Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled to reduce waste volumes and provide useful isotopes for other applications, although the US currently lacks the infrastructure to do so.

“we could do that but in the United States we don't currently have the infrastructure to do that so it would take a real government effort to move forward on recycling”

The current approach of storing nuclear waste on-site without a permanent solution is inadequate and essentially just a way of putting off the problem.

“it's almost embarrassing that this is what we're doing. We're just basically stashing it over here until we can figure out what to do with it in the long term. And we've been doing that for half a century.”

The current strategy of burying nuclear waste and forgetting it is an unnecessary and poor approach compared to more innovative recycling methods.

“right now we're going down the road that was proposed a long time ago, and it's kind of a dumb, unnecessary road.”