BobR wrote:
What makes the cost so bizarre is the anti-nuclear movement! Fifteen
years of litigation, design changes ten times the requirements of
engineering best practices, abundant political machinations, all
contribute to the bill. Who needs the grief?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree on most respects but the one cost that has been and continues
to be ignored is how to dispose of the contaminated waste. This cost
is growing and may well be the biggest expense we will yet pay for
nuclear power. Until this issue is resolved, there should be NO
FURTHER development of nuclear power plants. And before you get on
your high horse about me being anti-nuclear, I am not. I simply
believe that we have to solve the disposal problems before we increase
the problems beyond the point of no return.

This is straw-man argument.

No decision has been made on the disposal of nuclear waste because a
decision is not yet necessary!

There are several seemingly-excellent disposal techniques: Imbedding the
waste in molten glass and sinking the ingots in the Marinaras Trench,
shooting the waste into the sun, pumping the stuff into abandonded salt
mines, yak-yak-yak. There is almost no end to possible fixes.

Until we HAVE to make a decision, it is best to DELAY the decision on the
chance a better solution will present itself.

Suppose, for example, the glass-ingot method were put into play. Then, ten
years from now, somebody discovers you can turn radioactive material into
burgers and feed the world. Can you imagine the effort and treasure
necessary to retrieve all those ingots from five miles under water? If, on
the other hand, we had shot the waste into the sun, we'd NEVER be able to
get it back (unless we went at night).