Zero is nothing. 2000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste is not nothing.
Not literally, but 2000 metric tonnes is half the weight of an Olympic pool. That's very insignificant and tiny compared to what gets extracted in coal mines every hour. Finding space for it is not an issue.
This isn't coal. It's highly radioactive. Everything related to highly radioactive waste from handling to transport to storage is an issue.
when you burn coal, the residual is also quite radioactive, and the amount is not nothing either.
That's why the alternative isn't coal or other fossil fuels - it is renewables.
No, coal ash is not particularly radioactive. The amount of radiation released by burning coal is completely insignificant compared to the toxicity of the ash.
Yes, I wasn't comparing the materials here, just the weight / volume. We have space for it. Even if we split it into pieces, encased then separately and shared it across many sites to limit issue. Patent comment mentioned the weight/yr like it's a lot, but it really isn't.
It's basically nothing. Using weight for nuclear waste is largely for FUD. The volume is really small for the weight we are talking an American football field 10ft deep for the lifetime of US waste. There's no solution because there isn't a meaningful amount of waste to bother with yet.
For context, a large container ship can carry 250,000 metric tons.