People like me don't think they produce massive amounts of waste. I am well aware how "little" waste material they produce. The issue is not the volume, but that you only need very little of it to completely deny a large area to living organisms like us for a very long time. Also, the on site storage facilities for spent fuel are only temporary holding pools until it goes off to a treatment facility, to then either be reprocessed for re-use or to be disposed of. Safety concerns with this stuff are not necessarily about the short term storage. Not that there aren't any risks associated with that – let's say, for example, a nuclear power plant being shot at with heavy artillery by a certain military? That'll certainly do.
There's this mind-boggling hubris that these materials can be kept safe and controlled under all circumstances, for all of their decay time. Sure, burying it under that mountain or in a salt mine is going to help, until you find that the containers have corroded, and you've now got it in your ground- and drinking-water. [1]
There's this mind-boggling hubris that these materials can be kept safe and controlled under all circumstances, for all of their decay time. Sure, burying it under that mountain or in a salt mine is going to help, until you find that the containers have corroded, and you've now got it in your ground- and drinking-water. [1]
[1]: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0579-x
EDIT: Missing link