I'm old fart, so my sources are dated before leftard and right wing become a thing. In 'my time' word ecology are mostly unknown... well even people which hear somewhere about ecology in fact don't know what is meaning of this word... btw. this meaning 'evolve' during time. Just like Greenpeace are just funny little news to fill 5-6th page of newspaper, except when they make some loud public stunt, but more about Greenpeace latter. Ok. can we name it nuclear garbage instead of waste? By standards there is many level of 'nuclear garbage'. Some like protective cloth actually have very low level of contamination and can be disposed relatively sheep and simple. But there is many others stuff with high level of contamination, which will be dangerous very long time. So you really want to say that you never hear about secret trashing of nuclear garbage in third world countries? In my "neighbor" one Europe country bribe local politicians ( or make 'political pressure' or both ), and trash who know how many thousands of tons of highly radioactive 'garbage' in one salt mine. Well, my only trouble are that this mine is still in usage... but don't worry all is under control :p Fuck all this, this is one of best quality salt which you can get, now I only must believe that someone care about this. Are you so naive or? Don't be naive. There is no innocent, no one is 100% in right. In 'my time' both lobby are strong, pro nuclear and anti nuclear.... so called environment activist don't exist, at least they don't have any influence. Remember this is time before internet, before influencers, before Fakebook / Twatter, time before mobile phones... stone age :D Also this is time of cold war, which mean leftards and right wingers don't exist in this time. So I believe in this numbers. In public are all estimated cost of proper shutdown of average nuclear plant, without cost of safe disposal of nuclear garbage of course. Data was simplified to allow public to understand at least basic ( read this as politicians ), but numbers are accurate. Again no one say that data are manipulated, there are margins, but calculations are clear. And if you talk about influence I'm surprised that nuclear plants don't pass. There are pressure from both sides. From US. companies like Westinghouse and from Russian side. Both offer good deal, credits, and other benefits. In fact Westinghouse success to build one nuclear plant in other part of my former country... but this is combination of peculiar political reasons and bribery, totally different story. btw. this plant is still in usage although his expiration date has long passed and now are danger for entire region.... because this now independent little country become too dependent of this energy source.. and because they don't have money to shut this shit down. Instead they literally blackmail others, pay for shutdown and give us free energy. This is complex issue. Germany shutdown perfectly good nuclear plants and now have very expensive energy, one of highest in Europe..... governments don't care, this is citizens trouble... in fact higher price of energy, higher taxes... So this assholes actually earn money by screwing own citizens. Hmmm. this remind me on some states in Afro'murica with his green energy plans ;) But there are also clear examples of violation of safety protocols, negligence and very dangerous cutting of maintenance costs. In general Nuclear Plants are safe, but one big shit and consequences are long term disaster. I don't talk about numberless "small" incidents which don't affect environment too much. After all, such incidents are "normal" in every power plant. But when shit happen this are big long term shit... are this worthy? Ask people which live near Chernobyl or Fukushima, they only have rights to talk about this. Fossil fuel will disappear in relatively near future. Even today we use low quality coal which cause lot of pollution, because we already waste high quality coal. Green energy can't cover needs of humanity. Conventional nuclear plants are play with wildfire. Thorium reactors are still in development, just like fusion reactors. I have feeling that THEY™ will only get richer and more powerful because of this. PS. Greenpeace have good start. In his beginning they do many good stuff and draw public attention to some serious shit. Humans are cruel and selfish monsters. But Greenpeace are hijacked by shitheads and now is the total opposite of what they once were. Most of founders are kicked out or they flee and now are against his "own child". Just like Peta are now biggest animal danger on planet. well this is looooong writing .