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Comment by chironjit | Hacker News Reader

Every nuclear proponent in this page conveniently glossing over a significant issue: Nuclear waste disposal..

To quote a german article from 2020:

"If nuclear waste can actually be disposed at the new facility starting 2050, that would still put Germany in the international vanguard: 70 years after humankind began using nuclear energy, not a single permanent waste storage site has been officially opened anywhere in the world."

Source:https://dw.com/en/germany-launches-new-search-for-permanent-...

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Finland will have one operational next year. [1]

That aside, even in a worst case scenario, nuclear waste destroys local ecosystems. That cost would still be worthwhile if we can prevent the destruction of the global ecosystem.

We're at a stage of impeding global disaster that I'd rather have a 50km exclusion zone around Asse (or whatever other site) than not being carbon neutral or negative.

But then again, nuclear waste disposal is mostly an unsolved problem because it's expensive - and the resources aren't being allocated to it because it's not seen as a priority, not because it's impossible.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

It is not worth destroying ecosystems for a little more power, local or otherwise. That kind of thinking is what got us to our current day, with everything going to shit.

Please. I was strictly speaking about the worst case outcome. You know, game theory. And also, we're not talking about "a little more power".

Wouldn't a proper exclusion zone actually be a carbon sink? Meaning good for climate?

It's not so big of a deal. Quoting [1], "France is the largest user of nuclear energy and has also mastered the process of recycling their nuclear waste. These two statistics are no coincidence. By not having to deal with nuclear waste politically, France has been able to build a large number of nuclear plants. If other nations would use their system, nuclear energy would be a great deal more prevalent."

Some figures for background are given in [2].

[1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/anderson-k2/

[2] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-France_details_nuclear...

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