Great, hopefull, article:

[NNadir]

4. Nonsense. So called "nuclear waste" hasn't killed anyone in this country and the garbage thinking to the contrary....

...that it is "dangerous" is, again, nonsense.

Today, not even counting people killed by extreme weather including but not limited to extreme heat, 19,000 people will die from fossil fuel waste, aka air pollution, as I always point out when people carry on, generally with absolutely no understanding of the contents of valuable used nuclear fuel, about what they call "nuclear waste."

In response to this assertion about so called "nuclear waste" by people who know absolutely nothing about used nuclear fuel, I always link the following text referencing a paper from one of the most prominent medical journals in the world:

It 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.

Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey, if one is too busy to open it oneself because one is too busy carrying on about Fukushima:

The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).

After producing this document, which is open sourced, I ask anyone and everyone making this assertion about so called "nuclear waste" to show, that in the entire 70 year history of commercial nuclear power, that the storage of used nuclear fuel has killed as many people as will die in the next eight hours from fossil fuel waste, aka air pollution.

All of the components of used nuclear fuel are valuable, all of them including, as I have argued many times, the fission products and the transuranium actinides.

Unfortunately selective attention, and nonsense about x number of years, which I hear from antinukes all the time 70,000 years, 200,000 years, a million years, a billion years, whatever is an assertion that fear that someone somewhere at some time in the distant might be killed by exposure to radiation is more important that about 800 fossil fuel waste deaths that will take place in the next hour, continuously, constantly without interruption, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade without even a whimper of serious concern.

I note that people carrying on about so called "nuclear waste" seem to have no concern that fossil fuel waste has caused the planet to burst into flames, not 70,000 years from now, but at this very minute.

It can be shown, and I have referenced it elsewhere (828 Underground Nuclear Tests, Plutonium Migration in Nevada, Dunning, Kruger, Strawmen, and Tunnels) that the continuous recycling of used nuclear fuel will actually reduce the radioactivity of the planet, which may or may not be a good thing.

For convenience:

Although anti-nukes are prone to deny it, because they are most often discussing topics about which they know nothing, however, the situation is very different at weapons sites as opposed to commercial nuclear reprocessing sites. The recovery of the transuranium actinides using a wide variety of processes is well understood, and all of them, not just plutonium but also neptunium, americium, and curium are potential nuclear fuels. I therefore always argue that it is just stupid to bury them, as they are vital resources in a time of climate change and massive rising air pollution death rates.

The following figure shows the very different case obtained if one separates the uranium, plutonium and minor actinides (neptunium, americium and curium) and fissions them, whereupon the reduction of radioactivity to a level that is actually below that of the original uranium in a little over 300 years:



The caption:

Fig. 4. – Radiotoxicity (log-scale, unit: Sv/tSM) of 1 t of heavy metal (SM) from a pressurized water reactor (initial enrichment 4.2% U-235, burn-up 50 GWd/t) with regard to ingestion as a function of time (log-scale, unit: years) after discharge. Left-hand frame: contribution of fission products (FP), plutonium (Pu) and minor actinides (MA) to radiotoxicity. Right-hand frame: Modification of radiotoxicity due to separation of U, Pu or U, Pu, MA. The reference value is the radiotoxicity of the amount of natural uranium that was used to produce 1 t of nuclear fuel. Source: [17].

(Hartwig Freiesleben, The European Physical Journal Conferences · June 2013)

Source 17, in German, is this one: Reduzierung der Radiotoxizität abgebrannter Kernbrennstoffe durch Abtrennung und Transmutation von Actiniden: Partitioning. Reducing spent nuclear fuel radiotoxicity by actinide separation and transmutation: partitioning.

It is important to note that simply because a material is radioactive does not imply that it is not useful, perhaps even capable of accomplishing tasks that nothing else can do as well or as sustainably. Given the level of chemical pollution of the air, water and land, in fact, the use of radiation, in particular high energy radiation, gamma rays, x-rays, and ultra UV radiation may prove to be more important than ever, but that's a topic for another time.

Since life on this planet evolved in the presence of radiation, radiation levels that were much higher millions and billions of years ago, reducing the radioactivity of the planet may or may not be a good thing.

Nevertheless, the risk of reducing further the radioactivity of the planet is probably vanishingly small, as is the risk of vastly expanding, on an emergency basis, the use of nuclear energy.

I always say this: Nuclear energy need not be risk free to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

Let me know when you've identified a scheme to store fossil fuel waste on site where its generated, all 37 billion tons of it that will be released this year, for 70,000 years. Until then, consider me grotesquely and supremely unimpressed with the selective attention and "concern."

Have a nice weekend.