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> Talking about “thousands of tonnes” of nuclear waste is comically misleading when you realise how tiny the volume is.

What is the actual volume?



Long life, high activity nuclear waste represents less than 3500m3 (one Olympic swimming pool), and this, since the start of civil nuclear electrical production in the 50's. World wide.


Global waste is 400,000+ tons (https://www.stimson.org/2020/spent-nuclear-fuel-storage-and-...). Even 1 pool full is ~28,000 tons (UO2 package 8tons/m3). Urainium is dense.


20 swimming pools of total waste isn't that impressive. I don't want to live near that, but I'm sure I'd we can find a place to put that in that will have minimal impact on people's lives.


Exactly. The waste isn't really a problem. But it doesn't have to be waste. That's the point. All that U235 in 'spent' silos? You can get 60x - 100x its OG power feeding it to nextgen reactors. So cool


Properly contained nuclear waste is almost as concerning to me as my wifi router is.


I wrote about the high energy, long life waste. The part really causing issues.


I guess you mean the "super hot for centuries" minor actinides (Np-237, Am-241/243, Cm-242/244/245 etc..)? These are less than 1% global waste, but next gen reactors can still eat them. The majority of waste (95%+) is U-235, then Pu, which nextgen also eats.


Many magnitudes of order less than any of: all the steel, glass, aluminium, wood, or plastic, ever produced, and we aren’t yet drowning in cubic miles of any of those.


But a disposed sachet from Australia isnt going to enter my cranium here in India... oh wait




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