[unethical_ban]

What about the costs of launching the first-cycle spent fuel into the sun or building caves that protect humanity for 10000 years?

It's probably worth it to reprocess if only to shorten half life.

[ben_w]

Rockets are far too explody to put nuclear waste in space.

Vitrifying the waste and putting it in a cave would be fine if people weren't terrified of the stuff, but they are so it isn't.

[pfdietz]

"Explody" can be dealt with by armoring the waste. If the rocket explodes, retrieve the waste and try again.

In the near term, the clear answer is dry casks. They are simple, cheap, and foreclose no other future option. In about 300 years the waste ceases to be self-protecting against amateur diversion, but that's plenty of time for (for example) launch vehicles to space to become very cheap and reliable.

[pfdietz]

The thing is, thanks to the magic of nonzero interest rates, it's cheaper to wait and reprocess later. The more you wait, the cheaper it is, even including the cost of temporary storage in dry casks while you wait.

[aydyn]

That's putting a lot on the assumption of exponential growth over the time span of 10,000 years.

[pfdietz]

If the assumption fails and interest rates go to zero and stay there, we can reprocess then. In the meantime, if we can invest the money elsewhere and delay reprocessing we come out ahead.