"Nuclear reprocessing (taking spent nuclear fuel and running it through a procedure to extract more useable isotopes) is worth examining, as it would produce a lot of fuel and sharply cut high-level waste (which takes hundreds of thousands of years to decay into safe material) at the cost of a lot more low-level waste (which only takes hundreds of years)"
Why is it that even articles written that could possibly be considered Pro-Nuclear never get simple half-life decay rates correct.......
Probably because our Regulator doesn't understand them either....straight from NRC website:
"Because of their highly radioactive fission products, high-level waste and spent fuel must be handled and stored with care. Since the only way radioactive waste finally becomes harmless is through decay, which for high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored and finally disposed of in a way that provides adequate protection of the public for a very long time"
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[/size]Can anyone name one fission product (that is actually externally dangerous) that after 500 years isn't easily managed? [/color]
[/size]A billion curies of Cesium-137 would be a little over 15,000 curies after 500 years....15 curies after 1000 years.... after 1120 years its <1 curie. [/color]
[/size]Hardly "hundreds of thousands of years".....unless my math is incorrect (strong possibility)[/color]