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by credit_guy 605 days ago
In the US long term storage absolutely exists, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant [1]. It only stores nuclear waste of military origin (i.e. from the making of the nuclear bombs). But there is no technical reason this storage can't also accommodate civilian waste. By the way, the amount of military waste exceeds the civilian waste by a factor of 3 or so.

[1] https://www.wipp.energy.gov/

1 comments

> In the US long term storage absolutely exists

In one sense it does exist (i.e. it's buried in salt beds 2,000 feet below surface), but is it safe?

In 2014 there was an explosion of a waste container and radioactive particles were spread throughout the facility and up to the surface by the air processing equipment in the mine.

It seems like it's not just a binary choice, but more of a continuum of how safe is the particular solution compared to others.

I see some moving goal posts here. If long term storage exists, then it's not perfectly good long term storage. It's not a true Scotsman.
> Nuclear fission is safe, clean, secure, and reliable.

> The only extant long term storage isn’t safe, clean, secure, or reliable

> You’re moving the goalposts! You should be happy with imperfect storage!

Nope. No nuclear energy supporter will state that nuclear energy is perfectly safe, clean, secure or reliable. Nothing is perfect, why would the bar for nuclear energy be perfection?

Nuclear energy is not perfectly safe for the obvious reason that we've had Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. It is not perfectly clean, since it produces nuclear waste. It is not perfectly secure, just look at the Zaporizhzhia power plant. It is not perfectly realiable: there are times when a lot of French reactors went offline because the water in rivers was too warm.

What exactly is your argument?

That was a direct quote from the parent.