Nuclear power is the only large-scale energy-producing technology which takes full responsibility for all its wastes and fully costs this into the product. The amount of radioactive wastes is very small relative to wastes produced by fossil fuel electricity generation.
If the used fuel is reprocessed, as is that from UK, French, German, Japanese and Russian reactors, high level waste (HLW) comprises highly-radioactive fission products and some transuranic elements with long-lived radioactivity which are separated from the used fuel, enabling the uranium and plutonium to be recycled.
According to GE Hitachi, in 2015 funds set aside for managing and disposal of used fuel totaled about $100 billion, about $51 billion of this in Europe, $40 billion in the USA and $6.5 billion in Canada.
The nuclear waste near your home
Source: CNN
Added on 2:25 PM ET, Wed November 6, 2013
CNN’s Drew Griffin reports on the rough and tumble politics surrounding the thorny issue of America’s nuclear waste.