Read for yourself: Letter from leading climate scientists to environmentalists

[PamW]

3. Waste is a political problem; NOT a technical one.

silverweb,

The scientists that designed our nuclear power plants, also SOLVED the radioactive waste disposal problem. The solution is to reprocess / recycle the waste. The problem is that Congress, at the behest of the anti-nukes OUTLAWED the solution back in 1978. Other countries didn't do that; and don't have a waste disposal problem.

Nuclear physicist Dr. Charles Till, formerly of Argonne National Lab describes how the process would work:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: And you repeat the process.

A: Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.

With reprocessing / recycling, GONE are the radioactive wastes that last tens of thousands of years. The lifetimes of the waste are what Dr. Till describes above.

PamW