It's important to look at nuclear waste in the context of alternative energy generation processes. The solution to waste from coal plants is "pump that shit in the air and water", which is far worse than nuclear.
"[a] coal power plant's radiation output [into the environment] is over 3 times greater" than that of a "nuclear power plant with the same electrical output".
That's where a professional and well-trained workforce is important, with indepenent and very strong regulations. I'm a former US Navy submarine officer, and the US Navy has been operating nuclear reactors in some of the harshest environments imaginable for 40+ years without any accidents whatsoever.
It works because Navy sailors are incredibly well-trained and well-drilled. But also because there is a virtually independent bureaucracy in the US Navy that can literally "take away your keys" to run the plant. (And I do mean literally.) Regular inspections that scare the st out of everyone because of their intensity and thoroughness.
Except that 40 years is nothing. Things can change - look at the former Sowjet Union. Maybe a US president comes to power that withdraws funding from the Navy, and things will start to deteriorate (just making that up, but with really long time frames, all bets are off).
Edit: yahooing for "us navy reactor accidents" comes up with quite a few hits, and allegations that mostly the Navy is very secretive about it.
Edit2: Even with the best trained staff, the staff is essentially just running an algorithm. Training the staff makes sure they run the algorithm correctly, but it does not protect against bugs in the algorithm. If you are a software developer, you don't believe in bug free algorithms (above a certain complexity).
The technology is really simple. As we occasionally described it: "Hot rock -> make steam -> make boat go." The complexity really comes in the metalurgical issues, in my opinion.
40 years is a substantial period of time. And yes, you CAN find Google results for reactor accidents, but you can also find results about how NASA faked the moon landings. The government has strict definitions about what constitutes a nuclear accident and required to report them. But there are currently nearly 100 active nuclear reactors, and have been for 40+ years. 4000 reactor-years of experience in arguably the harshest conditions possible DOES mean something.
I understand your point that things could change. But if we need to reduce emissions NOW, with technology available at scale NOW, nuclear is a very good option.
I'd heard some years ago that the Navy's nuclear operations officers and their nuclear safety officers are not allowed to even talk to each other, just to prevent any chumminess from creeping into the relationship. Is that still true?
"Nuclear submarine leaked radioactive waste into British waters, secret report reveals
By Matthew Hickley
Last updated at 12:24 AM on 28th April 2009
The Royal Navy's main nuclear submarine base has repeatedly leaked radioactive waste into the sea, previously secret documents show.
Radioactive coolant and contaminated water were accidentally dumped into the sea at Faslane, near Glasgow, at least three times in recent years.
And an internal Navy report described a 'recurrent theme' of failures to follow safety rules.
The nuclear watchdog said problems were so serious it would have considered shutting the base down had it been a civilian operation - but it has no such legal powers over military sites...."
Accidents are very strictly defined, and none have happened in the history of the US Navy.
There are incidents where reactor water is released into the sea. These are rare, and the radioactivity released is almost minimal. Please recognize that there are different types of radioactivity depending on the elements involved. The highly radioactive particles remain part of the fuel itself. The average volume of water in a reactor contains particles that have quite a short half-life and are typically not widely dangerous.
Finally, I was speaking of the US Navy which does operate differently than the UK Navy.
"Accidents are very strictly defined, and none have happened in the history of the US Navy..."
...according to what isn't classified as a state secret. We have no idea whether or not the US Gov't has classified 0, 1, or many nuclear accidents the US Navy is responsible for.
My clip about the Hanford reactor above stated there were 8 occasions at Hanford in which releases of radiation were classified and made a state secret.
You cannot prove the safety record of the US Navy running nuclear reactors is clean, especially considering the limited info available about the losses of the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpian. I can document repeated incidences by US military and it's close allies in which nuclear accidents happened and then those accidents were classified as state secrets.
That is not a certainty. According to the NRC report on 3-mile Island (which I think is the worst in US history) the release was about 1 millirem. For comparison a x-ray is 6 millirem and normal background radiation is 100-125.
Western reactor designs are not like Chernobyl. They are designed to fail 'safe' and have over-designed containment vessels to prevent accidents from leaking into the community.
The reactor at Three Mile Island only had a containment vessel because it was on the flight path in/out of a nearby airport. Otherwise federal regulators were going to let it be built without a containment vessel.
The containment vessel at Three Mile Island was designed to survive a direct hit by a loaded 707 - because those flew over the reactor. They were NOT over-designed.
Edit: I designed the Feedwater Control System for the Lungmen Nuclear power stations going up in Taiwan.
Edit2: Reply to jibiki below; Yes, no containment was the absurd comment. I don't know the details but I can guess the builders strengthened the containment building to appease the eviros - it was probably completely unnecessary and only raised the costs. The enviros and the lefties have gotten away with such "stories" for years but now thanks to the internet, the truth shall set us free! See Clay Shirky on Thinking the Unthinkable.
"I want to mention that the reactor containment at Three Mile Island was actually thicker than most others, because citizen action, prior to the construction of the plant, demanded a thicker containment, because the Three Mile Island Unit 2 is right in the flight path of the Harrisburg Airport."--Harvey Wasserman
(Of course, nobody was ever planning to build it without a containment... I hope?)
Please don't lump us all together like that; this enviro-leftie is very pro-nuclear. Following political ideology blindly has never been limited to any particular viewpoint.
A single exception, no. But environmentalism takes a lot of forms: Greenpeace hippies, Sierra Club hunters and naturalists, and humanists interested in long-term sustainability (which is where I fall). Though there's still a strong residual echo of the (understandable) knee-jerk reaction to nuclear from the 70s, there are now many environmentalists who support nuclear as a lesser evil compared to coal.
Apologies for having an easily-struck nerve, re: implied "All X are Y" statements. :)
Again, you need to put nuclear in context of alternative energy generation mechanisms. People talk a lot about TMI, but not the integrated & far larger accidents from coal.
That is a bit of a strawman argumentation, though. The parole is usually not "use coal plants instead of nuclear plants", it is essentially to get rid of nuclear plants. Instead of building more coal plants, saving energy is an alternative (for example).
I don't have a house - silly argument. I don't use a lot of energy personally. Also you can just use more energy efficient things. I did not want to interfere with your lifestyle.
