Should the U.S. store its Nuclear Waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain?

[Political Prodigy]

So long as it was out of Earth's gravitational field it would no longer cause problems here on earth. We already messed up our planet a great deal, why not litter the whole galaxy?
If it was sent straight into the sun or another star that would be a whole lot better but much more of a pain to calculate would it not?

 

[brewnog]

It's not the calculations which are a pain Prodigy. It's a tremendous amount of completely unnecessary cost, and as has been repeatedly pointed out, incredibly dangerous too.

 

[Morbius]

So long as it was out of Earth's gravitational field it would no longer cause problems here on earth. We already messed up our planet a great deal, why not litter the whole galaxy?
If it was sent straight into the sun or another star that would be a whole lot better but much more of a pain to calculate would it not?

Political Prodigy,

The calculations are fairly trivial.

But you have NO IDEA how much energy one has to expend to de-orbit the
waste into the Sun. [ The waste is already in orbit around the Sun,
because it is on Earth which is in orbit around the Sun. ]

It is extremely expensive to put the waste into the Sun - as well as the
risk of a launch failure.

And to what purpose?

Geologic disposal in Yucca Mountain is safe - it has been endorsed by
the National Academy of Scientists, plus the scientists in the national
laboratories that have studied this.

As far as messing up the galaxy with our nuclear waste - that is one of
the most ridiculous contentions I've heard. The average supernova
spews a TREMENDOUS amount of nuclear waste into the galaxy - an
amount more than tens of millions of Earths worth!

The total amount of nuclear waste that the USA has generated from
the Manhattan Project plus nearly 50 years of nuclear power generation
would fit in a high school gymnasium!

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory