Cadmium never decays. It isn&#x27;t dangerous for 10 kiloyears. It&#x27;s dangerous <i>forever</i>. And I guarantee you that your average barrel of cadmium is worse to deal with than your average nuclear waste flask.<p>Even more than that, a nuke plant generates, amortized, several tons of waste per year. A few flasks. Which can get shoved into a volume the size of your garage. And then you basically forget about it. Unlike, say, a coal plant, which generates a reservoir worth of awful ash a year. Containment isn&#x27;t even an <i>option</i> there.<p>Even more than <i>that</i>, even if our nuke plants vented directly into the atmosphere every now and then they&#x27;d still put out less radioactive waste than coal plants. Seriously, the only reason nuclear waste is dangerous is because it&#x27;s concentrated. If we held nuclear plants to the same standards  we do coal plants, &quot;safe, permanent disposal&quot; would be as simple as dumping it into the ocean and making sure it mixed up.