Every damned day 19,000 people die from air pollution.
The commercial nuclear industry is now nearly 7 decades old. I will take these "concerns" about so called "nuclear waste" slightly more seriously when someone raising them can show that in the 70 year history of commercial nuclear power, the storage of used nuclear fuel has killed as many people as will die in the next six hours from air pollution, about 4500 people.
The scientific reference for the costs of this terrible and frankly deadly selective attention can be found in this comprehensive publication which I often reference in response to this benighted concern is here:
Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249). This study is a huge undertaking and the list of authors from around the world is rather long. These studies are always open sourced; and I invite people who want to carry on about Fukushima to open it and search the word "radiation." It appears once. Radon, a side product brought to the surface by fracking while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come, appears however: Household radon, from the decay of natural uranium, which has been cycling through the environment ever since oxygen appeared in the Earth's atmosphere.
It is regrettable that so many people have been trained by an illiterate media to say "waste" when discussing nuclear energy, but seem not to give a rat's ass about fossil fuel waste, aka "air pollution" and "climate change," while being unable to demonstrate an example where the storage of used nuclear fuel has killed anyone in this country.
And yet we have this continuous insipid carrying on endlessly.
I personally know the chemistry and physics of used nuclear fuel intimately. I do not regard these valuable materials as "waste," nor can anyone show that they are particularly dangerous. In terms of death toll, they are not as dangerous as automobiles, aircraft, jet skis, and certainly far less dangerous than natural gas, petroleum, and coal.
They are, in fact, extremely valuable materials, not only for the mineralization for PFAS to which I alluded in the OP, but as an essential fuel that can save what is left to save and to restore what is left to restore.
Nuclear energy saves human lives: Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)
It follows that the ignorance surrounding and irrational fear of nuclear energy kills people, about 70 million every decade if, as I clearly do, the Lancet publication linked above is accurate.
I hope I make myself clear. I absolutely refuse on ethical and moral grounds to even acknowledge this kind of nonsense.
Nuclear energy need not be perfect; it need not be without risk, to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it clearly and irrefutably is.
We demonize nuclear energy only if we hold all future generations in contempt, which, given that this stuff still floats around despite even a shred of actual evidence to support it, clearly we do.
During the recent Northern Hemisphere summer the planet burst into flames in many places. Glaciers on which billions of people depend for their water supplies are disappearing. People dropped dead in the streets all over the planet from extreme heat and...and...and...and...
...someone wants to tell me about the alleged "danger" of so called "nuclear waste?"
Please spare me. I will only become morally appalled and angry.
Have a nice weekend.
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