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by credit_guy
605 days ago
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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/ |
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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.