Does nuclear power produce radioactive waste?

Answer 1

Yes. It is contained in the spent fuel rods, which when they have been used too much to be useful anymore are removed from the reactor and stored in a large pool of water to keep them cool until most of the radioactivity has decayed (the energy released in radioactive decay could heat them hot enough to melt if they were not cooled). They were then supposed to be removed from the temporary storage pool and shipped to a long term storage facility or a reprocessing plant, but the US has built neither so the spent fuel rods remain in the temporary storage pools.

Also coal fired plants produce and release coal waste, which includes radioactive uranium oxides in the smoke (nuclear power plants do not release their wastes).

Answer 2

• nuclear, produce radioactive waste but keep it contained in the core as long as the plant operates properly
• coal fired, do not produce radioactive waste but emit both ash and smoke which contain radioactive uranium that was naturally present in the coal
• other types, neither produce nor emit anything radioactive
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• Coal fired power plants release radioactive materials 100 times that of nuclear power plants of the same rated power.