It takes around 10 years to build a nuclear power plant now (from start of planning to first energy generation). We don't have the task force (trained engineers) to start building 400 nuclear reactors around the globe right now and we need at least 10 times more just to cover our current energy needs, let alone ones that we will have 20 years down the line. It all takes time, literally decades. Considering that we have 40 years of oil left, USA should be building at least a dozen nuclear reactors right now with another few dozen planned in next 10-20 years. EU is in no better situation (at least Russians can see that the gas they're pumping is running out).
It's more complicated than that, but If you want to see what limiting does to economy just turn on news today, there should be some reports from Greece, Italy or Spain... We have economy that is dependant on constant growth. Also, the doubling rate of 23 years is very much optimistic, oil demand increased by 7% every year since the 60's in USA so the consumption doubles every year.
It means, that in 60's alone we used more oil than in all of history, then we repeated this in 70's, 80's, 90's, every decade used more oil than was ever used before! Even if we did suddenly discover 3 times more oil than we currently estimate ever was, it would last only for 20 years of such growth above the 40 years of oil left!
making oil is not the same as mining it. We double oil consumption every 10 years, the current estimates for total oil (with unconfirmed reserves) are for about 40 years of such growth. Even if we did suddenly discover 3 times more oil than we currently estimate there ever was it would still allow only for 20 years of growth extra to a total of 60. The early estimates were based on on much lower estimates for total reserves. If you're under 30, you have a quite high chance to live to those times, you're children certainly will.
Thankfully, unlike bears, some of humans have foresight and can estimate that oil will run out in 40 years. Just look at current economy to see what a single digit percent "crisis" does. If we don't act now, 2050's will make 1930's look like a stroll in a park.
On July 4, 2011, a company in Spain celebrated an historic moment for the solar industry: Torresol’s 19.9 MW concentrating solar power plant became the first ever to generate uninterrupted electricity for 24 hours straight
So they just now achieved something any other power station could do after only 30 or 40 years of development. Future is bright indeed. Something the PWC report claims "a small loss in efficiency and no net increase in cost". Not only it doesn't have any citation backing, it's plain crazy talk! Any network using wind and solar for base load will require gigantic energy storage. If that doesn't triple the cost of whole project I'll be astounded. Even they suggest that thermal will only be similar in cost to coal somewhere between 2030 and 2045. When will it reach parity with nuclear? In 2070, assuming nuclear isn't developed during that time? I can go on with flaws in this report, I would probably see many problems with their number too if I had the time to actually check them.
As I said, it's a wonderful vision, but the actual outcome depends on many things: political stability in Northern Africa, working energy storage, no problems in large scale deployments of solar, Norwegians allowing using large swathes of their land for pumped storage, dramatic improvements to both wind and solar energy, that there won't be problems with managing power grid on the scale of Europe as a single system, etc. etc. If even one of those things will fail, we won't have enough energy. Considering that we don't have enough oil to last to 2050, I'd say that's playing with the devil, especially that the theoretical models barely make it for current demands.
All of this, just because people have irrational fear of nuclear energy. Energy that doesn't depend on stability of other countries, let alone whole Europe, doesn't need gigantic R&D spending to make it work at all, let alone reliably, doesn't require gigantic network of HVDC transmission (another new, unproven technology), doesn't require energy storage in TWh region, etc. etc. That's where this whole report is junk, because it doesn't address the elephant in the room.
I suggest you read something from other side of the debate, like "The Solar Fraud" by Howard C. Hayden
Of course, in addition to renewables, there are other routes to addressing those concerns -- most significantly, the expansion of nuclear power and the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) from the burning of fossil fuels. Our exclusion of these routes from this report is not intended as any comment on their merit. Our goal is to examine what it would take to shift even further to a 100% renewable electricity supply.
So they just ignore the nuclear completely. And they also note:
Achieving security, with flows of power from North Africa into Europe, in turn required the integration of Europe and North Africa into a single, well-functioning market,
At the time where the stability of whole EU is in question and there are problems adding Turkey to EU they are proposing to add Egypt, Libya, Marocco, Algeria and Tunisia to EU... It's a nice thought, but somehow I don't see it happening quickly enough to meet the 2050 goal.
Even they say that the electricity produced in North Africa will be from 3 to 6 times as expensive as nuclear! Calling it cheap is ridiculous! The interesting thing to note is in whole report the word "winter" isn't even used once and "night" is used a single time. Ignoring the problems of technology won't make them go away...
Even if it was technically possible, doesn't mean it will be economically viable and politically sane.
From the guardian article:
The 12 square kilometre Moroccan solar farm will, said Paul van Son, Dii's chief executive, be a "reference project" to prove to investors and policy makers in both Europe and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region that the Desertec vision is not a dream-like mirage, but one that can be a major source of renewable electricity in the decades ahead.
So it's still under question whatever it's feasible at all... (remember: night, winter, it's not like North Africa is in different time zone or hemisphere)
When you store the energy for how long? Self discharge for Li-Ion is over 5% per month. If you would want to store energy for 6 months you'd end up with 74% of original charge, add 90% efficiency of charge/discharge and you are at 66% efficiency for long term storage. 70% for pumped is the lowest estimate.
It's a very complicated system, and I did not do the detailed computer analysis necessary to really prove this hypothesis out, but it's certainly one worth exploring.
And we're back in square one. Humans don't always choose the best solution to a problem (see Betamax or Windows, just for two). Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really good idea and few enthusiastic people could probably pull it off. Problem is, it haven't been done before, not to mention the scale, so the chance for unforeseen problems is huge. Depending on its success would be very poor planning. Fossil fuels are running out now, not in 200 years.
Somehow I don't see Europeans depending on Libya or Egypt for most of their energy needs... Nuclear is much more sensible choice: it's proven, you are independent in your energy needs (no problem to buy and store fuel for few years, let alone to last through winter, build a breeder reactor and you're set for a hundred years with the same amount), there are no problems with clouds blocking sun or winds blowing too little or too much, doesn't require large amounts of rare-earth metals to work (in case of PV) or is much cheaper (in case of thermal solar).
Battery charge and discharge has efficiency in the order of 60%. That's pathetic in electricity land. Pumped storage (making use of huge lakes) has efficiency in the area of 90%. Wasting the space for warehouses to store batteries is, err, let me say, "not smart".
I don't claim that we can actually use it up in foreseeable future. I say that it's not enough on its own now to support our current, ever growing, energy needs.
It's about twice. If you have idea to use 50% of global geothermal energy I'm all ears. But this only proves that geothermal is infeasible right now, let alone in 10-20 years when we will be using twice as much energy as now...
People are lazy. Lazy enough to not be able to punch a single value to a web portal, let alone several.
As long as those values won't be defaults, people won't use them. Just look at Facebook privacy settings: not even half of the people change them, in a website most of them use every other hour.
Besides, to punch them in, I still have to have a "smart" fridge. I've yet to see one IRL, let alone buy one. Are you suggesting I should discard my perfectly fine, quite energy efficient (A class) one for a one that will save me few kWh of in peak energy? I'd say, that making the new fridge costed more energy that it will ever save over my current one.
Because you can't store any practical amount of electricity, you need to make it when there's demand. You can store sizeable amounts of coil, oil and gas. Also, unlike electricity, you don't have to build infrastructure before you can get it from somebody or some place else. There are big concerns over making Germany dependant on French electricity, you think that there won't be bigger uproar when the suggestion is to get it from Libya?
Could you tell me on which you base your opinion that "nuclear is immature technology"? How perfecting the technology by increasing fuel efficiency prove its immaturity? You call cars and planes immature too? Then this label is meaningless and we are talking about completely different concepts. Or are you suggesting that there absolutely and certainly won't be any problems with solar in truly large scale deployments? Things we simply can't predict now? That we are absolutely sure that energy storage in molten salt will prove itself in GWh- and TWh-scale instalments? The problems nuclear is facing now won't become truly bigger, they are known with known solutions. Nuclear is providing over 10% of electricity globally right now, all "renewables" (bear hydro) don't account for 1%. Chances that there will be problems in scaling technology 100 or 1000 times are much, much greater. We don't even have prototypes now that can work around the clock for a week...
If we look at cumulative reactor-hours since Chernobyl, you'll see that there have been more than 10 times as much reactor-time than until Chernobyl and since the beginning of nuclear power.
Oh, and don't forget that PV solar is expensive, thermal solar even more so, it is more than twice as expensive as nuclear. With economy in current state going solar will be painful, to say the least.
I don't claim that we can or that we even need to turn 100% of waste to fuel, but reducing it 10 fold is economically viable (yet alone possible). Also, unlike nuclear industry in general, re-processing is an immature technology, the already high effectiveness of those processes can still be increased. There always will be nuclear waste, but calling few thousand tonnes a year globally "a problem" is an overstatement. We have much higher quantities of much more deadly chemical industry waste that we don't deal with at all (see recent mercury sludge flood in Hungary), but because its not radioactive the general population doesn't consider it a problem.
That is just scaremongering. Dozens of radiation sources (highly radioactive sources used in medicine, for example) have been lost, many people died because of this. If usage of them in terrorist attack would pose a real threat they would have been used many times already. Thing is, that terrorists know that 1kg of plastic explosives will kill more people than 1kg of nuclear waste and explosives are easier to hide.
I doesn't look very plausible to me that insurers are wary of people coming in 20 years and asking for compensation for their cancer, which they'll have a very tough time proving as caused by radioactivity
Judges are members of general public and not nuclear scientists (or statisticians for that matter). Being subjected to around 100mSv of ionising radiation increases your chances of developing cancer by around 9% (under the linear no threshold model, cumulative yearly exposure). All people have about 30% chance to develop cancer anyway. But it's a high number (higher that limits in nuclear industry) where everyone subjected to it would want compensation, were actually less than 9% of people are viable.
The confidence interval is wide, however, and findings are also compatible with no reduction, as well as with greater reductions[emphasis mine] of risk at low doses.
According to Brenner and Elliston’s calculations, “a 45-year-old adult who plans to undergo 30 annual full-body CT examinations [about 360mSv total exposure] would potentially accrue an estimated lifetime cancer mortality risk of 1.9% (almost 1 in 50)
And later in paper suggest why LNT model is very probably wrong and why it is widely used.
I fail to see how solar captors on roofs or in the deserts shut down large extents of arable land.
Small installations have pitiful energy efficiency, especially for electricity generation, not every country has deserts to use as solar power plants (most of Europe doesn't). Suggesting that Europeans can use Sahara for this is a pipe dream to put it lightly, first we would have to move other nations from there... I don't say "abandon solar, it won't ever work", I say "Solar hasn't proven itself, it's immature technology, let's stop polluting with fossil and killing people with hydro, build nuclear instead while developing alternatives like fusion and solar". When we will have solar power plants that can average 90% load averaged over a year, we should stop building nuclear and go full solar (if it won't require obscene amounts of terrain).
Renewable energy never have benefited from such massive investments, which is too bad imho.
Maybe not, but renewable energy is a concept how old? 20 years? NP may have had huge public funding in the past, but are you telling me that we should waste it just because there is a possibility that in future we will have better alternatives? We should be closing fossil fuel power plants now (because of many reasons). The only power source viable to replace them without endangering or outright killing thousands of people every year is, perhaps counter-intuitively, nuclear.
However we've been inches from a major disaster, and you're advocating multiplying the existing nuclear reactors park a hundred-fold
Bear in mind that Fukushima was a very old design and that we already produce well over 10% of global electricity with nuclear. If we had increased 100 fold the number of reactors we have, we would have more than 4 times the total energy we need (including petrol for cars, coal for heating, etc.). H
There are reactors that can burn basically anything radioactive still... that's one.
Two: I don't see why the truly un-reprocessable stuff after glassification isn't considered to be dumped in continental subduction areas (Mariana trench for example), it's not like there are no radioactive elements in the Earth's core (or seawater if we consider that some of the stuff can leach from external layers on the way under) or that it can be a problem when discovered by future generations...
In the end, even if we truly have to store this stuff, it's not like we shouldn't do something similar with few orders of magnitude more of chemical industry waste. Some of it much more deadly than nuclear...
What sells is marketing, not a product. You're asking why the crappiest OS (fanboys disclaimer: I mean technology wise, not usefulness wise, this come later) is used on most of personal computers.
Slashdot Mirror
It takes around 10 years to build a nuclear power plant now (from start of planning to first energy generation). We don't have the task force (trained engineers) to start building 400 nuclear reactors around the globe right now and we need at least 10 times more just to cover our current energy needs, let alone ones that we will have 20 years down the line. It all takes time, literally decades. Considering that we have 40 years of oil left, USA should be building at least a dozen nuclear reactors right now with another few dozen planned in next 10-20 years. EU is in no better situation (at least Russians can see that the gas they're pumping is running out).
It's more complicated than that, but If you want to see what limiting does to economy just turn on news today, there should be some reports from Greece, Italy or Spain... We have economy that is dependant on constant growth. Also, the doubling rate of 23 years is very much optimistic, oil demand increased by 7% every year since the 60's in USA so the consumption doubles every year.
It means, that in 60's alone we used more oil than in all of history, then we repeated this in 70's, 80's, 90's, every decade used more oil than was ever used before! Even if we did suddenly discover 3 times more oil than we currently estimate ever was, it would last only for 20 years of such growth above the 40 years of oil left!
making oil is not the same as mining it. We double oil consumption every 10 years, the current estimates for total oil (with unconfirmed reserves) are for about 40 years of such growth. Even if we did suddenly discover 3 times more oil than we currently estimate there ever was it would still allow only for 20 years of growth extra to a total of 60. The early estimates were based on on much lower estimates for total reserves. If you're under 30, you have a quite high chance to live to those times, you're children certainly will.
Thankfully, unlike bears, some of humans have foresight and can estimate that oil will run out in 40 years. Just look at current economy to see what a single digit percent "crisis" does. If we don't act now, 2050's will make 1930's look like a stroll in a park.
On July 4, 2011, a company in Spain celebrated an historic moment for the solar industry: Torresol’s 19.9 MW concentrating solar power plant became the first ever to generate uninterrupted electricity for 24 hours straight
So they just now achieved something any other power station could do after only 30 or 40 years of development. Future is bright indeed. Something the PWC report claims "a small loss in efficiency and no net increase in cost". Not only it doesn't have any citation backing, it's plain crazy talk! Any network using wind and solar for base load will require gigantic energy storage. If that doesn't triple the cost of whole project I'll be astounded. Even they suggest that thermal will only be similar in cost to coal somewhere between 2030 and 2045. When will it reach parity with nuclear? In 2070, assuming nuclear isn't developed during that time? I can go on with flaws in this report, I would probably see many problems with their number too if I had the time to actually check them.
As I said, it's a wonderful vision, but the actual outcome depends on many things: political stability in Northern Africa, working energy storage, no problems in large scale deployments of solar, Norwegians allowing using large swathes of their land for pumped storage, dramatic improvements to both wind and solar energy, that there won't be problems with managing power grid on the scale of Europe as a single system, etc. etc. If even one of those things will fail, we won't have enough energy. Considering that we don't have enough oil to last to 2050, I'd say that's playing with the devil, especially that the theoretical models barely make it for current demands.
All of this, just because people have irrational fear of nuclear energy. Energy that doesn't depend on stability of other countries, let alone whole Europe, doesn't need gigantic R&D spending to make it work at all, let alone reliably, doesn't require gigantic network of HVDC transmission (another new, unproven technology), doesn't require energy storage in TWh region, etc. etc. That's where this whole report is junk, because it doesn't address the elephant in the room.
I suggest you read something from other side of the debate, like "The Solar Fraud" by Howard C. Hayden
Any chance for statistics backing the 95% number? How many of those pirates actually played the game for more than an hour?
Just be honest and say that the console players will put up with worse games and more expensive games.
Of course, in addition to renewables, there are other routes to addressing those concerns -- most significantly, the expansion of nuclear power and the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) from the burning of fossil fuels. Our exclusion of these routes from this report is not intended as any comment on their merit. Our goal is to examine what it would take to shift even further to a 100% renewable electricity supply.
So they just ignore the nuclear completely. And they also note:
Achieving security, with flows of power from North Africa into Europe, in turn required the integration of Europe and North Africa into a single, well-functioning market,
At the time where the stability of whole EU is in question and there are problems adding Turkey to EU they are proposing to add Egypt, Libya, Marocco, Algeria and Tunisia to EU... It's a nice thought, but somehow I don't see it happening quickly enough to meet the 2050 goal.
Even they say that the electricity produced in North Africa will be from 3 to 6 times as expensive as nuclear! Calling it cheap is ridiculous! The interesting thing to note is in whole report the word "winter" isn't even used once and "night" is used a single time. Ignoring the problems of technology won't make them go away...
Even if it was technically possible, doesn't mean it will be economically viable and politically sane.
From the guardian article:
The 12 square kilometre Moroccan solar farm will, said Paul van Son, Dii's chief executive, be a "reference project" to prove to investors and policy makers in both Europe and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region that the Desertec vision is not a dream-like mirage, but one that can be a major source of renewable electricity in the decades ahead.
So it's still under question whatever it's feasible at all... (remember: night, winter, it's not like North Africa is in different time zone or hemisphere)
When you store the energy for how long? Self discharge for Li-Ion is over 5% per month. If you would want to store energy for 6 months you'd end up with 74% of original charge, add 90% efficiency of charge/discharge and you are at 66% efficiency for long term storage. 70% for pumped is the lowest estimate.
Both systems are pathetic.
It's a very complicated system, and I did not do the detailed computer analysis necessary to really prove this hypothesis out, but it's certainly one worth exploring.
And we're back in square one. Humans don't always choose the best solution to a problem (see Betamax or Windows, just for two). Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really good idea and few enthusiastic people could probably pull it off. Problem is, it haven't been done before, not to mention the scale, so the chance for unforeseen problems is huge. Depending on its success would be very poor planning. Fossil fuels are running out now, not in 200 years.
Somehow I don't see Europeans depending on Libya or Egypt for most of their energy needs... Nuclear is much more sensible choice: it's proven, you are independent in your energy needs (no problem to buy and store fuel for few years, let alone to last through winter, build a breeder reactor and you're set for a hundred years with the same amount), there are no problems with clouds blocking sun or winds blowing too little or too much, doesn't require large amounts of rare-earth metals to work (in case of PV) or is much cheaper (in case of thermal solar).
So they are not "infinite" and its just marketdroid speak. The only thing infinite is human stupidity.
You would have much bigger problems to store energy from summer to last you through winter...
Battery charge and discharge has efficiency in the order of 60%. That's pathetic in electricity land. Pumped storage (making use of huge lakes) has efficiency in the area of 90%. Wasting the space for warehouses to store batteries is, err, let me say, "not smart".
Wasn't some recent version of OpenSSL actually FIPS approved?
Don't get me wrong, I don't see anything bad in allowing the user choose which crypto library to use.
I don't claim that we can actually use it up in foreseeable future. I say that it's not enough on its own now to support our current, ever growing, energy needs.
It's about twice. If you have idea to use 50% of global geothermal energy I'm all ears. But this only proves that geothermal is infeasible right now, let alone in 10-20 years when we will be using twice as much energy as now...
People are lazy. Lazy enough to not be able to punch a single value to a web portal, let alone several.
As long as those values won't be defaults, people won't use them. Just look at Facebook privacy settings: not even half of the people change them, in a website most of them use every other hour.
Besides, to punch them in, I still have to have a "smart" fridge. I've yet to see one IRL, let alone buy one. Are you suggesting I should discard my perfectly fine, quite energy efficient (A class) one for a one that will save me few kWh of in peak energy? I'd say, that making the new fridge costed more energy that it will ever save over my current one.
4.75 + 1 in my book is very close to the "old, frowned up, value" of six...
Because you can't store any practical amount of electricity, you need to make it when there's demand. You can store sizeable amounts of coil, oil and gas. Also, unlike electricity, you don't have to build infrastructure before you can get it from somebody or some place else. There are big concerns over making Germany dependant on French electricity, you think that there won't be bigger uproar when the suggestion is to get it from Libya?
Could you tell me on which you base your opinion that "nuclear is immature technology"? How perfecting the technology by increasing fuel efficiency prove its immaturity? You call cars and planes immature too? Then this label is meaningless and we are talking about completely different concepts. Or are you suggesting that there absolutely and certainly won't be any problems with solar in truly large scale deployments? Things we simply can't predict now? That we are absolutely sure that energy storage in molten salt will prove itself in GWh- and TWh-scale instalments? The problems nuclear is facing now won't become truly bigger, they are known with known solutions. Nuclear is providing over 10% of electricity globally right now, all "renewables" (bear hydro) don't account for 1%. Chances that there will be problems in scaling technology 100 or 1000 times are much, much greater. We don't even have prototypes now that can work around the clock for a week...
If we look at cumulative reactor-hours since Chernobyl, you'll see that there have been more than 10 times as much reactor-time than until Chernobyl and since the beginning of nuclear power.
Oh, and don't forget that PV solar is expensive, thermal solar even more so, it is more than twice as expensive as nuclear. With economy in current state going solar will be painful, to say the least.
I don't claim that we can or that we even need to turn 100% of waste to fuel, but reducing it 10 fold is economically viable (yet alone possible). Also, unlike nuclear industry in general, re-processing is an immature technology, the already high effectiveness of those processes can still be increased. There always will be nuclear waste, but calling few thousand tonnes a year globally "a problem" is an overstatement. We have much higher quantities of much more deadly chemical industry waste that we don't deal with at all (see recent mercury sludge flood in Hungary), but because its not radioactive the general population doesn't consider it a problem.
Terrorists could never get hold of nuclear waste
That is just scaremongering. Dozens of radiation sources (highly radioactive sources used in medicine, for example) have been lost, many people died because of this. If usage of them in terrorist attack would pose a real threat they would have been used many times already. Thing is, that terrorists know that 1kg of plastic explosives will kill more people than 1kg of nuclear waste and explosives are easier to hide.
I doesn't look very plausible to me that insurers are wary of people coming in 20 years and asking for compensation for their cancer, which they'll have a very tough time proving as caused by radioactivity
Judges are members of general public and not nuclear scientists (or statisticians for that matter). Being subjected to around 100mSv of ionising radiation increases your chances of developing cancer by around 9% (under the linear no threshold model, cumulative yearly exposure). All people have about 30% chance to develop cancer anyway. But it's a high number (higher that limits in nuclear industry) where everyone subjected to it would want compensation, were actually less than 9% of people are viable.
After http://www.bmj.com/content/331/7508/77?view=long&pmid=15987704
The confidence interval is wide, however, and findings are also compatible with no reduction, as well as with greater reductions[emphasis mine] of risk at low doses.
Correspondingly, Natonal Research Council http://wayback.archive.org/web/jsp/Interstitial.jsp?seconds=5&date=1183490379000&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nap.edu%2Fexecsumm_pdf%2F11340.pdf&target=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fweb%2F20070703191939%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.nap.edu%2Fexecsumm_pdf%2F11340.pdf writes:
According to Brenner and Elliston’s calculations, “a 45-year-old adult who plans to undergo 30 annual full-body CT examinations [about 360mSv total exposure] would potentially accrue an estimated lifetime cancer mortality risk of 1.9% (almost 1 in 50)
And later in paper suggest why LNT model is very probably wrong and why it is widely used.
I fail to see how solar captors on roofs or in the deserts shut down large extents of arable land.
Small installations have pitiful energy efficiency, especially for electricity generation, not every country has deserts to use as solar power plants (most of Europe doesn't). Suggesting that Europeans can use Sahara for this is a pipe dream to put it lightly, first we would have to move other nations from there... I don't say "abandon solar, it won't ever work", I say "Solar hasn't proven itself, it's immature technology, let's stop polluting with fossil and killing people with hydro, build nuclear instead while developing alternatives like fusion and solar". When we will have solar power plants that can average 90% load averaged over a year, we should stop building nuclear and go full solar (if it won't require obscene amounts of terrain).
Renewable energy never have benefited from such massive investments, which is too bad imho.
Maybe not, but renewable energy is a concept how old? 20 years? NP may have had huge public funding in the past, but are you telling me that we should waste it just because there is a possibility that in future we will have better alternatives? We should be closing fossil fuel power plants now (because of many reasons). The only power source viable to replace them without endangering or outright killing thousands of people every year is, perhaps counter-intuitively, nuclear.
However we've been inches from a major disaster, and you're advocating multiplying the existing nuclear reactors park a hundred-fold
Bear in mind that Fukushima was a very old design and that we already produce well over 10% of global electricity with nuclear. If we had increased 100 fold the number of reactors we have, we would have more than 4 times the total energy we need (including petrol for cars, coal for heating, etc.). H
There are reactors that can burn basically anything radioactive still... that's one.
Two: I don't see why the truly un-reprocessable stuff after glassification isn't considered to be dumped in continental subduction areas (Mariana trench for example), it's not like there are no radioactive elements in the Earth's core (or seawater if we consider that some of the stuff can leach from external layers on the way under) or that it can be a problem when discovered by future generations...
In the end, even if we truly have to store this stuff, it's not like we shouldn't do something similar with few orders of magnitude more of chemical industry waste. Some of it much more deadly than nuclear...
Institute for Penalizing Laughter
What sells is marketing, not a product. You're asking why the crappiest OS (fanboys disclaimer: I mean technology wise, not usefulness wise, this come later) is used on most of personal computers.