You're really playing the fool this time, Brad. A suggestion. Put your two points together, take a deep breath and think. Nuclear waste of the kind you mean--spent fuel rods--is the smaller part of the radioactivity problem nuclear power creates. The plants themselves will be a radioactive mass with a half-life of, oh, about 10,000 years. Over 100 nuke plants were built in the US. None of the 1,000 MW monsters built in the 70s and 80s has yet been decommissioned (put out service). That all lies ahead.
And guess what. They--the Energy Dept., regulatory bodies, and the utilities--don't know what to do. They don't know how to safely store the radioactive mass for that long because it probably isn't possible. When I was following it more closely a few years ago, the last idea I heard was they were going to cover the plants in concrete. Really. Whatever they do, it's going to cost and cost and cost, in dollars, health, lives.
Think about it. All of these nuke plants that were going to be "too cheap to meter" (from Ike in the 50's), were built to make a buck before anyone had any idea what to do with the radioactivity they would create. That's not just imprudent, as those in the regulatory biz would put it, it's criminal.
Even if none of this were true, the technology itself is insane. The whole idea of creating nuclear fission to boil water is idiotic. As Amory Lovins put it, like cutting butter with a chain saw.
And I haven't even mentioned how much these plants cost in dollars, both those that were completed and those that were abandoned, once it became clear what a disaster the technology was--hundreds of billions of dollars added to electric bills.
And now you, in a silly attempt to take a swipe at Ralphie, say we should build more nukes. Please, learn a little about what you are talking about. Nader's right.
RO