Still no (practical) way to handle the waste.
That is false. See my other comment here.
The actual problem is a lack of education amongst the populace combined with a huge surplus of lobbying and a dash of politics.
Still no (practical) way to handle the waste.
That is false. See my other comment here.
The actual problem is a lack of education amongst the populace combined with a huge surplus of lobbying and a dash of politics.
No, recycling spent fuel into new fuel or even the rather wasteful process of depositing it for long-term storage uses only a fraction of the energy generated by nuclear fission in reactors.
Idk where you live but the problem is likely one (or both) of lobbied politicians kicking the can down the road (cheaper in the short term) and ignorant nimby-ists who’ve bought the “nuclear energy is evil” narrative pushed by the fossil fuel industry and useful idiots in green movements hook line and sinker.
Nuclear waste is an already solved problem, we just have to use the solutions. The vast majority (>99%) can be recycled.
This is just a bad take. Your average nuclear power plant uses the least amount of construction materials per produced unit of electricity during its lifetime amongst the non-fossil options (nuclear fission, hydropower, solar and wind) - this wouldn’t be meaningfully impacted by accounting for fissile material used either.
Furthermore, most of it is concrete which actually contributes to much less emissions per weight when produced compared to metals (steel, aluminium, copper) which wind & particularly solar use a lot of.
Thing is despite a single nuclear plant being big, it is the equivalent of thousands of wind turbines or millions of solar panels.
In the context of emissions per unit of electricity however, these materials become a vanishingly small factor for all non-fossil electricity producers compared to fossil fuel plants.
Source on the environmental impacts of electricity generation
E: Added source