It is my understanding that the nuclear waste can be stored safely without too much cost. It is also my understanding that there are ways to re-use the already used fuel rods, effectively 1) making them radiate less 2) getting "leftover" power from already consumed fuel.
Psychological footprint fueled by ignorance however... Well, that borders religiousness. Maybe education and awareness helps.
I don't think many experts are that happy with the current spent-fuel story. They vary in why they're unhappy, ranging from environmental worries (more common on the left) to theft/terrorism worries (more common on the right). But overall there is just way too much nuclear waste hanging out in suboptimal interim storage.
However, the Wikipedia article for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository seems to mention that the cancellation was for political rather than for technical reasons. Wouldn't this imply, that the opposing forces aren't technological, but rather political? As in, if there's will, the problem can be at least partially solved?
If you had a power source that killed X/100 people. But to implement that power source, congress would have to introduce a bill in which every single person who had to die was named.
Could that power source be implemented in any democracy?
(not to say nuclear is exactly like this, just to say nuclear has a bit of this kind of problem and this kind of problem is very hard to solve)
Might not be where you live, but there's a real world evacuated zone in Chernobyl, with a 20 mile radius were "even today radiation levels are so high that the workers responsible for rebuilding the sarcophagus are only allowed to work five hours a day for one month before taking 15 days of rest. Ukrainian officials estimate the area will not be safe for human life again for another 20,000 years.".
Oh, and: in the United States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste
>It is my understanding that the nuclear waste can be stored safely without too much cost.
That'd be what we call a misunderstanding.
The typical and most reliable procedure for managing radioactive waste is vitrification: creating a purified mixture of molten glass and then introducing an evenly distributed non-critical ratio of hot waste material into the glass, and allowing it to harden into a solid glass object. The radioactive glass object is then carted off to a repository, for permanent storage, in accordance with the half life of the waste, which might be centuries or more. Vitrification is a safe way to prevent accidental criticality, so that all the waste stays cool and is easier to shield.
Generally underground storage sites are the most desirable locations for the final resting place of vitrified waste. This provides a simple barrier to the penetrating radiation that the waste may emit.
Security is essential to the storage of radioactive waste, since unaccounted waste means there's some nasty stuff floating around. This adds effort to maintaining a site.
Ventilation is necessary, since ionizing radiation produces an accumulation of fee oxygen and hydrogen by catalyzing moisture in the air. This means offgassing equipment is needed to ventilate the natural accumulation to prevent explosion hazards. This adds complexity to storage.
Degradation of construction is a long term pest, in that the site must be constructed of high quality, durable architectual members, equipped to last centuries, and not collapse within decades. This adds expertise and expense requirements.
Site selection should be a no brainer though. Consider that Ukraine can make some decent income off the tragedy of Chernobyl, given that they have an unusable sector of their territory relegated to the reactor sarcophagus. Yeah, the sarcophagus is impossible to manage above ground, but what about digging underneath it and excavating a massive permanent waste repository, and charging money for depositing waste there? Nobody wants anything to do with Chernobyl. It's a ghost town. Seems like a chance to employ the site as a massive underground waste repository.
Same goes for Fukushima. Take a geological survey of the site, design durable, earthquake-proof architecture for an underground repository, and charge money to dumpwaste there.
After construction completes, your budget mostly comes from staffing qualified nuclear engineers and security personnel. Little else is necessary. A nuclear reactor and research lab can provide power to the site and provide an intellectual basis to attract new staff. Doesn't this sound like a sustainable plan?
In America there has been this massive battle over Yuka Mountain. It's politically hazardous to store waste underneath otherwise uncontaminated land. The protest generally stems from the not-in-my-backyard philosophy. There are tons of superfund sites, that are doomed to contamination for decades because of simple bureacratic laziness. Most of them are pretty close to cities. I think America could probably find sites, but they usually get locked up in legal messiness that blows any deal. I think there are probably places that could accept waste, and there's no rational reason to care, but people fight it anyway, because everyone seems to enjoy irrational litigation as political sport as a sort of clerical version of new-deal make-work contruction projects. But I digress.
There are reasonable ways to confront the challenges of radioactive waste storage. Obstinate people use this objection as an example of an insurmountable challenge simply because they're stubborn.
Once stablised as synroc it is simply a matter of storing the waste. Storing above ground (i.e. in a shed) seems to me to be a better solution than pursuing geologic disposal, given the waste is now stable, and can be easily monitored.
However, I share your opinion on dealing with radioactive waste. It's not a technical challenge, but a political one.
Say what you like about the strength of the evidence linking burning of hydrocarbons and climate change, but it doesn't carry the risk of a meltdown leaving a footprint so big and dangerous that cities have to be abandoned. I don't think it's "ignorance... that borders religiousness" that keeps the field of nuclear research heavily constrained and very expensive.
A honest question, because I am under an impression that with modern regulations and reactor designs the chance of a meltdown or less severe nuclear disaster are infitesimally small, granted that 1) regulations are being followed(which they weren't in Chernobyl) 2) safety of operation is being maintained and that the plant itself isn't faulty(which again wasn't case with Chernobyl).
The relevance that Chernobyl was too promoted as safe, like "modern power plants" are.
Plus the relevance that power plant contractors and governments STILL bullshit people all the way to the bank, with friendly experts paid to downplay the dangers.
Just watch the misinformation and lies told by the Japanese officials on the Fukushima distaster in order to cover up their failings.
I trust in science as much as everyone else.
Building a nuclear reactor is not science alone.
It's business (e.g contractors cutting corners whenever they can make money), it's politics, it's marketing, it's trust on certain things not happening (e.g a huge earthquake or a tsunami as in Japan's case, or maybe an attack), it's faith in the human operators and the software used, and tons of other factors.
I'd rather not put faith in all those coinciding happily when the outcome can be potentially lethal.
In line with this notion, I am reminded of automobiles. Automobiles of yesteryear were more dangerous and significantly more polluting (causing serious health problems for the residents of Los Angeles). But of course we clearly cannot point to a '57 Chevy with no seatbelts or catalytic converter and say, "Clearly cars are too dangerous and noxious to allow".
