> Rare, ultra-expensive catastrophes are much more difficult to price in and are, arguably, what have really been killing nuclear, politically, if not economically.
I would argue after decades of usage and development state of the art nuclear power plants are relatively safe without major additional geographic risks like running them in places like Fukushima. The exception might be them becoming military targets.
> This also smells like a false dichotomy to me, as there are other options besides the pool and moving to long-term storage.
I understood your parents post that way and also your response. Might have been a misunderstanding on my part. The unnecessary long term storage in "common" storage pools after getting out of cooling pools sounds like an unnecessary risk to me, the normal solution should be to put them into dry cask storage in separate units. As long as they are not in dry storage containers a risk of water loss remains. After that they should be shipped to intermediate storage facilities, in such a way that they could be stored indefinitely in those containers under circumstances that can deal with a malfunction of the flasks. I am under the assumption, that most power plants are not designed to be intermediate storage facilities in the first place, but have them added on out of necessity.
>That's my recollection of what I had read when I last looked into it. Do you have something (perhaps recent) to refute that?
Which shortcomings of former dry cask storage flask do you recall? I was under the assumption they were relatively save for supervised transports. The only problem I recall was contamination of the outside of flasks in the 90s in Germany, but that was a scandal resulting from improper loading of the flasks.
>I did specify the US, since I was responding to a comment complaining about Yucca Mountain.
My point is that such transports are possible and are regularly executed in Europe, just not as normal cargo. There is nothing stops the US from doing the same. Its just involves a lot of effort and is expensive.
>I'm not sure I follow why this is, then, the best case, nor why the final costs would be any higher if transport is delayed until decomissioning.
That was from the position that they are not already in intermediate storage at side but still in cooling pools. The best case was concerning the risk of storing them this way.
>Here I agree with you, but I think it's a mistake, even naive, to dictate in advance how to handle that waste, especially since you yourself go on to point out the pitfalls of "final" storage.
Sure, but this includes at least the cost of storage in flasks in temporary sites for several decades with the option of relatively easy and save removal. Botched
final storage "solutions" are a common problem we have to face today. And even when it simply comes to plant decommissioning, the risk mostly lies with the public when it comes to extra costs. Germany recently agreed to a final 24 billion cost to assume all liability for nuclear power plant decommission and final storage, where it is extremely doubtful this will be enough to cover even the best case for plant decomissioning. But it might even be the best solution available now, because otherwise the companies having run the power plants might simply declare bankruptcy for this segment and default on the costs entirely, leaving the long term costs yet again to the public.
It is simply not prudent to allow the production of nuclear energy by private entities without a solid plan, how the long term costs associated with it are to be financed. Which again, doesnt mean nuclear power is not a viable option, they might still be cheaper looking at the problem at constant availability if we value the reduction of CO2 emission enough. But the way we currently use it is simply leaving the associated costs for future generations for the benefit of a few companies.