Nuclear Chemist Question:

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Well, plutonium-239 has, for example, a roughly 25,000-year half-life. That is to say, half of it will have decayed to something else after 25,000 years, approximately. And that's a good long time. And the other isotopes that are similar to that, some have longer half-lives, some of them shorter. The point is that they are the most toxic elements in the waste. And paradoxically, they are also the most useful, because they are all fissionable. So they can be used to produce energy. But if they are there in the waste, they represent a long-term hazard that people can legitimately be concerned about. And those states that are being asked to accept the nuclear waste can legitimately be concerned about that. You know, I think again it's a handle-able problem, but it's a problem that needn't be there, for if you recycle, you separate out exactly those elements and use them in your reactor. You produce energy with them and they're gone. And the nuclear waste that is then put in the ground has a life of perhaps a few hundred years, and all of the really toxic materials are gone. So it totally changes the character of the nuclear waste problem.