France also has majority ownership of the nuclear plants, something that would never fly in the US (because Socialism!).
Even when I was an intern at a power company, the leaders there saw the nuclear power plant the company owned as an "albatross around their neck".
Even just trying to ship it elsewhere for processing gets blocked by other states and cities.
There is so much fear around this stuff, but it's usually based on the incorrect notion that radioactive wastes is both super dangerous, and lasts forever. But this is not true. The super dangerous stuff doesn't hang around that long, whilst the stuff that does isn't that dangerous.
The super-duper dangerous radioactive waste has a relatively short half-life, and volume. The vast amount of waste is fairly benign.
It's a solvable problem.
The fact that the problem still exists at all is an indicator it's not actually that easy.
That is a strange statement.
There is no place in the world geologically stable for the required period (we have no way to know)
We have no way to communicate with people about the dangers for over 100_000 years.
Those are technical problems.
The political impetus is to get future generations to pay for our current consumption
I kinda want to get this Simpson's Jersey with a 3-eyed fish as the mascot that says Hanford or something on the back of it. I was thinking it should say maybe CESIUM 137 on the back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Regulatory_Poli...
This flooded the power markets in the US with new, non-utility sources, while at the same time it helped reduce growth in demand by encouraging efficiency. Together, these squeezed out any prospect for starting new nuclear construction projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_Fuels_Corporation
* You start from coal which has more carbon than oil in any grade you choose, and then add the extra inefficiency of the process so you need more coal than had you burnt it directly. It's like burning coal in a super inefficient manner.
But the press spun it as hate towards nuclear power. So that put a big black mark on the industry, maybe even more so because both Liberals and Right Wing people came out against it.
The problem is, that nobody really trusts nuclear, or more specifically nobody really trusts corporations with nuclear power. I will point out there's a high correlation between a given nuclear accident and a coverup of that nuclear accident.
In the summer the population of that area grows to hundreds of thousands. That area is by far the worse area for a plant. There are no evacuations signs there because there is only 1 way in and out.
Socialism is a red herring. 3 mile island and Chernobyl showed that state owned and private owned can equally be fucked up.
France owning their plants is completely orthogonal to safety.
The problem with regulatory agencies in the US are, they're not directly voted in by the public and they can be corrupted by bribery or regulatory capture.
Further violating regulations results in monetary fines or maybe getting their license revoked, but not jail time for the bad actors.
With very good reason.
Nuclear power leaves a 200,000 year head ache.
Climate change is a mild problem in comparison, it will correct itself in centuries (taking most of civilisation with it, but mēh!)
