this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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The memes of the climate
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TBH, nuclear waste is a political problem, not an engineering one. Finns figured it out, no reason other countries couldn't.
Fusion of course is better (though some small amount of radioactive waste will still be produced due to neutron activation of the materials used in the equipment), but it seems like it's been 10 years away for the past 60 years. And we really shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good—we need to phase out fossil fuels yesterday and fission is good enough for answering the needs of the industry; solar and wind is good enough for distributed residential power and also a good choice for poorer countries who lack the knowhow or even stability for safe operation of nuclear.
fusion isn't gonna happen, how did Finland 'solve' nuclear waste?
Apparently 'solved' means 'bury it in an underground vault'. Finland buries their nuclear waste. The U.S. had planned to do the same at Yucca Mountain, but political infighting canceled that plan, IIRC.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230613-onkalo-has-finland-found-the-answer-to-spent-nuclear-fuel-waste-by-burying-it
Fusion is all but guaranteed to work eventually. If a breakthrough was made today that makes it commercialy viable, it would be ten years before we see a reactor putting power on the grid.
It's not something we want to hang our hopes on. ITER will probably work if nothing else gets there first, but we need to look at other things long before that comes online. There's no reason to wait and every reason to go full speed on what we have.
ITER that thing is dead already. 1st estimation : 5 billions. Now : 19 billions. And Russians are involved. Delays are so huge that it will be over before to be born.