[MadMax]

I'm curious. If today, it was decided that in 2050 we are going to have nuclear power, how the hell are we to achieve that? My cynicism is high but here we go...

We have no operators nor engineers to build it so we'd need to invest more in education. At the moment industries across many sectors in NZ have gear that they have to fly in someone from Australia when a machine breaks down. The training would be a fantastic plus - begin with today's generation of kids with pathways to operating and maintaining such a beast. Keep in mind we'll need to pay them very well so as to keep them from taking their education overseas.

Where are we going to put it? "NIMBY" that's for sure, maybe somewhere off-shore like Motiti Island?

Where to put the waste? Finland's new Onkalo at a cost of 3.5 billion euros for 60km of tunnels will provide storage for 100 years. One hopes that's enough time for a cleaner option to be developed. Curiously (well, due to politics no doubt) the US still doesn't have such a site. One very small point is that the US couldn't find a way to warn future people about the hazard of a long term storage site. The Finnish decided simply that once theirs has been sealed up they won't have any warnings signs at all so as to prevent future humans from digging it up out of curiosity.

Either we build a small one - at a waste of all the above effort or we build a decently sized one, keeping in mind that there would need to be the same amount of alternative generation available on hand for when the nuclear plant needs to be taken offline.