That's true, but it's important to remember that the amount of waste produced by nuclear power generation is many, many orders of magnitude smaller than fossil fuels.
Let's say you want to generate 1 megawatt-hour of electricity (roughly enough to power an average American household for a month). With coal power, you get roughly 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere. [1] To generate the same amount at a nuclear plant, the waste primarily consists of about 3 grams of spent fuel. [2][3]
(And before anyone jumps on me, I'm not trying to dismiss other renewable options... just trying to put nuclear power in perspective.)
That's probably based upon older reactor designs like everything in the nuclear industry, since regulation had made progress slow-going.
Newer designs, and some others, burn spent fuel. Out of the 3 major nuclear reactor incidents, all were old reactor designs. There are new ones that also cannot meltdown in the common understanding of the term.
Don't forget coal mining releases nuclear radiation, since you are unearthing radioactive minerals. So much so, that you are exposed to more radiation in the vicinity of a coal plant than a nuclear reactor.
Here in South Australia, the government, royal commission and a citizens' jury are looking very seriously at establishing a long-term, highly secure nuclear waste dump. We have a lot of very remote areas in this state, and I believe they're looking at a spot with clay very deep down that can be used to insulate against geological movement. The facility is being planned to survive for thousands of years.
As I understand it, being paid to store nuclear waste is being viewed as an income stream for the state to backup or replace income from mining operations.
I'm always suspicious of things "planned to survive thousands of years". I'll bet politicians in Rome and Sparta big-noted themselves with "projects which'll last thousands of years!" (which they then contracted out to their brother-in-law). So far as I can tell there's not much other than Pyramids which humanity has designed/built that could plausibly claim to have "survived thousands of years", and even those didn't come close to being impregnable enough to be considered "safe" for keeping curious humans away from long half life radioactive trash...
Agreed. And Hammam Essalihine/Aquae Flavianae is a Roman bath which is still in use.
Regarding the Pont du Gard, it's intact "due to the importance of its secondary function, as a toll bridge. For centuries the local lords and bishops were responsible for its upkeep, in exchange for the right to levy tolls on travellers using it to cross the river."
I believe bigiain's point is that the structures needed active upkeep to last thousands of years.
Your point is true about people robbing the masonry, but that's closely related to bigiain's comment about "keeping curious humans away from long half life radioactive trash".
I should add that I believe the plan is to do significant work in sealing compartments so anyone looking to wreak havoc would need to breach the facility, get down a significant distance and then work through a huge amount of concrete or clay or whatever it would be.
I think the supply line from port to the facility would be a softer target and is something the jury and stakeholders would be considering in serious detail.
Oh, great point, I hadn't even considered that. I'm sure creating all those steel/concrete containers isn't the most CO2 friendly activity. AFAIK most plants store onsite so there's no transportation cost at least.
