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> Is "dig a hole in a salt deposit and keep it there" really good enough for the very, very, very long term?

Yes. It's not that dangerous, the whole reason it is waste is that it's no longer radioactive enough to power the plant. (And as plant technology improves, the threshold for "no longer radioactive enough" will get even lower)

> Can we really claim to be able to handle worst case scenarios well (e.g. Fukushima)?

Fukushima led to 1 death from radiation. Nuclear's overall safety record is far better that any alternative



You're not gonna convince many sceptical people by looking only at death counts. How many people had to be relocated? How large of an area is now uninhabitable? How many would have died if our luck had been just a bit worse that day? Is there anything about the technology in all currently operating power plants which completely rules out a worst-case meltdown scenario?

People are mainly afraid of nuclear because the worst-case scenario is so insanely ridiculously bad, not because it maintains a high stable death rate.


>How many people had to be relocated? How large of an area is now uninhabitable? How many would have died if our luck had been just a bit worse that day?

_Hiroshima_ was re-inhabited just a few years later, and it was literally hit by a nuclear bomb.


And they are still paying the price for it. https://k1project.columbia.edu/news/hiroshima-and-nagasaki

They were "lucky", btw: "since the bombs were detonated so far above the ground, there was very little contamination—especially in contrast to nuclear test sites such as those in Nevada"


Ōkuma, Fukushima is still largely a ghost town from what I can tell. Only parts of the town have been declared successfully decontaminated with residents allowed to return, and only as late as 2019.


If we only replace coal with gas and leave climate change go awry, several order of magnitudes more will become inhabitable.




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