First off, my comments about any "glow" were sarcastic in tone. Secondly, I highly doubt agencies and governments spend billions in "storing" nuclear waste because of its "negative public image". I'm certain, albeit in my base knowledge of Chem 101, that nuclear waste from fission is not as harmless as you claim.
Here are some facts:
High Level Waste (HLW) is produced by nuclear reactors. It contains fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core. It is highly radioactive and often thermally hot. HLW accounts for over 95% of the total radioactivity produced in the process of nuclear electricity generation.
In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states that there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water". Despite these copious quantities of waste, the DOE has a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025. The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards". The United States currently has at least 108 sites it currently designates as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres.
The DOE wishes to try and clean or mitigate many or all by 2025, however the task can be difficult & it acknowledges that some will never be completely remediated, and just in one of these 108 larger designations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there were for example at least "167 known contaminant release sites" in one of the three subdivisions of the 37,000 acre (150 km²) site.[2] Some of the U.S. sites were smaller in nature, however, and cleanup issues were simpler to address, and the DOE has successfully completed cleanup, or at least closure, of several sites.
Here's a link from the EPA on some info YOU might want to read:
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/radwaste/402-k-94-001-snf_hlw.htm
"Until a disposal or long-term storage facility is operational, most spent fuel is stored in water pools at the reactor site where it was produced. The water removes leftover heat generated by the spent fuel and serves as a radiation shield to protect workers at the site."
"The operation of nuclear reactors over the last twenty years has substantially added to the amount of radioactive waste in this country. As shown in Figure 1, by the year 2020, the total amount of spent fuel is expected to increase significantly."
"Some elements, such as plutonium, in HLW and spent fuel are highly radioactive and remain so for thousands of years. Therefore, the safe disposal of this waste is one of the most controversial environmental subjects facing the federal government and affected states.
The federal government (the EPA, the DOE, and the NRC) has overall responsibility for the safe disposal of HLW and spent fuel. The EPA is responsible for developing environmental standards that apply to both DOE-operated and NRC-licensed facilities. Currently, the NRC is responsible for licensing such facilities and ensuring their compliance with the EPA standards. DOE is responsible for developing the deep geologic repository which has been authorized by Congress for disposing of spent fuel and high level waste. Both the NRC and the Department of Transportation are responsible for regulating the transportation of these wastes to storage and disposal sites."
However, the cleanliness of nuclear power is nonsense. Not only does it contaminate the planet with long-lived radioactive waste, it significantly contributes to global warming.
While it is claimed that there is little or no fossil fuel used in producing nuclear power, the reality is that enormous quantities of fossil fuel are used to mine, mill and enrich the uranium needed to fuel a nuclear power plant, as well as to construct the enormous concrete reactor itself.
Indeed, a nuclear power plant must operate for 18 years before producing one net calorie of energy. (During the 1970s the United States deployed seven 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plants to enrich its uranium, and it is still using coal to enrich much of the world’s uranium.) So, to recoup the equivalent of the amount of fossil fuel used in preparation and construction before the first switch is thrown to initiate nuclear fission, the plant must operate for almost two decades.
But that is not the end of fossil fuel use because disassembling nuclear plants at the end of their 30- to 40-year operating life will require yet more vast quantities of energy. Taking apart, piece by radioactive piece, a nuclear reactor and its surrounding infrastructure is a massive operation: Imagine, for example, the amount of petrol, diesel, and electricity that would be used if the Sydney Opera House were to be dismantled. That’s the scale we’re talking about.
And that is not the end of fossil use because much will also be required for the final transport and longterm storage of nuclear waste generated by every reactor.
From a medical perspective, nuclear waste threatens global health. The toxicity of many elements in this radioactive mess is long-lived.
Strontium 90, for example, is tasteless, odorless, and invisible and remains radioactive for 600 years. Concentrating in the food chain, it emulates the mineral calcium. Contaminated milk enters the body, where strontium 90 concentrates in bones and lactating breasts later to cause bone cancer, leukemia, and breast cancer. Babies and children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults.
Plutonium, the most significant element in nuclear waste, is so carcinogenic that hypothetically half a kilo evenly distributed could cause cancer in everyone on Earth.
Lasting for half a million years, it enters the body through the lungs where it is known to cause cancer. It mimics iron in the body, migrating to bones, where it can induce bone cancer or leukemia, and to the liver, where it can cause primary liver cancer. It crosses the placenta into the embryo and, like the drug thalidomide, causes gross birth deformities.
Finally, plutonium has a predilection for the testicles, where it induces genetic mutations in the sperm of humans and other animals that are passed on from generation to generation.
Significantly, five kilos of plutonium is fuel for a nuclear weapon. Thus far, nuclear power has generated about 1,139 tons of plutonium.
So, nuclear power adds to global warming, increases the burden of radioactive materials in the ecosphere and threatens to contribute to nuclear proliferation. How's that for not knowing what I am talking about. Think before you personally judge someone without knowing them first. In the mean time, enlighten me further on how nuclear by products from nuclear reactors are good... I'm waiting with bated breath...
