Very happy with this interview. Thank you. I liked Jessica's explainer on recycling nuclear waste a lot. We could indeed recycle it until there's nothing left. With fast breeder reactors alone the time the eventual waste remains radiotoxic is around 300 years. We could further recycle it with technologies like molten salt reactors to isolate and use individual isotopes. These steps help in reducing the ecological footprint of nuclear energy even further, which is already the smallest of any energy source.
Further, as a commie I quite like how Jessica is focusing on social justice, which is broad topic, but where nuclear energy can truly help local communities in reducing air pollution to zero, providing high quality and well paid jobs, and add to a solution to zero carbon emissions. Real consent is always necessary, for any project be it nuclear, solar, wind or anything else. Great to hear Good Energy Collective aims for this!
Great to see Jessica Lovering on. She's one of my favorite researchers into the topic of nuclear energy. Who really puts in the effort in investigatimg how to ensure that the benefits are distributed equitably while bringing justice to community concerns.
Thank you Rachel, you do important work researching and investigating the possible futures being mapped out for us by these global corporate entities. From the title of the industry think tank, The Good Energy Collective, to the momsy sales patter, this is utterly terrifying. I wonder if we saw ourselves not as part of industries but actual democratic local communities, we would be able to talk about these rarefied toxic chemicals in such a nonchalant way. Would we just stash them under our school gym? Just got it under the carpark of the Walmart? It speaks to the impoverishment of our communities that we are clamouring for these installations to store waste already proven to have detrimental effects on health and environment.
That the Good Energy Collective has not stratergised a low energy and degrowth scenario, is illiterate of it, is all you need to know.
In 1977, before the Three Mile Island accident, Ralph Nader wrote The Menace of Atomic Energy - https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-abbotts/menace-of-atomic-energy/ . Or for balance, how about interviewing Linda Marie Richards and Jacob Darvin Hamblin who edited Making The Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure (2023)? There's Arjun Marhijani’s 1995 synthesis of scientific research, Nuclear Wastelands. There's the first edition of Environmental Radioactivity from Natural, Industrial and Military Sources appeared in 1997. In Mortal Hands: a Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age, by Stephanie Cooke, was published in 2009: J.D. Hamblin’s Wretched Atom, came out in 2021. M.V. Ramana’s 2024 book, Nuclear Is Not The Solution, was published just months ago. How about talking to them instead of yet more lobbyists?
Yes I thought Jessica's argument simplistic and cherry picked but I thought Rachael did a reasonable job of pushing back. I got the impression Rachael did not come away sold on nuclear.
i’m only ten minutes in and Jessica has repeated a bunch of nuclear industry talking points that are complete bs. no pushback on explicit falsehoods. just feels based please explain this to me type push back from Rachel. was this one of those situations where the guests publicist go her on the show?
This is such a divisive topic but I want to understand so I'm grateful to you for interviews like this (and for the opportunity to read other's comments, which are really useful too).
I'll have a listen, but really? Lifting people out of poverty? What, the ones that our high energy, colonial, capitalist lifestyles put there? The ones that a totally unregulated predatory culture keeps there by force? Suddenly, a globalised, centralised, peaceful entity will regulate a profit making industry that was only ever a side hustle of the nuclear weapons industry?
The key to any kind of future for 'the many', is low energy, local agrarianism, the one that is sustaing the majority world as we speak. Can we concentrate on protecting the land, soil and rights of the people to it, first? Let's not leave (more) toxic time bombs for our children, our children's children, and their children. Please! 300 years is still a long time, and when you have a list of caveats this long the liklihood of them all being met gets less and less.
I felt like blurting out my alternative to nuclear during the part of the interview that the guest said "stop using electricity?" (43:38 minute marker) Well, my alternative is to REDUCE CONSUMPTION of electrictiy. In fact, reduce consumption of resources in general. This has many advantages over the downsides that fossil fuels entail as well as nuclear.
I'm reminded of the interview that you Rachel had with Kris De Decker, publisher of the Low Tech Magazine. I really loved that one. He asks what's so bad about accepting that use of electricity is going to be intermittant? In other words, it just makes so much sense to accept intermittant electricity, which many in the world must do now, as a way to avoid resorting to other alternatives like continued fossil fuel consumption, scaling nuclear up again or other high tech, extractive, violent, risky and capital intensive energy sources.
I think that if people could really understand the predicament that we are in, they would gladly accept reducing consumption and accept intermittant availability of not only electricity, but of everything! I enjoy very much the challenge of reducing my consumption whether it be energy or anything! I just see it as doing my part to help this world of suffering.
Like others I have become less critical of nuclear energy in principle after the huge backlash of the late 60's and 70's and it is reasonable to assume (and there is also evidence that) the industry has learned lessons and like any technology is on an upward trajectory in terms of safety and more efficient building and production. I note, though, in Britain that the government has had to guarantee a minimum price per Kw as a return on investment which is very similar to existing prices in order to get the latest plant underway. If this is indicative of of the economic reality then I doubt that it will do much to assist those in poverty.
I applaud Jessica's motives - I'm just not convinced by the means. Her case was not helped by the use of unsubstantiated statements. In such a debate it is crucial to have your sources of information on hand to justify the necessarily contentious propositions. The prospect of local mini-reactors, for instance, is attractive until you understand that they are much less efficient than their larger siblings.
In the end, though, while I remain squeamish about any process that bottles up such dangerous substances the real issue is about the amount of energy we consume. For me, Jessica's pitch failed on the basis of her assumption of business as usual while trying to help the less well off.
After many episodes of this channel I think I have come to the conclusion that the world is in crisis because of excessive consumption. In that phrase is encapsulated the frenzy of growth kicked off by fossil fuels, the capture of governments by the neoliberal economic paradigms, the desperation of 'the West' to maintain its dominance over the rest of world, the corrosive inequality both in and between countries, the unsustainable growth of the global population and our suicidal destruction of the natural world on which our lives depend.
I felt like blurting out my alternative to nuclear during the part of the interview that the guest said "stop using electricity?" (43:38 minute marker) Well, my alternative is to REDUCE CONSUMPTION of electrictiy. In fact, reduce consumption of resources in general. This has many advantages over the downsides that fossil fuels entail as well as nuclear.
I'm reminded of the interview that you Rachel had with Kris De Decker, publisher of the Low Tech Magazine. I really loved that one. He asks what's so bad about accepting that use of electricity is going to be intermittant? In other words, it just makes so much sense to accept intermittant electricity, which many in the world must do now, as a way to avoid resorting to other alternatives like continued fossil fuel consumption, scaling nuclear up again or other high tech, extractive, violent, risky and capital intensive energy sources.
I think that if people could really understand the predicament that we are in, they would gladly accept reducing consumption and accept intermittant availability of not only electricity, but of everything! I enjoy very much the challenge of reducing my consumption whether it be energy or anything! I just see it as doing my part to help this world of suffering.
Thank you - the reminder that we have created a non-stop world that ignores the ebb and flow of our days and nights and the seasons is like a breath of fresh air. It is so easy to get sucked in to assuming what is instead of what could - and should - be.
"If not nuclear, what else?" Too many humans are using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including the GHGs and waste heat/trapped solar radiation driving climate collapse. The OBVIOUS solution: CONTRACEPTION the dramatic reduction of our INDIVIDUAL carbon footprints, our "ecological footprints". Further poisoning our environment for future survivors is NOT the solution.
Greetings Rachel. I have some serious issues with Jessica's very polite support for nuclear energy being used for electricity generation. 😊
In Australia, where I live, the 2023-24 GenCost report by the CSIRO and Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has found that the cheapest forms of electricity generation in Australia are solar and wind power.
Utility-scale solar and onshore wind are particularly cost-effective, with their levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) ranging between $83 and $120 per megawatt-hour (MWh) by 2030, even after accounting for transmission and storage expenses required to manage their variability.
Compared to these renewables, other technologies like coal, gas, and nuclear are far more expensive. For example, nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) are projected to have costs as high as $382 per MWh, reflecting their complexity and long construction timelines. These findings align with global trends, reinforcing renewables' dominance as the most cost-efficient option for new energy projects
I acknowledge that in some countries, where access to reliable sun and wind is problematic, nuclear may be the best option. This does not apply to Australia. :-)
70% HEAT INEFFICIENT Nuclear INCREASES global heating.
The IPCC is WRONG to push Nuclear Energy,
focusing ONLY on GHGs, not Global Heating.
Nuclear, Geothermal, groundwater heat pumps, space-solar - & ALL
UNNATURALLY RELEASED SEQUESTERED ENERGY,
DIRECTLY ADDs to global heating, NOT
'mythically' lowers it.
Light-sensing chlorophyll receptors cannot "detect" such unlit added energy, & fail to re-balance CO2 WITH leaf absorption, or albedo reflection from rain caused by plant-emitted particles.
NOT JUST GHGs, that add the "ALL heat trapping blanket".
Also, Nuke cannot get bank-$ vs. UNSubsidized Green Energy.
.
Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs) are the best method to implement, to decrease global heating, cutting electric demand for heat by 40%, more than ANY gains a nuke plant has, & frees up capacity for 100% eCars.
i’m ten minutes into this and it’s already a propaganda feat with countless falsehoods from Jessica. i’m hats what shits me about this show. there’s no fact checking.
My takeaway from this discussion is that the nuclear industry are prone to doing a lot of general grey-washing of all the technologies that either don't support or compete with nuclear. In other words, generally focusing on the disadvantage and ignoring the advantages of other technologies.
Furthermore, your guest does not appear to have a tremendously good grasp of the numbers. Towards the end of the podcast you were talking about a fairer distribution of energy and she said something to the affect of; having world communism where everybody around the world are each getting a thousand kilowatt hours of electricity a day. I knew that was way over the top without even thinking about it, but I did the calculation to check and, as applied to the UK, that would actually result in a more than 80 fold increase in electricity demand, compared to the roughly 2 to 2½ times increase we will actually require by 2050. However, this has to be put into context because the increase in electricity demand will probably only be about half of fossil energy demand that it would be replacing.
Fundamentally, nuclear doesn't support intermittent renewables, it displaces them. If you want to support cheap renewables you basically need flexible generation, which ultimately means large-scale storage of various types, especially seasonal.
Fundamentally, there is no shortage of renewable energy, the real challenge is getting it from 'when and where it's produced' to 'when and where it's needed' (WAWIP2WAWIN). I'm pretty confident we can meet that challenge well before 2050.
I always think it's worth remembering a maxim attributed to Upton Sinclair — "It is difficult to get a person to understand something, when their salary depends on them not understanding it." (gender neutral version). I would also suggest is that there is a corollary to this; 'if you want an unbiased and factual account about 'something' don't ask somebody who's salary depends on that 'something' happening'. They may be well intentioned and entirely genuine about the information they give you, but there's a good chance that there opinion will be clouded by confirmation bias.
For the waste section of this discussion I think it was an omission that the waste storage sites need to be monitored. Even if it's an inert cask, who's keeping an eye on that place for the next couple of hundred years? Separately the bigger component of waste is in the mining of the fissile material in the first place - all the contaminated water in tailings dams etc. This is always neglected so the post use waste problem can be downplayed.
Still I'm OK with nuclear as a technology for generating electricity if we acknowledge it's always heavily subsidised. There's not a single power plant that's ever been fully funded by private capital.
Unfortunately in my country (Australia) pro-nuclear arguments are just being used to cause delays in the renewables rollout. Put forward by bad faith actors who want to extend coal and lock in gas instead of renewables, their worst nightmare would actually be getting elected and having to build a nuclear power plant In a country that has none, and no industry.
Very happy with this interview. Thank you. I liked Jessica's explainer on recycling nuclear waste a lot. We could indeed recycle it until there's nothing left. With fast breeder reactors alone the time the eventual waste remains radiotoxic is around 300 years. We could further recycle it with technologies like molten salt reactors to isolate and use individual isotopes. These steps help in reducing the ecological footprint of nuclear energy even further, which is already the smallest of any energy source.
Further, as a commie I quite like how Jessica is focusing on social justice, which is broad topic, but where nuclear energy can truly help local communities in reducing air pollution to zero, providing high quality and well paid jobs, and add to a solution to zero carbon emissions. Real consent is always necessary, for any project be it nuclear, solar, wind or anything else. Great to hear Good Energy Collective aims for this!
Great to see Jessica Lovering on. She's one of my favorite researchers into the topic of nuclear energy. Who really puts in the effort in investigatimg how to ensure that the benefits are distributed equitably while bringing justice to community concerns.
Thank you Rachel, you do important work researching and investigating the possible futures being mapped out for us by these global corporate entities. From the title of the industry think tank, The Good Energy Collective, to the momsy sales patter, this is utterly terrifying. I wonder if we saw ourselves not as part of industries but actual democratic local communities, we would be able to talk about these rarefied toxic chemicals in such a nonchalant way. Would we just stash them under our school gym? Just got it under the carpark of the Walmart? It speaks to the impoverishment of our communities that we are clamouring for these installations to store waste already proven to have detrimental effects on health and environment.
That the Good Energy Collective has not stratergised a low energy and degrowth scenario, is illiterate of it, is all you need to know.
What seemed like a non-fact-checked hour-long advertisement just made me sad. In 1961 thousands of American women held a Strike for Peace protesting irradiated milk - https://daily.jstor.org/huac-versus-women-strike-for-peace/ Could they have been more alert to the main dangers and more able to confront delusions? Project Drawdown calls nuclear a 'regrets industry - https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2024/02/01/nuclear-power-is-a-regrets-industry-some-facts/ There would be no reasonable justification for the always heavily subsidised civilian nuclear industry except that the by-products are needed for weapons - https://neis.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/birds-of-a-feather-2017.pdf The latest gold-standard World Nuclear Industry Status Report confirms that high government subsidisation still sustains the industry - https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2023-.html
In 1977, before the Three Mile Island accident, Ralph Nader wrote The Menace of Atomic Energy - https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-abbotts/menace-of-atomic-energy/ . Or for balance, how about interviewing Linda Marie Richards and Jacob Darvin Hamblin who edited Making The Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure (2023)? There's Arjun Marhijani’s 1995 synthesis of scientific research, Nuclear Wastelands. There's the first edition of Environmental Radioactivity from Natural, Industrial and Military Sources appeared in 1997. In Mortal Hands: a Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age, by Stephanie Cooke, was published in 2009: J.D. Hamblin’s Wretched Atom, came out in 2021. M.V. Ramana’s 2024 book, Nuclear Is Not The Solution, was published just months ago. How about talking to them instead of yet more lobbyists?
In March 2024, over 600 organisations from around the world signed a declaration that as a climate change solution, nuclear energy is too slow, too expensive and too dangerous -https://www.pressenza.com/2024/03/march-21-1st-nuclear-energy-summit-in-brussels/
Thanks for these resources, Caroline
Yes I thought Jessica's argument simplistic and cherry picked but I thought Rachael did a reasonable job of pushing back. I got the impression Rachael did not come away sold on nuclear.
i’m only ten minutes in and Jessica has repeated a bunch of nuclear industry talking points that are complete bs. no pushback on explicit falsehoods. just feels based please explain this to me type push back from Rachel. was this one of those situations where the guests publicist go her on the show?
If ever there was a cautionary tale about the risks and long term fallout of nuclear (pardon the pun) it's here
https://theconversation.com/our-nuclear-childhood-the-sisters-who-witnessed-h-bomb-tests-over-their-pacific-island-and-are-still-coming-to-terms-with-the-fallout-239780
This is such a divisive topic but I want to understand so I'm grateful to you for interviews like this (and for the opportunity to read other's comments, which are really useful too).
I'll have a listen, but really? Lifting people out of poverty? What, the ones that our high energy, colonial, capitalist lifestyles put there? The ones that a totally unregulated predatory culture keeps there by force? Suddenly, a globalised, centralised, peaceful entity will regulate a profit making industry that was only ever a side hustle of the nuclear weapons industry?
The key to any kind of future for 'the many', is low energy, local agrarianism, the one that is sustaing the majority world as we speak. Can we concentrate on protecting the land, soil and rights of the people to it, first? Let's not leave (more) toxic time bombs for our children, our children's children, and their children. Please! 300 years is still a long time, and when you have a list of caveats this long the liklihood of them all being met gets less and less.
I felt like blurting out my alternative to nuclear during the part of the interview that the guest said "stop using electricity?" (43:38 minute marker) Well, my alternative is to REDUCE CONSUMPTION of electrictiy. In fact, reduce consumption of resources in general. This has many advantages over the downsides that fossil fuels entail as well as nuclear.
I'm reminded of the interview that you Rachel had with Kris De Decker, publisher of the Low Tech Magazine. I really loved that one. He asks what's so bad about accepting that use of electricity is going to be intermittant? In other words, it just makes so much sense to accept intermittant electricity, which many in the world must do now, as a way to avoid resorting to other alternatives like continued fossil fuel consumption, scaling nuclear up again or other high tech, extractive, violent, risky and capital intensive energy sources.
I think that if people could really understand the predicament that we are in, they would gladly accept reducing consumption and accept intermittant availability of not only electricity, but of everything! I enjoy very much the challenge of reducing my consumption whether it be energy or anything! I just see it as doing my part to help this world of suffering.
Like others I have become less critical of nuclear energy in principle after the huge backlash of the late 60's and 70's and it is reasonable to assume (and there is also evidence that) the industry has learned lessons and like any technology is on an upward trajectory in terms of safety and more efficient building and production. I note, though, in Britain that the government has had to guarantee a minimum price per Kw as a return on investment which is very similar to existing prices in order to get the latest plant underway. If this is indicative of of the economic reality then I doubt that it will do much to assist those in poverty.
I applaud Jessica's motives - I'm just not convinced by the means. Her case was not helped by the use of unsubstantiated statements. In such a debate it is crucial to have your sources of information on hand to justify the necessarily contentious propositions. The prospect of local mini-reactors, for instance, is attractive until you understand that they are much less efficient than their larger siblings.
In the end, though, while I remain squeamish about any process that bottles up such dangerous substances the real issue is about the amount of energy we consume. For me, Jessica's pitch failed on the basis of her assumption of business as usual while trying to help the less well off.
After many episodes of this channel I think I have come to the conclusion that the world is in crisis because of excessive consumption. In that phrase is encapsulated the frenzy of growth kicked off by fossil fuels, the capture of governments by the neoliberal economic paradigms, the desperation of 'the West' to maintain its dominance over the rest of world, the corrosive inequality both in and between countries, the unsustainable growth of the global population and our suicidal destruction of the natural world on which our lives depend.
Use less, share more.
I felt like blurting out my alternative to nuclear during the part of the interview that the guest said "stop using electricity?" (43:38 minute marker) Well, my alternative is to REDUCE CONSUMPTION of electrictiy. In fact, reduce consumption of resources in general. This has many advantages over the downsides that fossil fuels entail as well as nuclear.
I'm reminded of the interview that you Rachel had with Kris De Decker, publisher of the Low Tech Magazine. I really loved that one. He asks what's so bad about accepting that use of electricity is going to be intermittant? In other words, it just makes so much sense to accept intermittant electricity, which many in the world must do now, as a way to avoid resorting to other alternatives like continued fossil fuel consumption, scaling nuclear up again or other high tech, extractive, violent, risky and capital intensive energy sources.
I think that if people could really understand the predicament that we are in, they would gladly accept reducing consumption and accept intermittant availability of not only electricity, but of everything! I enjoy very much the challenge of reducing my consumption whether it be energy or anything! I just see it as doing my part to help this world of suffering.
Thank you - the reminder that we have created a non-stop world that ignores the ebb and flow of our days and nights and the seasons is like a breath of fresh air. It is so easy to get sucked in to assuming what is instead of what could - and should - be.
"If not nuclear, what else?" Too many humans are using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including the GHGs and waste heat/trapped solar radiation driving climate collapse. The OBVIOUS solution: CONTRACEPTION the dramatic reduction of our INDIVIDUAL carbon footprints, our "ecological footprints". Further poisoning our environment for future survivors is NOT the solution.
No.
Plutonium is forever.
Greetings Rachel. I have some serious issues with Jessica's very polite support for nuclear energy being used for electricity generation. 😊
In Australia, where I live, the 2023-24 GenCost report by the CSIRO and Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has found that the cheapest forms of electricity generation in Australia are solar and wind power.
Utility-scale solar and onshore wind are particularly cost-effective, with their levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) ranging between $83 and $120 per megawatt-hour (MWh) by 2030, even after accounting for transmission and storage expenses required to manage their variability.
Compared to these renewables, other technologies like coal, gas, and nuclear are far more expensive. For example, nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) are projected to have costs as high as $382 per MWh, reflecting their complexity and long construction timelines. These findings align with global trends, reinforcing renewables' dominance as the most cost-efficient option for new energy projects
I acknowledge that in some countries, where access to reliable sun and wind is problematic, nuclear may be the best option. This does not apply to Australia. :-)
70% HEAT INEFFICIENT Nuclear INCREASES global heating.
The IPCC is WRONG to push Nuclear Energy,
focusing ONLY on GHGs, not Global Heating.
Nuclear, Geothermal, groundwater heat pumps, space-solar - & ALL
UNNATURALLY RELEASED SEQUESTERED ENERGY,
DIRECTLY ADDs to global heating, NOT
'mythically' lowers it.
Light-sensing chlorophyll receptors cannot "detect" such unlit added energy, & fail to re-balance CO2 WITH leaf absorption, or albedo reflection from rain caused by plant-emitted particles.
NOT JUST GHGs, that add the "ALL heat trapping blanket".
Also, Nuke cannot get bank-$ vs. UNSubsidized Green Energy.
.
Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs) are the best method to implement, to decrease global heating, cutting electric demand for heat by 40%, more than ANY gains a nuke plant has, & frees up capacity for 100% eCars.
.
https://truthout.org/articles/how-the-nuclear-renaissance-robs-and-roasts-our-earth/
.
Nuclear CAUSES heating, yet depends on cooling.
https://energycentral.com/c/ec/french-nuclear-power-crisis-frustrates-europe%E2%80%99s-push-quit-russian-energy
.
https://nei.org/news/2022/ipcc-report-finds-key-role-for-nuclear
.
https://ieefa.org/resources/small-modular-reactors-still-too-expensive-too-slow-and-too-risky
i’m ten minutes into this and it’s already a propaganda feat with countless falsehoods from Jessica. i’m hats what shits me about this show. there’s no fact checking.
@RachelDonald
My takeaway from this discussion is that the nuclear industry are prone to doing a lot of general grey-washing of all the technologies that either don't support or compete with nuclear. In other words, generally focusing on the disadvantage and ignoring the advantages of other technologies.
Furthermore, your guest does not appear to have a tremendously good grasp of the numbers. Towards the end of the podcast you were talking about a fairer distribution of energy and she said something to the affect of; having world communism where everybody around the world are each getting a thousand kilowatt hours of electricity a day. I knew that was way over the top without even thinking about it, but I did the calculation to check and, as applied to the UK, that would actually result in a more than 80 fold increase in electricity demand, compared to the roughly 2 to 2½ times increase we will actually require by 2050. However, this has to be put into context because the increase in electricity demand will probably only be about half of fossil energy demand that it would be replacing.
Fundamentally, nuclear doesn't support intermittent renewables, it displaces them. If you want to support cheap renewables you basically need flexible generation, which ultimately means large-scale storage of various types, especially seasonal.
Fundamentally, there is no shortage of renewable energy, the real challenge is getting it from 'when and where it's produced' to 'when and where it's needed' (WAWIP2WAWIN). I'm pretty confident we can meet that challenge well before 2050.
I always think it's worth remembering a maxim attributed to Upton Sinclair — "It is difficult to get a person to understand something, when their salary depends on them not understanding it." (gender neutral version). I would also suggest is that there is a corollary to this; 'if you want an unbiased and factual account about 'something' don't ask somebody who's salary depends on that 'something' happening'. They may be well intentioned and entirely genuine about the information they give you, but there's a good chance that there opinion will be clouded by confirmation bias.
For an open discussion find me here.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/NickCook-RST
For the waste section of this discussion I think it was an omission that the waste storage sites need to be monitored. Even if it's an inert cask, who's keeping an eye on that place for the next couple of hundred years? Separately the bigger component of waste is in the mining of the fissile material in the first place - all the contaminated water in tailings dams etc. This is always neglected so the post use waste problem can be downplayed.
Still I'm OK with nuclear as a technology for generating electricity if we acknowledge it's always heavily subsidised. There's not a single power plant that's ever been fully funded by private capital.
Unfortunately in my country (Australia) pro-nuclear arguments are just being used to cause delays in the renewables rollout. Put forward by bad faith actors who want to extend coal and lock in gas instead of renewables, their worst nightmare would actually be getting elected and having to build a nuclear power plant In a country that has none, and no industry.