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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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If you were to take all of that nuclear waste ever produced in the US, processed and stored inside dry cases, it would fit within an American football field less than 100 ft high. That's an insanely tiny amount of space for all the waste ever created for an entire type of energy production. For some comparison the amount of coal removed from the ground each year would form a cube over a mile wide.
However, most nuclear waste is low level waste and decays within a decade or less. Some of the medium level waste lasts a few decades. The longer stuff is a small fraction of overall waste. But some of it can be reprocessed and used as fuel again. It is also perfect for the starter fuel for some Thorium-based nuclear breeder reactor designs. Some are useful for various nuclear medicines. Very little of it actually has no use whatsoever.