I'm talking about spent fuel from Nuclear Reactors used for power generation.
What do we do with the waste?
Drop it in the deep ocean? Deep underground depository? Shoot it into orbit?
All these have been considered. We've:
1. dropped barrels of radioactive waster into oceans,
2. been building underground storage facilities in Nevada.
3. provided "temporary" storage in pools of water at reactor sites (this has been "temporary" for 60 years with no end in sight)
4. considered sending it the the sun on rockets, and
5. using reactors to convert the radioactive material into another element.
None has proven to be a perfect answer. The barrels dropped into the ocean leak and decay; the underground storage facilities (probably the best answer) are expensive and require land transport (air transport is considered too risky); the "temporary" storage pools are filling up and must be removed; rockets are faulty and an explosion on lift-off would be catastrophic and; converting the fuel into another element would be VERY expensive.
There seems to be no good answer.
