Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wingineer 1729 days ago
What about the tail risk of mismanagement of spent fuel?
2 comments

We've managed spent fuel for decades with very little incident. Meanwhile continuing to power 80% of the world with combustion of fossil and biofuel kills ~8 million people per year. Comparing the very hypothetical tail of spent fuel risk to current and very real 8 million deaths/year is extremely difficult to justify.

Oh yeah and combustion also causes climate change, which brings in all sorts of additional risks on top of the air pollution one.

Once again, there was never really a 'waste problem' [0], and to the extent it does exist it has been definitively solved [1]

[0] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...