As usual in such articles emotive comments are evident wherever possible.
The mine site spoil is mainly overburden or mined material virtually devoid of uranium.
Depleted uranium is almost pure U238 which has a half life of a billion years so is about as dangerous as the average beach from a radiation hazard point of view.
The authors use tonnes in some places and cubic metres in others but if the 750000cm of low and intermediate waste was mixed with the 900 million cm of mine waste and built as a mountain in the virtual desert a few km form Olympic Dam or buried at the mine excavation the concentration of waste would be 0.08% and the radio-activity in the vicinity would probably be less than in the actual mine.

veritas, the nuclear reactors in France just look like a large warehouse, nothing like a power station. I noted on my visit last month that they even paint these power stations with nice, colour blended pastel colours, same in Spain. The big blight in the Loire valley is the wind farms, absolutely horrific visual destruction of a sensational location.

As for the nuclear power stations, I doubt anyone would notice they were there. We didn't and we were looking for them.

Good on you Taswegian. Let's get all this into perspective. Nuclear energy will continue to be progressively used throughout the world and I am quite sure that waste will become a small problem when compared to many of the alternatives, although I am the first to admit we need a mixture where suitable.. We are faced with far greater disaster with the climate change and acidification of the oceans through carbon dioxide.

I wrote a comment recently about the thousands of people killed each year in the mining of coal and the fact that the emotional degree attached to anything remotely connected with anything nuclear was out of all proportion to the fatality rate. I was disappointed that most of the replies were too flippant to even consider as serious, but then I sometimes wonder whether we can get some good debate on this forum. Today seems to be an exception.

We are uniquely positioned here in Australia with all our desert and stable geology to store and process the waste, so maybe we could do it for many other countries and make it an export market.

I have seen metion that China has some 250 nuclear power stations planned.
If this is so it must mean that reprocessing is a real option and will
reduce significantly the amount of waste. Otherwise there would not be
enough fuel for all those reactors.
I believe with level of reprocessing the radioactivity is a lot less.
Anybody know by how much ?

This is so typical.

>>China has some 250 nuclear power stations planned.<<

I've no idea whether the number is correct, but it wouldn't surprise me one little bit.

Developing nations are analytical, decisive and action-oriented. We - like much of Europe and the entire US - have turned indecision into an art form.

In our over-developed nation, with the vast majority of the population living in comfort and prosperity, we resist change - any change - with the ferocity of a mother tiger defending her cubs.

The most conservative in the population - in our case, we call them "the Greens" - will summon up our deepest fears, of nuclear holocaust, of dying of thirst, of being overrun by immigrants - and play them back to us over and over, to discourage all forms of progress, and make a virtue out of doing absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, developing countries will invest in their long-term future, to the benefit of their entire population.

In twenty years time, when we have been finally relegated to the economic position of "the cheap holiday destination in the south", the reactionaries who ensued us this position will still be saying "no" to absolutely everything they cannot, or will not, understand.

Incidentally, veritas, have you actually been to the Loire valley? The last time I was there I cycled past the Chinon nuclear plant in Avoine. It is entirely unremarkable - Avoine itself isn't exactly picturesque - and if it hadn't been marked on the map, you wouldn't give it a second thought.

I hardly think the Greens are panicking about "Australia being overrun by immigrants". Aren't they the ones who'd allow an "open door" policy for "refugees" from every failed state on the planet? Sure, they think Australia's overpopulated- I'd agree on that point, but they make an an exception for "refugees".

Good point, the one about more people killed by coal mines than nuclear reactors (or uranium mines). To that number could be added the many whose lives are blighted by coal-fired power station emissions, espwecially in developing countries with poor pollution regulation.

I don't have any great problem with wind turbines- provided they're a decent distance from my house (they make a racket). I'd be happy living next door to a nuclear reactor. One issue with solar power rarely mentioned is the pollution from the rare elements used in their manufacture (like gallium).