This will be our most damning legacy. We are living in the first age when our garbage will impact life long after everything about us and our time is completely forgotten. The very first proto-humans were around 100k years ago. Could you imagine if people were getting sick and dying because of their trash? No sign or label will ever work. We can’t build anything that will last beyond a few thousand years at best with unforseen geological time and forces. We have no clue what the Earth’s climate will be in 100 years; 100k is on the other side of an iceage or two; the Sahara will go green and back to desert; coastlines will shift by dozens of kilometers; rivers, planes, and deserts will trade places. We can’t model and plan for anything on that scale. Nuclear is the most costly and destructive tax humans have ever made against future humans. We will be despised for nuclear waste.

I am persistently mystified that so many people – many calling themselves “green” or environmentalist – consider this a solved problem.

Spent nuclear fuel piles up in retaining pools at nuclear reactor sites, and we can’t take it anywhere because nobody can figure out where to put it. Everybody has easy answers and a proper & permanent disposal site and method are always “just around the corner”.

Meanwhile, solar and wind – for all of their problems – can meet large portions of our energy needs RIGHT NOW with minimal capital outlay to install new capacity.