Item — HN Reader

I'm all for clean energy, but with how it is at the moment, isn't nuclear energy basically like pension/ponzi scheme (for lack of a better term)? Because other people down the line will pay for what we enjoy now.

"Thousands of years" is a long time to put something away and ensure nothing bad happens.

3 comments

Nuclear waste has a half-life, but chemical waste like heavy metals never goes away. And we are mostly dealing with that just fine.

If we used breeder reactors, we could cut down on the amount of nuclear waste per Joule drastically, if we wanted to.

If you reprocess and reuse the waste it's no longer thousand of years. It's barely 300 till the waste is less radioactive than uranium we dig to create the rods. And we have the tech, it's just cheaper for now to dump the stuff underground. With enough political will, 90+ of the waste can be transformed in mol multiple times and reused multiple times

I think an efficient way to dispose of/neutralize radioactive waste will be found in the future, which will be very easy for that era, so many are relying on this.

Of course there is no evidence for this is ever going to happen but given technological progress, rise of AI's exponential capabilities and bright future of robotics one can say it is very likely.