispose of those panels once they are no longer working.

Excellent point. It also assumes that society will be sufficiently organized to provide the security and maintenance for the entire half life of the waste. That seems like a fairly unrealistic assumption. And so we are basically guaranteed to ruin the area where waste is stored at some point in the future and easily explains why congress has been unable to designate a permanent storage location.

"It also assumes that society will be sufficiently organized to provide the security and maintenance for the entire half life of the waste."

Could you please provide a concrete example of a problem of security or maintenance on such facility and with such scenario, what makes you think that it is more likely to happen than any other threats with similar impact our societies face?

Currently the dry casks that we use to store nuclear waste get rusty, or leak the inert gas within them. This needs to be monitored and repaired.

They need to be security because they can be stolen and the waste within can be used as a weapon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage

Yes I am aware of those. My question is: what makes you think that this poses a superior threat than other issues we face?

When I think about the future and its risks I never think about nuclear waste. I think primarily about global warming and all its consequences: massive migrations, droughts, fires etc.

To me these are way more important because

1) the likelihood is MUCH higher 2) the impact is MUCH higher

We are not talking about risk of disaster, we are talking about economic costs. And are are not comparing the cost to other disasters, we are comparing the cost of generating power using nuclear to other methods.

You may want to re-read parent I was replying to:

"And so we are basically guaranteed to ruin the area where waste is stored at some point in the future"

> ...and requires armed security effectively forever. (making the cost effectively infinite).

That logic makes a lot of cheap things cost an effectively infinite amount, like shopping centre security.

A waste storage facility doesn't need armed guards if it isn't being used any more than a shopping centre would. If the facility isn't being used then it can be sealed with a big plug of concrete or something else that has a cost that is small vs. infinity.

Plus there is a decent chance that the dangerous stuff will be a valuable fuel source in 100 years.

Shopping centers no longer need securing when the shops are closed and torn down.

As far as I'm aware we are not currently sealing dry casks in concrete and forgetting about them. They need to be maintained and managed.

> As far as I'm aware we are not currently sealing dry casks in concrete and forgetting about them.

Then the facilities are probably still in use.

If the waste were sealed underground by a 100m long concrete plug in any access tunnel there isn't going to be a lot of call for guards.

Just on a technical note: With interest rate r, an infinite stream of annual payments P (aka a perpetuity) is worth P/r. So, with rates around 2%, the cost of security forever is the annual cost times 50.

(I guess what you're saying is that rates are effectively zero, and they are, and then the cost is infinite indeed...)

That is a good point in favor of batteries over nuclear. If we made fossil fueled power plants illegal, the external costs of nuclear waste should be considered.

As long as fossil fuels are used however the risk of runaway climate change is a much bigger issue than nuclear waste. The risk of runaway nuclear waste is unlikely.

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