I'm all for any efforts to help expand the presence of nuclear energy in this country. So, if having a place to store the waste, means more opportunity to expand the usage of that energy (and yes, I realize they aren't directly correlated), as well as add jobs, I say go for it.

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I swear... people in this country would blow up their own city just so that jobs could be created in construction and cleanup.

Here is an important lesson: A Job is not a right. If your career field has dissolved, maybe you should think about self-employment or changing your career. Don't sacrifice the health and well being of current and future generations just so you can purchase a vinyl shoebox house in Gwinnett county. Damn it.

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"I'm all for any efforts to help expand the presence of nuclear energy in this country. So, if having a place to store the waste, means more opportunity to expand the usage of that energy (and yes, I realize they aren't directly correlated), as well as add jobs, I say go for it."

if we're going to shovel massive amounts of government money at energy programs we might as well go with renewables and more efficient infrastructure

solar is already as cheap as natural gas and is probably going to be cheaper than coal in five years, whereas nuclear is always going to be burdened by heavy regulatory costs (esp. after dai ichi) and price shocks in uranium

cool fact: a large proportion, maybe 40%, of nuclear fuel being burned today comes from decommissioned russian warheads

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are we allowed to keep the waste so we can make mutants, or MOX/thorium fuel?

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"if we're going to shovel massive amounts of government money at energy programs we might as well go with renewables and more efficient infrastructure"

Yeah, renewables that produce a fraction of the energy that nuclear does...that's a wise expenditure, if you're comparing the two. That said, I am a huge proponent of renewable energy sources, but to act like wind, solar, etc. could come close to providing the same scaled benefits as nuclear is just cockamamy.

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for a "huge proponent" of alternative energy, AA, you sure do sound like a huge proponent of conventional energy. ;)

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"Yeah, renewables that produce a fraction of the energy that nuclear does...that's a wise expenditure, if you're comparing the two."

solar kw/h/$ is approaching fossil fuel cheapness. nuclear still has to deal with factors of facility construction and maintenance, regulatory oversight, and increasingly scarce fuel sources whereas most renewables are simple, safe, and easily installed by some tech with a GED

just because one nuke plant can crap out massive power doesn't mean that a million solar panels spread out over a metro area can't do the same

a solar grid can be continually augmented and improved, the panels replaced with more efficient and effective designs. but once a reactor is built it's built - only new operating techniques or small adjustments in fueling or design can increase efficiency and output

"to act like wind, solar, etc. could come close to providing the same scaled benefits as nuclear is just cockamamy."

per-installation solar doesn't scale like nuclear, no. but you can't put nuclear reactors on every rooftop or in every backyard

the great strength of renewables are their flexibility and relatively low environmental impact, which means that they can be a part of the built environment much more than one large basket of eggs facility. we can even devise neat ways to store solar like backyard fuel cells or municipal molten salt storage for times when solar flux or wind is low, and thusly cut transmission costs. but nuclear requires specific site placement, meaning that transmission will always be an efficiency sink and cost burden

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but really if we subsidized clean energy half as much as we've subsidized fossil or nuclear we'd have practically magical generation capacity by now

all this solyndra noise is being orchestrated by republicans, to slam obama, and by their oil company handlers, to slam an energy competitor

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lol wiki kind of owns

thanks to international law, the amount of liability that nuclear providers face due to accidents is purposely capped. wiki sez:

"The limited insurance that is required does not cover the full cost of a major nuclear accident of the kind that occurred at Chernobyl or Fukushima. An April 2011 report by Versicherungsforen Leipzig, a Leipzig company that specializes in actuarial calculations shows that full insurance against nuclear disasters would increase the price of nuclear electricity by €0.14/kWh ($0.20/kWh) to €2.36/kWh ($3.40/kWh)."

yeah nuclear is great for generating power but we can't pretend that it doesn't have a whole bunch of scary problems attached

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We already did this. That's how we found Yucca Mt.

Or we could just keep storing waste at EVERY nuclear power plant.

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Wouldn't it create jobs to store it under Stone Mountain, aka the world's largest exposed outcropping of granite?

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There is absolutely no problem with storing spent fuel on site. Let the fuel soak for 10 years to allow any really shortlived isotopes (the most radioactive) decay and leave only longer lived and transuranics. Store them in dry fuel casks which are extremely durable (you can see a video on youtube of a train driving into a cask and it just falling over) and they have been approved for 60 years. This allows us to invent new technologies to dispose of or reuse the spent fuel for usefule things and gives us plenty of time for moores law to create technologies capable of dealing with these "issues." Worst case scenario, we can re-cask the fuel for another 60 years no problems. The only waste associated with Nuclear waste is the waste of tax payers money.

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