The initial node that prompted these comments has since disappeared, for reasons unknown. If I recall correctly, the write-up made a case in favor of nuclear power that (to my mind) skipped some critical questions on the storage of radioactive reaction waste products. It has been some time since I followed this closely, so my comments may be based on somewhat outmoded data. One noder, for instance, suggests that storage in glass is an effective, absolutely permanent form of containment, preventing the issues of
migration that are amongst my gravest concerns with
nuclear waste management.
Being the life partner of a radiologist, I can't exactly be less than subjective here, but I would like to see more detail about how one predicts what will happen in any particular geological setting 100,000 years in the future.
That contingency remains my strongest remaining reservation about fission power. I have no reservations concerning fusion, should it someday prove itself cost-effective. The chief perceived weakness that I see in the preceding write-up still concerns the intersection of long term storage and geological events. Perhaps an expansion on how one can be reasonably sure that today's desert will not become open ocean between now and the time when the waste's isotopes have decayed to acceptable levels would allay those concerns for myself and others?
Then again, I also grew up in a part of the country where all residents were estimated to received the equivalent of several chest X-rays in rads each year, between the ambient radiation levels at high altitudes, having been downwind of the Nevada A-bomb tests, and the high uranium content in the local soil and rocks, so why am I worried anyhow?