[dividedbyzero]

As far as I'm aware, dealing with the waste has cost taxpayers in Germany quite a lot over the last couple of decades, and all of the really hot stuff is sitting in glorified warehouses with no end in sight. I have a feeling this may still become a very significant part of the overall costs. Has any other country actually solved that problem?

[stevenwoo]

Finland? They are still doing construction but it seems all the planning stages have been done, but haven't seen recent update. https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-31/finlands-solution-nuc... they generate the money to pay for the spent fuel disposal by taxing the revenue from the nuclear plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

[addicted]

This is what the interviewee points to in the interview itself, but also adds that they mah not be the answer because there is evidence that original estimates for copper’s corrosion were far too optimistic.

[merb]

sometimes waste is even dumped just into the earth: https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-wast... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/09/italy.nuclearp...

[jojobas]

These glorified warehouses are cheap. Also cheap are former mines where 50 year old spent fuel can be placed with risks below that of chemical plants.

[estaseuropano]

That is simply wrong. Underground storage is not a panacea. Few mines are suitable and even those require expensive preparation and maintenance for coming decades or even centuries, with many hard to predict risks (think earthquake, flood).

[jojobas]

Few mines is all we need. The entirety of the USA would need just one such site.

There's plenty of nasty natural stuff underground and a well-designed mine storage site would be a lesser risk than continuously radioactive coal power plants of today.