Comment Re:Is it some curious psychological quirk? (Score 3, Interesting) 123
Above ground has two disadvantages that come to my mind:
1. You have to guarantee for the maintenance of the storage facility. Otherwise it will decay and expose the stored material to the outside world. This is a problem in the long term because you have to preserve the technology and knowledge on how to do it as well as keep the personnel around.
2. Any kind of waste is better protected from any forces on the surface when buried underground. Natural disasters and man-made weapons or tools can destroy anything we can build above ground and expose its content. This is a lot harder when you have hundreds of meters of solid ground to dig through first. Nukes detonated on or above the surface won't do that much damage down there and won't form craters deep enough to release any waste stored down there. And those are the most powerful weapons we currently have.