Most countries have not even started dealing with this issue and are still using interim storage solutions.
because there’s so little of it. a single plant generates about a truckload a year (20-30 tons) of spent fuel. fossil plants burn hundreds of tons of fuel per day.
personally, i’ve always thought that as long as it’s radioactive, there’s untapped energy in there, so the best way to get rid of the waste is to build better reactors that can actually use it up.
There are actually such reactors! There are amazing technologies, but the political issues around developing nuclear tech pretty much made the EU stuck in 1970s tech. China recently started the first gen 4 reactor!
generates about a truckload a year (20-30 tons) of spent fuel
Is that spent fuel or just waste in general? I have seen “20 tons” used for both here and there, and there’s a big difference between them IMO.
Fuel is much more dangerous than, say, a piece of equipment that was exposed to something, but both will be stored as “nuclear waste”. Not that I’m saying the equipment is “safe” but the likelihood of a disaster occurring because a barrel of irradiated equipment busted open vs a barrel of spent fuel…
because there’s so little of it. a single plant generates about a truckload a year (20-30 tons) of spent fuel. fossil plants burn hundreds of tons of fuel per day.
personally, i’ve always thought that as long as it’s radioactive, there’s untapped energy in there, so the best way to get rid of the waste is to build better reactors that can actually use it up.
There are actually such reactors! There are amazing technologies, but the political issues around developing nuclear tech pretty much made the EU stuck in 1970s tech. China recently started the first gen 4 reactor!
Is that spent fuel or just waste in general? I have seen “20 tons” used for both here and there, and there’s a big difference between them IMO.
Fuel is much more dangerous than, say, a piece of equipment that was exposed to something, but both will be stored as “nuclear waste”. Not that I’m saying the equipment is “safe” but the likelihood of a disaster occurring because a barrel of irradiated equipment busted open vs a barrel of spent fuel…
that’s specifically fuel, according to the source i read. highly radioactive waste.