Let me say this:
The Pavlovian association of nuclear energy with issues of waste is rather strange, because if you ask someone to show a case where so called "nuclear waste" has actually killed someone, they really can't do it, or, if they informed enough to do so (as there have been a few cases of things like fatal criticality accidents in processing used nuclear fuel), they cannot compare this to the deaths associated with dangerous fossil fuel wastes, which have killed tens of millions of people in the last decade alone.
I will take these concerns about "wastes" seriously when people can demonstrate that they can do simple comparisons between things differing by 6 or 7 orders of magnitude.
More than 7 million people die each year from dangerous fossil fuel waste and dangerous biomass combustion waste:
Here is the most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease Report, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659–724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.
As for cost, if one really wants to think seriously on this topic, one should consider what the cost - economic if not moral - of climate change is.
There is actually no such thing, to my mind, as "nuclear waste," because I consider all of the elements in used nuclear fuels to be materials that will prove incredibly valuable.
I have written on these topics extensively here and elsewhere.
The best summation I think, albeit somewhat dated, I have ever written on my philosophy on these issues is here:
Current Energy Demand; Ethical Energy Demand; Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come.
Thank you very much, again, for your kind words, but even more for thinking. I live for that, people thinking because of what I've written.
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