[mamadrood]

And we will keep doing this for the next 20,000 years or so.

The surrounding area will be safe long before that but the epicentre will be radioactive for a long time and there is nothing we can really do about it.

[NamTaf]

Within the next 20,000 years we'll get to the point where the improvement of technology and our desire to get rid of the goddamn stuff will overcome the incredible cost of blasting it out of the solar system for good.

[edblarney]

In < 50 years well have robots or remotely controlled robots that can go in there and clean it up.

[manarth]

We've tried this before:

- "Fukushima robot stranded after stalling inside reactor" [1]

- "the robot could remain ambulatory in the radiation field for only 50 minutes, and in fact the robot's lower portion was no longer responding to commands" [2]

Poor robots, always being sent in to die alone.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/13/fukushim...

[2] http://phys.org/news/2005-12-mighty-mouse-robot-frees-stuck....

[edblarney]

That's why I gave a 50 year window.

Today, we don't quite have the ability.

In the future, we will.

[ageofwant]

The foot will be mined and processed into fuel within the next 20 years. At that stage the surrounding pristine wildlife haven that the countryside reverted to in the absence of humans will again degenerate into the usual suburban death zone, filled with humans, cats dogs, and almost nothing else.