John O Kelly

All the spent fuel produced by the US nuclear industry over 60 years would fit on a single football field stacked less than 10 yards high. This highlights the staggering difference in scale between nuclear and wind waste. It comes down to volume, density and containment. Because this volume of spent fuel is so small, it's easily contained in steel-and-concrete dry casks, engineered to withstand missile impacts and natural disasters. It has a perfect safety record regarding water table contamination. By contrast, wind power requires roughly 10 times more concrete and 90 times more steel in material intensity per terawatt-hour. While a blade is 'stable' in a landfill, the sheer scale of unrecyclable composite waste - thousands of tons every year - creates a massive, uncontained environmental footprint. This stretches off to infinity as entire generations of wind turbines must be written off and replaced at least every 20 years. We manage nuclear 'waste' as a high-value byproduct - but we simply bury turbine waste on a scale of hundreds of locomotives and hope for the best. By contrast, the spent nuclear fuel isn’t ‘waste' at all. That is a fundamental misconception. Roughly 96% of the energy content remains in the fuel after its first cycle. France and Russia already recycle this into MOX (mixed oxide) fuel. Compare this to widely dumped industrial wastes like lead, arsenic, and mercury, which never decay and are toxic for eternity.

The United States defense budget proposal for 2027 will not include aid to Ukraine.