Expensive yes; unburned is a choice (and less important given the energy density); the long term danger is both true and misleading because while it's a long time the actual volume of material is tiny.
For me, the problem with nuclear is the safety profile: although the mean deaths per TWh is really really low, the observed upper bound on damage that can happen when it does go wrong is sufficient to bankrupt a superpower.
Low mean/high variance is exactly the kind of scenario where I expect people to cut corners because they think it will never affect them.
... exposes to major accidents, creates a dependency towards uranium, may induce nuclear weapons proliferation, sometimes daunting decommission process (check the ongoing U.-K. programme)...
Not when you factor in everything that has to go into making something like wind power work. The problem is that it’s very unreliable, its output is wildly variable, from nothing to a lot.
Then there’s the efficiency that diminishes over time, and a much shorter life span.
Compared to stable output and 40-50 years of power generation. And much lower environment impact overall (especially compared to the power generation over its lifetime)
For me, the problem with nuclear is the safety profile: although the mean deaths per TWh is really really low, the observed upper bound on damage that can happen when it does go wrong is sufficient to bankrupt a superpower.
Low mean/high variance is exactly the kind of scenario where I expect people to cut corners because they think it will never affect them.