Nuclear "waste" can actually be used as fuel again, we just need to research that technology.
You still need a lot more plastic and rare earths for solar and wind compared with nuclear (per watt).
I think solar and wind are a good intermediate step but not for long-term.
Maybe. I saw a Google X talk a couple years ago from some grad students at MIT that wanted to build a nuclear power plant that closed the fuel cycle loop. (which is what you're talking about). They made some very grand promises about how this would solve the HLW problem.
Unfortunately a few years later they had to issue a correction, because older (more experienced) engineered stepped in and showed them where the mistakes in their work were, and they couldn't eliminate nearly as much HLW as they thought with existing technology.
In other words, a closed nuclear fuel cycle doesn't exist. We could be better than we are currently with investments in molten salt and fast reactors, but I don't think we know how to get to zero HLW using fission.
Considering that HLW lasts for a million years, that's imposing too high a cost on too many of our descendants, IMO.
My personal belief is that solar and wind are the best way to go for now, and if we ever get zero-HLW fission or aneutronic fusion working, cool.
You're referring to the Transatomic 2-student company's claims that their epithermal-neutron molten salt reactor could burn nuclear waste as fuel without additional fissile feed stock. Professor Kord Smith and others pointed out their error.
However, that their whimsical concept didn't live up to its hype is no reason to claim that the closed nuclear fuel cycle doesn't exist. Breeding more fuel than you consume in an advanced reactor was proven in the Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 near Arco Idaho in the early 1950s. The physical concept of breeding and closing the cycle is well-proven and 100% proven possible. No one debates this.
People do debate how much it costs vs. the status quo of just mining uranium. Uranium is cheaper than recycling spent fuel, so we mine uranium. It's that simple. If we decided uranium was running low and drove prices up, reprocessing waste would become more economical and more people would do it.
