| > We already don't know where to put the nuclear waste. Most of the time people who wrote this argument have no concept what nuclear waste actually looks like. Have you actually seen what nuclear waste looks like? It is a solid substance, it doesnt go anywhere. Waste is compact, It fits in a small warehouse. Its in a radiation proof container and doesnt kill anyone who isn't trying to eat it. Of you leave and come back in 100 years thos nuclear waste will be exactly where you left it. Instead of generating this nuclear waste that we can store, transport, or handle in any way we please. We have replaced nuclear capacity with coal and gas. Generating billions of tons of CO2. That cannot be stored. There is more CO2 produced ina year that we could fit in every gas canister himanity has ever produced. Also a gas canister doesnt stay sealed for very long by itself. Every attempt at economic carbon capture has not produced very much so far. > A lot of politicians in germany are lawyers Same here, and I think thats precisely the problem - there are few scientists and technical proffeshions in government. Like a huge chunk of human society is not present in decision making. |
Yes, it has numerous forms. Most high-level radioactive waste is stored in dry cask storage. Until you destroy the cask and the things in it, it's pretty safe. But if you keep too much at one place it becomes a great target for terrorists. If you put them below the surface you must find conditions which doesn't degrade the cask.
Medium and low-level radioactive (dry) waste is often stored in plastic bags in normal steel barrels. When they rust through, you have a big problem. And steel barrels tend to rust faster than radioactive waste decays. Germany put a lot if these barrels into the former mine Asse and had to get it back at really high cost after saline water entered the storage location. After that there was even more waste to store because you need new barrels and have to store parts of salt from the mine as well. So Germany practically had a nuclear waste storage. It didn't work out so well, so people there are skeptical when someone else says it's not a problem.
And then there are radioactive liquids in storage tanks. The only solution I have heard so far is to dilute them so that they can be dumped into the sea. That may work for small quantities of waste, but if it's done globally, we have a problem.
> Same here, and I think thats precisely the problem - there are few scientists and technical proffeshions in government. Like a huge chunk of human society is not present in decision making.
I just wanted to say that a formal degree doesn't necessarily qualify you more on the subject and I don't like someone saying "you haven't studied this shut up". I judge people by their arguments, not by their title.
But I think more expertise among politicians can never hurt.