Although nuclear energy promises one of the safest and cleanest forms of electricity generation, it’s impossible to ignore its ugly drawback – nuclear waste. While nuclear waste does not pose as drastic a danger as popular media would suggest (there have been zero recorded deaths from nuclear waste), nuclear waste creates challenges in the fact that it remains radioactive for a long period of time and could, if not properly contained, harm humans or the environment during that timeframe.  

Some radioactive waste, low-level waste loses its radioactivity after a few years, so it is just stored in facilities for that duration, after which it can be disposed of in a conventional manner. Still, a considerable amount (around 20 tons per year for a 1000 MW reactor) of high-level waste is generated in the US, and this waste remains radioactive for millions of years. Currently, no solution has been devised to safely contain waste for this long, however there are three main types of short-term solutions that each have their pros and cons. 

Store on Site 

With a lack of federal action to control nuclear waste, nuclear energy vendors are currently obligated to store each plant’s waste on site. High level radioactive waste is first stored in pools for a few years, then it can be vitrified — the radioactive material is broken down and then melted with other radiation-absorbing elements to form a glass. This vitrified substance helps to contain radiation emission and is durable enough to prevent pieces of waste from fragmenting and spreading into the environment. Furthermore, this glass is then encased in a metal and concrete shell to further contain radiation and make the waste resistant to “earthquakes, projectiles, tornadoes, floods, temperature extremes and other scenarios” (NRC). These casks of concrete remain on site at the nuclear plant under continuous surveillance.  

Dry cask storage remains the most implementable solution to nuclear waste, but it is not without its problems. First is that communities living near nuclear plants are concerned with the minimal radiation released by these casks and would rather have nuclear waste shipped off-site. However, a greater problem is that dry casks are not a permanent solution. Although it is generally agreed that casks will last for at least 1,000 years, a lack of time for testing leaves uncertainty as to how casks will fare 100,000 – millions of years from now. Leaving this waste on the sites of nuclear reactors means that far into the future, radioactive contamination could potentially spread across many different areas in the US.  

Yucca Mountain: A Dumped Plan 

It would therefore be more convenient for future humans if all radioactive waste were stored in one national repository. Plans were originally made in 1987 by the federal government to establish a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, where nuclear waste would theoretically be able to be buried for millions or billions of years without contaminating the environment. However, after issues with planning and with public sentiment, the project was abandoned in 2010 amid speculation of seismic and volcanic activity in the region, and a recognition of the Yucca Mountain site as belonging to the native peoples of the region. However, the Trump administration revisited the Yucca Mountain repository as a potential project in 2017, meaning that could be the possibility of a national repository being built in the future.  

Reprocess, Recycle 

But what if there were a way to reuse nuclear waste to power more reactors? After a fuel assembly’s 3-5 years in a nuclear reactor, only 50% of the fissionable isotopes have been burned up, and 95.6% of the fuel is still composed of uranium. It would therefore seem safe and economical to chemically process spent fuel, removing the highly radioactive substances (2.9% of spent fuel) and re-manufacturing the rest of the metal into more fuel rods.  

However, although this concept is currently a part of the fuel cycle in countries like France and Japan, American agencies see used fuel reprocessing as too risky to implement. This is a valid argument, since reprocessing purifies the plutonium in fuel. Plutonium is the element most easily made into atomic weapons, causing concerns that terrorist organizations might target reprocessing plants to catastrophic effect. Although all fuel contains some plutonium, for other storage methods of fuel this plutonium is naturally combined with highly radioactive elements, making theft deadly and nearly impossible.  

Additionally, the cost of reprocessing also poses an issue, since the cost to reprocess fuels exceeds the current cost of mining and refining natural uranium and storing spent fuel in dry casks. Perhaps there will one day be a more efficient reprocessing method, but for now the consensus of scientists and civilians seems to be against it.  

The Current State 

As of now, the US has a safe and efficient method of storing nuclear waste with dry cask storage. Even though it is not a permanent solution, it should buy the country enough time to implement the policies and technologies to solve the problem of nuclear waste for good. 

 

Sources:

 Hagan, Eva. “Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository: What You Need to Know.” greenmatters, 21 Feb. 2023, https://www.greenmatters.com. 

Jacoby, Mitch. “As Nuclear Waste Piles up, Scientists Seek the Best Long-Term Storage Solutions.” Chemical and Engineering News, 30 Mar. 2020, https://cen.acs.org. 

“Backgrounder On Dry Cask Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel.” United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 12 Jun. 2023, https://www.nrc.gov. 

Von Hippel, Frank N. “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It’s Worth.” Scientific American, 1 May 2008, https://www.scientificamerican.com.