Rethinking Nuclear Power

A renewable energy fan giving nuclear power a second thought.

After several exchanges with nuclear fans on twitter, and reading various articles, I am slowly changing my stance on nuclear power.

Let me cover some different aspect of nuclear power which has made me reconsider my rather hostile view of nuclear power.

Storage of Nuclear Waste

Storage of nuclear waste has been discussed for decades without us seemingly getting close to any long term solution. However a fairly decent and cheap solution already exists and is being used called Dry cask storage which looks something like what you see below:

HI-STAR dry cask storage used for transport and storage of spent nuclear fuel.

These are several layers of metal and concrete providing radioactive shielding and they are strong enough to withstand a missile hit. They are typically license for storage for 20 year periods. Government inspection will then decide whether they can store another 20 years. In principle these could last up to 120 years.

There are a lot of these facilities around the world and apparently no leaks has happened from these despite having been used since the 1980s all over the world.

Ideally we get long term storage, but if not we can just keep making these dry cask containers and move nuclear waste over…