a) "High level waste" retains 95% of it recoverable energy so misnamed. France has done an excellent job of vitrification. One visiting leader asked what France had done with ....the lead energy person said " you are sitting on it" ..it was the floor of the facility.
The actual scale of rods needing refurbishing is small...a fooball field 3m deep ....which if actually gathered would be a hellish result.

Meanwhite sitting in cooling ponds indefinitely is fine ( except on the upper floors ) until a decision is made to starting a fast breeder program
https://catalyst.independent.org/2021/0 ... lear-fuel/
which aside from producing power reduces the scale of the spent material by 95% and the half life dramatically.

Yucca mountain was closed in 2010.
....

b) I'm skeptical compressed nitrogen would be effective storage/transport against the energy density of green hydrogen which has some momentum.
There are already storage for renewables that involved compressed air for after hours use.

There was a good article in Sci-Am on the hydrogen economy a good while back ( 1973 ) . I wrote the authors when I did not hear anything further and they said regretfully it had not moved forward.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... n-economy/

A hunt on "the hydrogen economy" brings up a variety of good articles.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... s-future1/

I always considered it the dark horse in the race for carbon neutral. A hydrogen fuel cell aircraft ( hybrid ) is taking its first tests this year with 700bar tanks.
I've revised my thoughts to .....it's a contender or tag team partner to mix my metaphors.

Solid-State Hydrogen Storage Systems and the Relevance of ... https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/energ ... 158-v2.pdf good read.

Hydrides really are the holy grail but....
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-hydrogen- ... l-gas.html
It ain't been grasped yet tho there are serious glimmers.
snip

In the recent research, the scientists found a new way to ease the thermodynamic limitation. The team focused on one typical metastable metal hydride called alane. Alane, or aluminum hydride, has a volumetric hydrogen density twice that of liquid hydrogen. However, converting bulk metallic aluminum into alane was long thought to be impossible except under extreme conditions with more than 6,900 atmospheres of dihydrogen (H2) pressure.

The team developed a nanoconfined material with improved thermodynamics of alane regeneration. They found that alane situated within the nanopores of a highly porous bipyridine-functionalized covalent triazine framework can be regenerated at a H2 pressure of only 700 bar (690 atmospheres), which is tenfold lower than that required for its bulk counterpart. This pressure is readily achievable in commercial hydrogen fueling stations, although further improvements are necessary to achieve rapid fueling.

Not entirely sure what your point is?

Impacts at all sites
Most of the SEA conclusions regarding the potential impact of an RPV store apply to all the shortlisted sites. These are summarised below.
On all sites, there would be minor negative effects from greenhouse gases and energy use for all stages of the project lifecycle though construction, use and eventual decommissioning.
Minor adverse temporary effects are anticipated during construction and decommissioning:
 There is potential for temporary disturbance of habitats and/or wildlife.
 Despite mitigation, there will be some noise and vibration.
 Minor changes to local roads may be required but they are expected to be of minor significance.
 There is some potential for mobilising historic contaminants, depending on the site.
 There may be a temporary visual impact from tall plant (e.g. cranes) and traffic (particularly HGVs).
 There may be minor negative effects on waste generation and the capacity of waste management facilities during construction and demolition.
No significant effects are anticipated in the following areas:
 Minimal or no radiological discharges are currently anticipated. This, together with strict regulation, means there are no likely significant effects on local health and well-being.
 There are no land use change issues.

Best use of existing nuclear sites is to add SMRs or concentrate renewables to make use of the existing grid facilities.

To a point yes - you can either accept they know what they are doing with nuclear materials or not.
I have more concern about the handling of medical waste including nuclear.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3068798/

But then we have 60 years of very safe nuclear power in Canada as proof. All technology carries some risk.
It's the strength of the oversight for safety that is critical with nuclear and really any technology. IMNSHO the oversight of fission power is very strong compared to say coal tailings which have a far greater history of contamination and are also long term threats as well as near term.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ear-waste/

My bullet points are from your link.

You linked the document.

All sites with nuclear facilities face long term monitoring even if nuclear facilities are retired same goes for chemical and mining sites.
With nukes tho there is no reason not to repurpose the site for additional power generation even it is with renewables....the grid facilities are increasingly valuable.
There are people living in the Chernobyl region which is rewilding....

If you are concerned about low level radiation...consider not flying or eating bananas

Interesting article

The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl’s Apples
BY DAN NOSOWITZ
APRIL 21, 2015



FOR THE PAST COUPLE OF years, a young woman known only as “Bionerd23” has been making strange, dangerous videos in and around one of the most infamous nuclear zones on Earth—the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Nothing is too radioactive or risky for her. She has shown herself getting injected with the radionuclide technetium, eating radioactive apples from a tree in Chernobyl, being chased by a possibly rabid fox, and picking up fragments of the nuclear plant’s reactor fuel with her bare hands. When a freakishly large catfish appears on camera, she calmly explains that it’s probably not a mutant—“They are just that way because nobody catches them,” she says in a video, watching a six-foot-long catfish, eerily like a shark, swim around a murky pool of water.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/t ... l-s-apples

Many studies demonstrated that radiation effects are far from linear. Moreover, experimental, epidemiological, and ecological studies have shown that low doses of ionizing radiation can be beneficial to health. Beneficial low-dose effects of an agent that is harmful in high doses are called hormesis

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477686/