Lesson 1: Reading Lesson

The Challenge of Nuclear Waste

Since the beginning of the atomic age in the 1940’s, nuclear waste has been accumulating in the United States. This waste consists of spent nuclear fuel from reactors at commercial nuclear power plants, from Navy submarines and ships, and from defense and research reactors. Other nuclear waste, called high-level radioactive waste, is a byproduct of our national defense programs, and as we dismantle unneeded nuclear weapons we will have surplus plutonium to dispose of or treat.

Nuclear waste is stored in temporary facilities at more than 120 sites in 39 states. These storage sites are located in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Most are located near large bodies of water. In the United States today, more than 161 million people reside within 75 miles of temporarily stored nuclear waste.

Nuclear waste storage sites in the United States as of October 2005

A safe solution for the long-term management of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste is vital to ensure America’s national security, support energy security, secure disposal of nuclear waste, and provide for a cleaner environment.

Temporary Storage

Every nuclear power plant in the United States stores spent nuclear fuel in pools of water at their reactor sites. Some of the pools are full or nearly full with spent nuclear fuel. To supplement their fuel storage capacity, some nuclear power plants move their spent nuclear fuel to temporary dry-storage facilities. These facilities require continued maintenance in order to keep the waste isolated.

Storage pool for spent nuclear fuel

Temporary dry storage for spent nuclear fuel

Additionally, highlevel radioactive waste from national defense programs is stored in temporary facilities at government- controlled sites.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been working to close and clean up obsolete weapons plants and dispose of nuclear weapons materials. This has created a need to dispose of highly radioactive material associated with weapons production.

Why Nuclear Waste is Dangerous

When people hear the term “nuclear waste,” many think of it as a liquid that could leak into the environment or as an explosive that could blow up like a nuclear bomb. However, the wastes to be disposed of will not be in liquid form; they are, or will be made into, solid metals, ceramics, and glasses. Moreover, these wastes cannot cause an explosion.

Nuclear waste is dangerous because some of it will emit extremely high levels of radiation for tens of thousands of years. If, over time, enough water contacted the waste, it could eventually cause it to corrode (much as rust affects a bicycle if you leave it out in wet weather for a long time). The “rust” on nuclear waste would also be radioactive, and water could carry microscopic radioactive particles from the rust into the environment.

Permanent Disposal Options

These pellets of enriched uranium will be sealed inside metal fuel rods to generate electricity in a nuclear reactor. After three or four years in a reactor, the pellets will become inefficient for producing electricity and the fuel rods will be removed from the reactor. After removal, the fuel rods (now called spent nuclear fuel) will be highly radioactive, requiring safe long-term disposal.

For the last five decades, scientists throughout the world have been working to find the safest way to permanently dispose of nuclear waste. They have looked at many different options, such as shooting it into outer space, putting it into the ocean floor, or burying it in polar ice caps.

Nearly 50 years ago, the international scientific community determined that the best option for isolating highly radioactive waste is to put it deep underground in facilities called repositories. Scientists and researchers around the world agree that underground disposal is the best solution because it is technically feasible and because it

• Provides a waste disposal solution that keeps the public safe
  
  
• Provides for security from intrusion and terrorism
  
  
• Prevents the diversion of nuclear materials for harmful purposes
  
  
• Protects the environment for both the short and long term

With this international consensus, the U.S. and many of the world’s other nuclear nations have decided upon deep underground repositories as the long-term solution for disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

Another method of geologic disposal, using very deep boreholes has been and continues to be advocated by some scientists. The approach has merit, however, it is not the approach adopted in the United States or elsewhere. The repository approach is currently favored, largely because of site characterization and retrieval dificulties with the deep boreholes concept.

Societal Issues

The safe disposal of radioactive waste is not only a complex scientific and engineering problem, but also a difficult social and political issue.

In a democratic society, the government is often called upon to address the public’s concerns about important issues. For example, people are very concerned about protecting the environment. Therefore, our government has enacted many laws and regulations that limit pollution and prevent other damage to the environment. In order for these actions to become law, lawmakers had to weigh the impacts on different segments of our society such as energy, industry, and the economy and decide on a course of action that would reap the most benefits overall.

This quickly becomes complicated, because actions wanted by some segments of a society can adversely affect other segments. For example, regulations that control pollution can cost industry millions of dollars, which in turn may cause them to recover the costs by raising the prices of their goods and services. This could have an adverse effect on an area’s economy.

Nuclear waste is an environmental concern that has far-reaching implications in our society. For example, nuclear power plants provide 20 percent of our nation’s electricity. Many nuclear power plants are running out of room for their spent nuclear fuel and will not be able to operate in the future if there is no place to put it.

In making decisions for the safe disposal of nuclear waste, lawmakers must deal with other difficult societal issues

• How can people trust that their health and safety will be protected?
  
  
• Who should pay for the disposal of nuclear waste?
  
  
• How can the public be involved in decisions about nuclear waste?

Technical Issues

Rarely has there been an instance where science has been called on to solve problems that could occur thousands of years in the future. Yet to protect people and the environment from the radiation emitted by nuclear waste, scientists must solve many technical issues that could occur over thousands of years in the future.

These scientists in an underground laboratory at Yucca Mountain are testing how heat from the waste would affect the repository environment.

In deciding to permanently dispose of nuclear waste in an underground repository, there are many complex technical issues that need to be resolved, such as the following:

• What type of underground disposal system is needed for preventing radioactive particles from contaminating the environment?
  
  
• What kind of natural events could impact a repository’s safety in the future?
  
  
• What kind of materials could be used to prevent water from reaching the waste, and how can we determine if they will be durable over tens of thousands of years?

Approaching a Complex Task

The issues described above are only a few of the hundreds of societal and technical problems associated with nuclear waste. However, we have come a long way in working to solve these problems.

In 1982, the U.S. Congress passed a law called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In passing this law, Congress decided to permanently dispose of our nuclear wastes in an underground repository, rather than to leave the problem for future generations.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act sets forth many rules and regulations on how to approach the complex task of repository disposal. In a later lesson in this unit, you will learn more about this law and how it deals with both the societal and technical issues associated with nuclear waste.