Nuclear Waste Storage versus Clean Coal

This is a little bit different to what we usually talk about, but I think that it is important nonetheless.

The Government thinks it will be spending £18 billion on our nuclear waste storage from the ten new reactors planned for Britain, despite the fact that a storage site has not yet been chosen.

Source

To put that into perspective, the US has spent $96 billion between 1982 and 2133 (when they think it will close) on storing waste from their current 47 reactors, which isn’t actually all that bad. However this doesn’t include any new reactors that may be built.

Source

My argument was originally going to be that our Government is clearly underestimating the cost of this, but looking at it, I’m not sure they have. It seems like a pretty reasonable estimate.

New nuclear stations will cost roughly £2.8 billion each, compared to an estimated £1.9 billion to build a new clean coal power station (Source).

The biggest current problem with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is that no one really knows how much it will cost. Most likely it will be pumped out to our oilrigs in the North Sea and buried in old oil or gas reserves. However, it is only just becoming clear what potential costs and environmental impacts this may have.

The problem with nuclear here is that this still does not constitute a full solution to our nuclear waste storage problems. This nuclear waste will remain hazardous for 100,000 years, and burying it underground does not mean you can just forget about it.

Anyway, I don’t really have an argument here either way, but there is a general lack of understanding on this subject and there has been a lot of hot air about it recently.