Are there any advances in long-term storage for the waste?
Are there some ways to ‘use up’ the nastiness of spent fuel?
The spent fuel is very little in volume and it’s recyclable.
Realize, you are walking on top of the exact same uranium that is used in a reactor. It is merely concentrated, i.e. a particular isotope. Uranium is found in the ground and even top soil: https://remon.jrc.ec.europa.eu/About/Atlas-of-Natural-Radiation/Digital-Atlas/Uranium-in-soil/Uranium-concentration-in-soil- People just don’t know that, so they’re not concerned. If you really want to get technical, you could fix the waste issue by diluting it and spreading it out over the place, but since that’s not a realistic option, we have storage sites.
Sometimes, it’s the fear mongering and ignorance that actually CAUSES the risks! Ask yourself this, are spent fuel rods better stored in an abandoned salt mine, far under ground, under the water table, or in tanks next to the plant because all these environmentalists and the politicians that pander to them prevent the use of a billion dollar plus existing storage site that is not exposed to the weather and in a geologically stable place?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository This is stupid. Already paid for and built, Better than storing the stuff at the plant.
Let me ask you this, do you realize some of the ashes from burning coal are also radioactive? https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-power-plants#:~:text=The%20majority%20of%20coal%20combustion,the%20intense%20heat%20of%20combustion
Do you realize you get all sorts of other pollution by burning coal: https://www.gem.wiki/Coal_waste Coal produces about 350,000 times the volume of waste products for the same amount of energy produced?
I know you probably live in some green energy fantasy world, but reality has you making a decision between fossil fuels and nuclear, and of those two, nuclear is by far the better option.
Your responses such as asking about the waste indicate something: You hold nuclear power to an impossible perfection standard.
In this world/life, there is no perfection or complete happiness. You only have tradeoffs where you hope in the net sum of all factors to come out ahead.
Example: The so called zero emission vehicle is a total lie and pandering to ignorance. This idea perpetuated that an electric car is zero emissions is an insult to any reasonable thinking mind. You still need to generate that power, and instead of the pollution coming out of an exhaust pipe, it simply is blown out of a smokestack miles away. But in addition, you now have batteries to worry about. Is it really cleaner? Very questionable.
But now imagine this scenario regards the EV - we produce the majority of our power from a nuclear source (example France ~70%). Now a sceptic like me is sunk, because at that point the electric vehicle really is cleaner. It’ll still need power of course, but the generation of that power is far more efficient, steam turbine with 90% thermal efficiency vs. Otto/Diesel with ~30%. AND that power was generated without burning anything, no CO2, soot, acid rain, hydrocarbons, minimal mining, minimal waste. At that point, the EV sceptic like myself has to bow out. The reason why this is huge, is because transportation is where much of your pollution which poses a health risk is generated.
Nuclear power isn’t perfect. It requires some mining, but has far less impact than coal or gas. It has some waste, but far less than coal or gas. It has some associated risks, but far less than coal or gas.
Holding nuclear power to an impossible perfection standard, while simply accepting the costs associated with coal and gas, is not a logical argument. People will die in coal mines, from soot, asthma, cancer caused by hydrocarbons as well... Assuming you believe the climate change narrative, gas and coal produce CO2, and despite all the measures to clean up coal, you still get some acid as well.
If you want to keep this conversation real, you need to accept the fact that you’re really just comparing two imperfect alternatives, and the debate is over which one has a greater net advantage for us. Once you frame the conversation like that, if you keep things factual, the answer is damn near apparent.