And the volumes are HUGE.
Some of these toxic wastes have a half life of FOREVER. Greenhouse gasses we dump in the atmosphere continue to accumulate and these are currently the greatest threat to both the natural environment and our civilization.
We are very well trained to ignore non-radioactive toxins. The amount of non-radioactive toxins spilled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan are far more significant than the radioactive substances spilled by reactors at Fukushima, and these non-radioactive toxins have certainly killed more people. But nobody cares about substances such as gasoline, used motor oil, insecticides, herbicides, lead paint, wood preservatives, and whatever other toxins were dispersed by the tsunami. If it doesn't make a Geiger counter click it must not be important.
And sometimes it seems the people who perished in the earthquake and tsunami itself are less important than those few who might die from the radioactive toxins.
It's one thing to say that eight billion people are too many, but what are we going to do about it? Wait for the great die-off, shaking our heads, tsk tsk, simply assuming it's not going to be us, or that we're not part of the problem?
I think everyone on the earth deserves clean water, healthy food, indoor plumbing, modern sewage treatment, and comfortable housing. How do we accomplish that? I don't think we should sit around waiting for magic, those "new alternative energy innovations being developed as we speak," most of which are thermodynamically improbable or impossible bullshit.
The first town to be powered by nuclear energy was Arco Idaho in 1955. France embraced nuclear power and shut down its last coal mine more than twenty years ago. In comparison Germany's aggressive renewable energy programs are a complete disaster.
You can see this here:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
Compare to France.
Nuclear power is a well established technology. It works.
Compared to fossil fuels the volumes of nuclear waste are small and easily contained. After a few hundred years the most dangerous radioactive substances have substantially decayed leaving wastes that are not any more hazardous than the non-radioactive hazardous wastes many industries deal with every day.
Most of the used fuel from conventional light water reactors shouldn't be considered waste at all. It can be reprocessed and recycled to make new fuel. Light water reactors extract only a fraction of the potential energy contained in their fuel. The fuel isn't replaced because it's all used up, it's replaced because the composition of the fuel changes to such a degree that it doesn't sufficiently sustain a nuclear reaction in that type of nuclear reactor.
Using technologies that have already been demonstrated concerns about uranium shortages are unwarranted. Historically we waste uranium in once-through fuel cycles because uranium is cheap and plentiful, and we fear reprocessing because certain nations might use reprocessing technology to build nuclear weapons.
Sadly, nations that have the industrial and intellectual resources to build nuclear weapons will build nuclear weapons if they are not ethically opposed to it or discouraged from doing it. There are easier ways to build bombs than reprocessing used nuclear fuel from civilian power plants.
I find it abhorrent when people who have huge environmental footprints talk about the importance of "conservation." Conservation is easy. If you want to reduce your personal environmental footprint go pour sand in the engine of your car. Disconnect your electricity, gas, water, sewage services. Quit making and spending money. Then what?
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