Please also see:  "The Hazards of Storing Spent Fuel" by the New York Times Newpaper Online http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/12/world/asia/the-explos...

Although many different viewpoints regarding nuclear electric power generation can be rationally considered, no one seems able to defend the wait-and-see approach to the expanding stockpiles of radioactive waste across the USA and Europe.  Something inspired me to send a letter on the subject, and a friend has insisted that the letter needs to be broadcast.  Here is the body of that letter:

Thank you for your quick investigation and response.

As you have probably already guessed, the subject of nuclear waste is incredibly distressing to me. I can rationally manifest little trust in a corporate/governmental culture which knowingly profits from the production of large quantities of reactor waste which will not be safe for over 10,000 years, and which is currently stored on-site in hundreds of locations, in proximity to tens of millions of humans and billions of innocent animals and plants.

You are probably not old enough to recall that nuclear reactors were sold to the public with the promise that they would make electricity "too cheap to meter." (At least nuclear warheads were honesty promoted as instruments of total annihilation.) At the time, no one was told that the reactor waste would need to be safeguarded for 500 generations, being twice as long as all recorded human history. What if the Roman Coliseum had been a nuclear reactor with spent fuel rod pools? It would then require perfect maintenance for another 8000 years at the least. Maintenance of the Coliseum got sloppy during the Dark Ages. Are we to believe that there will never again in any location occur such a period of prolonged turmoil? In this country alone, there are over a hundred reactors.

The mischief of Berni Madoff is mere child's play in comparison to this, the most vicious Ponzi scheme yet devised. Those who got in on the ground level reap profits during the 50 year productive life-span of the reactor, leaving the vastly greater costs (not merely economic) of waste containment to the next 500 generations. Actually, it is far worse than a Ponzi scheme, because those 500 generations will not even have the option of ignoring the scheme; they will be obligatory players. Fiscal conservatives currently rail against the monetary federal debt being amassed without the consent of their affected grandchildren. Yet they appear blind to the unimaginable liability being inflicted upon the entire Earth through at least 12011 A.D. by current nuclear waste production. ~ On a more personal scale, would you or I bring home a 55 gallon drum which could cleanly heat a home for a lifetime, knowing that the same drum would create radiation burns, countless cancers, and severe genetic diseases unless carefully maintained on the property for 10,000 years afterwards?  Regardless of volcanos, plagues, earthquakes, glaciers, wars?

To those who are hyperfocused on short-term economic prosperity at any long-term cost,  I would suggest consultation with wiser souls.  Henry David Thoreau's advice was  "Simplify, simplify."  Saint Augustine proclaimed, "A man becomes rich by making his wants few."  

Hopefully, you'll double check these assertions, and wrestle with your findings. I'll sign off with the words of my favorite (Methodist) hymn, which seems relevant to the subject matter:

Turn back O man, forswear thy foolish ways.

Old now is Earth and none may count her days.

Yet thou her child, whose head is crowned with flame,

Still will not hear thine inner God proclaim:

"Turn back O man, forswear thy foolish ways."