Environment & Energy

The subject of nuclear waste is a quagmire full of disinformation and redirection.

Waste can be safely stored for 1000s of years, and within a generation or so the level of radiological toxicity falls off substantially.

Using nuclear waste as a power source occurs in a couple of ways 1) the waste heat generated can be converted to electricity (like in various spacecraft power cells (e.g. similar tech as the voyager probes and others) and 2) it can be recycled through various reactor designs to scavenge any remaining highly fissionable materials into new fuel pellets that can in turn be used in existing reactors.

There's a nuclear engineer (T. Folse) on YouTube who is excellent at explaining these topics. I highly encourage you to check him out. He primarily reacts and provides commentary on other videos, but it's rather effective as you see the level of mis-information out there. I rate him, and think he's accurate and funny at the same time. watch his stuff is unfortunately addictive!!!

Here's one about nuclear waste as an example: