El Tico on Nostr: the key is "radiologically harmless", even after 300 years it might still be a little ...

the key is "radiologically harmless", even after 300 years it might still be a little bit radioactive, but not by a dangerous amount. Anti-nuclear people love to fear-monger saying things like "uranium-235 has a half-life of 700 million years!" implying that for that entire time it will be dangerously radioactive. But the truth is radioactivity is inversely proportional to the half life. Or in simple English terms "the longer the half-life the less radioactive it is", if that still sounds counter-intuitive, think of it like this: oxygen has an infinite half-life, every stable element has an infinite half-life, the longer the half-life, the more stable and therefore less radioactive they are.

So now you can read that again and see why "it only needing safe storage for 300 years before it becomes radiologically harmless" it's actually true, after 300 years the stuff with short half-lifes (and therefore really radioactive) are gone leaving behind the stuff with longer half-lives and therefore less radioactive, to the point of not being radiologically dangerous to someone just standing next to it anymore.

That said, even IF it was infinitely dangerous forever (like cancer-causing forever-chemicals are, watch "The Biggest Chemical Cover-up in History" by veritasium) we actually do have ways of getting rid of them forever. Either a deep geological repository if the geology allows for it, and if not, then deep borehole disposal, which can be done pretty much everywhere.