So a previous post asked how long nuclear material would last (longer than humans)
But how long until we run out of space for the waste? Or if all power was generated through nuclear fission how much wasted would be generated compared to all existing waste?
And if this is all manageable, is there a reason we aren’t going exclusively to nuclear power?
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Effectively never. [This is a good visualization](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-all-the-nuclear-waste-in-the-world/) of how much nuclear waste there is in the world. That is an amount _easily_ managed – particularly given that we _already_ have facilities designed (and often built – like Yucca Mountain) to contain it.
The reason we aren’t going nuclear is two fold, neither of which is waste:
– People are still scared of it. They think 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, despite the fact that nuclear energy is one of the safest forms of power generation we have. Folks are too scared to build one in their backyard.
– Upfront costs. Nuclear plants have high upfront cost to build which makes them less attractive for power generation companies.
Edit: Spelling
Let’s say we transport it all to yucca mountain. The Department of Motor Vehicles estimated 11 accidents a year involving vehicles carrying the waste. Plus, anyone could hijack a vehicle and cause all sorts of chaos.
I’m not saying they could make an effective bomb with it, but people would be terrified because they have no understanding of radioactivity doses and the media will tend towards getting everyone riled up.
> And if this is all manageable,
It is
> is there a reason we aren’t going exclusively to nuclear power?
Running nuclear power plants safely turns out to be very expensive because they need to reduce the probability of many kinds of failure to *zero*, and getting those last bits of safety costs.
Solar and wind are waaaaay the hell cheaper than nuke plants, and soon if not now a combination of solar, wind, and batteries will be the cheapest way to manage electricity.
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