Public concern about nuclear power goes beyond an accident at a live plant. What do we do with the nuclear waste? If nuclear is to grow to become a major replacement for oil and gas the question must be answered. James Conca reviews the different methods that have been seriously considered: shooting it into space, burying it in deep sea trenches or under ice sheets, transmutation, or simply digging it even deeper underground.
Nuclear waste disposal presents a frustrating problem far beyond its actual danger. Nuclear waste from commercial nuclear power operations is neither particularly hazardous nor hard to manage relative to other toxic industrial wastes. It’s a solid that can’t leak, it’s strictly monitored, is all in one place and the regulators, like the IAEA or the NRC, know where that place is. Contrast that with agricultural fertilisers, toxic coal waste, and many chemical wastes that are spread across continents, factory sewage that may or may not be disposed of properly depending on how seriously the host nation takes the environment, and consumer plastics that find their way from our very hands into the guts of endangered whales in the Pacific. Defense-generated waste can be more difficult to handle than commercial waste but only the United States and Russia have significant amounts of defense waste.
In addition, the amount of radioactive waste is very small relative to any other waste stream. Waste produced by fossil fuel electricity generation from coal is about eleven million times greater than nuclear per kWh produced. All nuclear waste in the world could fit into one repository, although that is highly unlikely considering the public’s fear and international politics.
But we do have to find a final resting place for nuclear waste as it decays away back to the levels of the ore from which it came.
The history of nuclear waste
The creation of nuclear waste really begins with WWII and the making of the Bomb. The production and reprocessing of fuel from weapons reactors to make Pu (Plutonium) resulted in the first significant amount of nuclear waste beginning in 1944. We had no idea what this stuff was, let alone anything about the environmental, so the United States just built million-gallon tanks at Hanford in Washington State, among other places, to store this material while we won the war.
There are several types of nuclear waste. Low-Level Waste (LLW), Intermediate-Level (ILW, in Europe and most of the rest of the world, not the U.S.), Transuranic (TRU, only in the U.S. and only bomb waste without much Cs-137 or Sr-90), High-Level (HLW) and Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF, from commercial power plants only).
In the U.S., HLW is only bomb waste with lots of Cs-137 and Sr-90, it does not include SNF. In Europe, where there is little bomb waste, HLW includes SNF and the separated waste from reprocessing of SNF to make new fuel.
In Europe, exempt waste and very low level waste (VLLW) contains radioactive materials at a level which is not considered harmful to people or the surrounding environment. LLW is generated from hospitals and industry, as well as parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. ILW contains higher amounts of radioactivity and requires some shielding.
In the U.S., TRU, HLW and SNF require deep geologic disposal by law. In Europe, ILW and HLW require deep geologic disposal by law.
The U.S., along with the Soviet Union, ramped up weapons production during the Cold War. Other countries, like Britain, France, China, Israel, India, South Africa, Pakistan and now North Korea, joined the weapons race, but the amount of weapons waste is tiny anywhere except the U.S. and Russia.
With the advent of commercial power reactors in the 1950s, and the increasing frenzy of weapons production, it became obvious that we needed a real strategy for long-term disposition of nuclear waste. The U.S. government commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to come up with the best strategy and, in 1957, they reported that deep (half-a-mile or so) geologic disposal was best, and that massive bedded salt was the best rock type (National Academies Press).
This makes sense. I love the Pyramids, but only the Earth makes things that last millions of years. Humans don’t.
Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP): the first deep repository
The NAS’ choice of massive salt (not thin salt like Asse, or domed salts that can move over time) led directly to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP), the first deep geologic repository to open in the world. WIPP was designed and built for all nuclear waste of any type.
A U.S. splinter strategy in the 1970s, involving retrievability of spent nuclear fuel from the depths, led to the Yucca Mountain project for SNF and HLW, and a narrowing of WIPP’s mission to just TRU waste disposal.
This is where we are today. Yucca Mountain is in stasis, and WIPP is continuing operations. Along with the U.S., France, Sweden and Finland are farthest along in their nuclear waste programs.
Over 100,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste, more than was ever destined for Yucca Mt., have been disposed of near Carlsbad, NM, a half-mile below the Earth in the molecularly-tight salts of the WIPP site. Note the really hot waste plunged into boreholes in the wall to the left and plugged, while the plutonium weapons waste fills the bulk of the room. The technician shown is receiving about a tenth of the radiation dose that you are getting reading this post, ironic since he is standing directly in front of nuclear waste. Source: DOE CBFO
France, Sweden and Finland
Finland has a policy of direct disposal of nuclear waste without reprocessing of SNF. Their disposal program started in 1983 and they have two spent fuel storage sites in operation. Posiva Oy was set up 1995 to implement deep geological disposal. Their underground research laboratory, Onkalo, is under construction, and the repository planned from this work, near Olkiluoto, is scheduled to open in 2023.
Sweden has a policy of direct disposal of nuclear waste without reprocessing of SNF. The central spent fuel storage facility – CLAB – has been in operation since 1985. Their underground research laboratory at Aspo is for developing a HLW repository. The Osthammar site has been selected for the repository and is a public volunteered location. It is scheduled to open in 2028.
France has a policy of reprocessing SNF for new nuclear fuel followed by disposal of the resulting ILW. France also has a nuclear weapons program that has generated significant ILW. Their underground rock laboratories are in clay and granite. The French Parliament confirmed deep geological disposal for nuclear waste in 2006, and the waste containers are to be retrievable and the policy “reversible”. This leads to significantly higher costs.
Alternatives to half-mile deep geological disposal
In the 1970s, there was a push to investigate alternatives to geologic disposal since it was becoming obvious we wouldn’t soon agree on any location. Significant time was spent on evaluating these ideas (Mark Holt, Congressional Research Service), and the most reasonable included:
- Shoot it into the Sun (did I say reasonable?)
- Transmute it by bombarding it with high energy particles (alchemy with an accelerator)
- Â Sail it out to a deep ocean trench and drop it in (Exxon Valdez 21st Century)
- Drill deep (miles) boreholes in a thick Ice Sheet and drop in everyone’s canisters (Exxon Valdez on Ice)
- Drill deep (miles) boreholes in each State or Country that has waste and drop in the canisters (distributed liability)
There were others, but these were seriously considered, and some of them still are.
Shoot it into the Sun. While theoretically correct (the Sun is a huge nuclear reactor that would completely consume this waste) the extreme cost, and risks of an accident, speaks for itself. Plus, the giggle factor was just too much to get over. But in all fairness, we had recently landed on the Moon so space was in our thoughts and, originally starting out as a planetary geologist, I thought this idea was a gas.
Taking waste into outer space would require quite large vehicles, like the Saturn 5 rocket shown here carrying the Apollo 14 crew to the Moon. A huge fireball forms underneath the rocket…hmm…would that be wise? Source: NASA
Transmutation. Bombarding the waste, or individual components of it, in nuclear reactors or linear accelerators, can transmute radioactive elements into less hazardous and non-radioactive elements. Take two of the bad boys, technetium-99 and iodine-129, both of which dissolve easily and can move with the groundwater, and represent a major dose early in most repository performance assessment models. Each isotope absorbs a neutron if you bombard them. Tc-99 becomes Tc-100, which quickly decays into stable ruthenium, and I-129 transforms into stable xenon. You might imagine how very expensive and time consuming this process would be, even if we had enough accelerators and reactors for this purpose.
Sail it out to a deep ocean trench and drop it in. This is not a bad idea geologically – cold impermeable, oxygen-free, self-sealing ooze that will eventually get dragged down into the trench formed between two colliding crustal plates. But trenches are in international waters, and if you thought getting 50 States in the U.S. to agree on a single solution was hard, just think 193 sovereign nations.
Ice Sheets. Given global warming, I’m not sure this is cool. The Greenland sheet no longer suffices in terms of stability or ice depth. The Arctic is too thin as it sits mostly over water. West Antarctica is also too thin and covers a huge archipelago that may soon emerge from below to above sea level. Only East Antarctica is thick enough and will be for millennia. Again, these are international unclaimed lands that are extremely dangerous and expensive to get to.
Deep borehole disposal. Bore miles deep into the crust and put the waste in many packages. This is not a bad idea at all, but is really only for commercial waste, since the boreholes would be drilled in each State that has the waste itself, few populations would accept other States’ waste, and no one would accept the weapons waste (Sandia National Labs). Although some technology development is needed to drill larger holes deeper, it appears doable. Assuming some favorable breaks, the cost would be in the ballpark of proposed traditional geologic repositories, and may even get down to that of just expanding WIPP. But you’d then have over thirty nuclear waste sites spread out over the U.S. and dozens more in separate countries. Would that be good? Would it be bad? More equitable? That deep in the crust means that overlying features, such as aquifers, don’t matter. There is no mechanism or geologic process to get anything up from that depth in less than a million years as long as you don’t put it under a volcano or along a huge fault.
Deep Borehole Injection uses a combination of the natural properties of deep crustal rocks plus engineered barriers like asphalt, bentonite and concrete. It makes anyplace a good disposal site. Source: Sandia
…or more of the same: half-mile deep
But it is most likely that we will stick with moderately deep (half-a-mile) geologic disposal, in one or more places, e.g., WIPP and Yucca Mountain.
So what are the characteristics of an ideal deep geologic nuclear waste disposal site? (New Mexico Academy of Science, Conca et al p.13-23)
- a simple hydrogeology (we know how the water moves here),
- a simple geologic history (we know what happened here),
- a tectonically interpretable area (we know what’s going on here),
- isolation robustly assured for all types of wastes (we don’t want the form to matter),
- minimal reliance on engineered barriers to avoid long time extrapolation of models for certain types of performance (we don’t know how long we can make anything last),
- performance that is independent of the canister, i.e., canister and container requirements are only for transportation, handling and the first several hundred years of peak temperature after emplacement in a repository (we don’t know how strong we can make something when put up against the Earth), and
- a geographic region that has an existing and sufficient sociopolitical and economic infrastructure that can carry out operations without proximity to a potentially rapidly growing metropolis (we don’t want a lot of people around it but need enough to make it happen).
Deep crustal rocks meet these criteria, but two more shallow rock types that fit these characteristics are argillaceous rocks (claystones and shales) and bedded salts (Dave Savage). Many studies have focused on argillaceous sites, particularly in Canada and Europe with some strong technical arguments for their suitability in those that are sufficiently massive and non-clastic. Similarly for salt deposits.
Although many salt deposits exist throughout the world, many are not sufficiently massive, have too many clastic interbeds, are tectonically affected, or are near population centers. Salt domes and interbedded salts are less optimal than massive bedded formations from a hydrologic standpoint, particularly within the United States where diapiric movement (doming) can exceed 1 mm/yr, and spline fractures can act as hydraulic conduits. Still, there are many viable salt deposits globally that meet these criteria, the best being the Permian Salado Formation in southeastern New Mexico and west Texas, WIPP’s host rock.
So… where would you put it?
***
Dr. James Conca is an earth and environmental scientist and a contributor to Forbes magazine.
James Conca states that “No one has ever been harmed by nuclear waste, and no one is likely to ever be harmed.” This is factually incorrect. Nuclear waste site workers at sites such as, but not limited to Sellafield, Idaho National Lab, Hanford, the New Mexico Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and persons living in the vicinity of waste disposal sites have been harmed by radioactive nuclear waste. This is easily confirmed by searching google
Thanks Pia, I am awaiting reaction from James, in the meantime I have removed that paragraph
Thank you, Matthew.
I meant commercial nuclear waste, not weapons waste. Matt, can you add that? No one living in the vicinity of any site has ever been harmed by nuclear waste. well-documented.
thanks, updated
1. Preliminary tests have found that 13 workers who were working aboveground the night of the leak inhaled radioactive particles. https://www.abqjournal.com/360489/13-inhaled-radiation-at-wipp.html
2. WIPP under federal investigation for worker exposures https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2019/02/21/wipp-federal-investigation-department-energy-hazardous-chemicals/2905747002/ Their fate? It is a fact that internal exposure can lead to death.
Pia Jensen, note how Conca correct’s things. This is not something I see among climate change deniers etc.
I’m a physics teacher, and I’m very concerned about misconceptions interfering with our way towards becoming fossil free. To make this happen, we need good communication among each others.
When I saw the text “To allow Conca to continue to spread blatant lies is irresponsible and dangerous.” I become worried about a communication failure were to follow. I hope a respectful dialogue can follow. From my point of view, Conca has done a lot to correct misunderstandings rather than create them.
Pia Jensen, on a more factual note, can you please refer to sources about people being harmed from the WIPP site?
When I listened through the following audiobook, I learned a lot about WIPP specifically, so a claim like yours is something I really want to know more about:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Power-to-Save-the-World-The-Truth-About-Nuclear-Energy-Audiobook/B006K3OSKE
April 29, 2019 at 07:58
1. Preliminary tests have found that 13 workers who were working aboveground the night of the leak inhaled radioactive particles. https://www.abqjournal.com/360489/13-inhaled-radiation-at-wipp.html
2. WIPP under federal investigation for worker exposures https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2019/02/21/wipp-federal-investigation-department-energy-hazardous-chemicals/2905747002/ Their fate? It is a fact that internal exposure can lead to death.
There is a huge difference between a tiny bit of extra radiation exposure – whether due to different natural background in different cities, or due to some small dose from poorly managed radwaste from 70 years ago – and actual “harm” caused by that exposure.
Conca is quite correct about “no harm”.
By contrast, Pia Jensen of the anti-nuclear website “Cafe Rad Lab” or CRL, at http://caferadlab.com/
posts links to all sorts of articles, but, in my view, rarely checks for their veracity: A great example of that if her post about “Fukushima blood mutation,” which was neither about Fukushima nor about blood mutation.
It was plain old media mis-reporting on scientific research on rare blood groups, which have been known for decades but only recently characterized in detail bio-chemically, and which in this particular case occur in small populations of several ethnic groups, among them some Japanese.
Jensen’s CRL post here:
http://caferadlab.com/thread-2259-post-4967.html
Compare with:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/02/24/scientists-identify-two-new-blood-types/#551287024a17
https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/blood-mystery-solved
Returning to the issue of poorly managed radwaste from 70 years ago, and whether these caused actual “harm”, there too we find much bogus reporting and social media propagation by the likes of Pia Jensen, as documented in this example of anencephaly in Yakima, where the actual cause of real harm is unrelated to radiation, but is entirely treatable when the problem is scientifically diagnosed:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p01fo8iyid7pqbe/Yakima_Anencephaly_2014.JPG
Ah, Jaro. Please note that I state at the beginning of that blood type post at CRL that it is bizarre. I added a question mark to the title of that post. Note this about the two new blood types “a small percentage of the population (mostly occurring in Japan) don’t have these proteins and end up with LAN- and JR-negative blood types https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19517686/two-new-blood-types-discovered/ – mostly occurring in Japan. And, from the researcher himself “Ballif notes. “More than 50,000 Japanese are thought to be Junior negative and may encounter blood transfusion problems or mother-fetus incompatibility,” https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/blood-mystery-solved
It certainly raises an eyebrow and Fukushima can’t be ruled out, yet.
Matthew hasn’t approved my post countering Conca’s claim on commercial nuclear waste impacts. There is evidence in South Carolina that refutes the no harm claim. I have the impression that bashing anti-nuclear activists is an approved activity here.
Hey Pia my goal is to reach 100% fossil free, and probably we both have a goal to minimize harm on life now, in the future, and the environment overall.
When these are the goals, it becomes important to not speak in absolutes. The key reason for me supporting nuclear is that it is a tool to reduce issues that we face from air pollution, ocean acidification, energy powerty, and climate change.
Let us avoid offensive language and assume good intent among the others.
I assume you want to reduce harm to others, i do too, by being pro nuclear i hope to avoid air pollution.
These have many links in them concerning studies on local communities’ health issues near nuke plants
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/06/01/nukes-in-my-backyard-no-big-deal/#fb0631951835
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/#7a25e7563a7e
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2018/07/23/radiation-and-the-value-of-a-human-life/#4e505a842e71
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/12/21/the-mcclatchy-irradiated-report-bad-science-bad-journalism/#105742bf3cd3
I believe in the article it mentioned the huge difference between commercial nuclear “waste” and military/medical waste. I think you will find that the waste stream from commercial nuclear power plants has a stellar safety record.
The original statement did not identify the two types.
it was made clear in next paragraph. Please folks, keep the debate constructive. The whole point is to allow others to understand the issues and make up their own minds. If commenters resort to knocking each other or deviating from the topic it adds no value to readers. Thanks
“waste stream from commercial nuclear power plants has a stellar safety record.”
That depends on what you call ‘a stellar safety record”.
Please remind that German govt closed its prime nuclear waste dry cask store, Zwischenlager Gorleben, when expanded due diligence research found worse genetic damage to newborn (up to 40km in its surroundings) then the original research by Helmholtz Muenchen.
The concerned state, Niedersachsen, then organized a conference with all pro- and contra-scientists, this PDF gives all presentations (in German, sorry) at the conference, after which a report was sent to Berlin on which Merkel cs decided to close the site for new transports while its dry cask storage building is still 70% empty.
Note that Gorleben was not the only nuclear waste site at which the Helmholtz center found highly significant genetic damage: http://goo.gl/RzZwcV
Such increased genetic damage to newborn is not without serious health consequences as shown for the children of male workers at Sellafield: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2422-nuclear-workers-children-have-increased-cancer-risk/
That’s nonsense. By any measure, nuclear waste is safer than any other waste stream. I’ve worked with all of them, chemical, biological and nuclear, and I’ll nuclear hands down. You can try to tease a few numbers out of “risk”, but they never occur.
German govt didn’t make the closure decision of its prime nuclear dry cask waste store, in which they invested ~€100mln(?), based on nonsense or some vague research.
Especially since it was assumed that the store was safe since the dry casks were stored in an huge building with 50cm thick walls on a large site surrounded by an high dike in the middle of woods. For a picture (shows also the permanent radiation measurement stations):
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/caf69f9b4fe76a5974a8c7aa3d34db57356869aff36ad4aa5a377926b97f71c9.gif
That an increase in the sex odds at birth are an indication for increased genetic damage due to increased radiation is already stated in Annex H of the 1958 report of UNSCEAR to the UN general assembly:
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/1958.html ).
So after the initial Helmholtz report, govt assigned two pro-nuclear scientists, Hoopmann & Maaser who didn’t believe the results (‘those cannot be true”), to execute a more elaborate study. However that study showed even stronger genetic damage with higher significance levels (P<0.002)*). After the dry casks came to the storage site, up to 16% more boys than girls were born (before 2%) while all newborn in the extended area (up to 40km away) were included.**)
Note that significant genetic damage is also found around such French storage facilities:
http://goo.gl/RzZwcV
And of course also around many nuclear power plants (though less severe): http://goo.gl/p0aUGk
______
*) They included also births in a neighbor state up to 40km distance from the storage site. However that state is downwind of Gorleben. So its not strange that they found increased genetic damage.
**) All birth are included, so no sample distortion.
It would help if you cited serious references. The 1958 report was using LNT, which UNSCEAR and WHO have since said is not reliable for projections on the public, which we’ve known for decades.
It are serious references.
Follow the links in the presentations I linked and you find that it are scientific studies & reviews published in peer reviewed scientific journals such as this one:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26527392
by scientists from the Helmholtz institute, which is comparable to the national labs (such as ORNL) in USA.
If the study was not solid, the pro-nuclear scientists (incl. professor Kramer) giving presentations at the final conference about Gorleben’s future, would have teared the study apart, but opposite occurred.
The PPT’s: http://b.link/PPTsGorleben
Sorry, the last link in my comment delivered the result of the conference, not the PPT’s. It’s now corrected.
Note that page 5 of the PDF contain the agenda of the conference, so you can choose which presentation you want to see.
The second presentation of Block 2 contains the research results of the original research (p.57).
The third presentation of Block 2 contains the extended due diligence research results presentation by executed pro-nuclear scientists (Hoopmann etal).
Note how Hoopmann tries to minimize the impact of his results in the presentation.
But the figures they found don’t lie.
They tried to find alternative explanations but couldn’t find any (it’s a rather thin populated area with mostly only farming).
LNT
US National Academy of Sciences confirmed in its latest report regarding low level radiation effects, that LNT applies.
The 2017 UNSCEAR report to the UN also states again that LNT applies.
This solid study shows that the health effects of an increase of only 0.5mSv/a (=30% of natural local background) on newborn are already very serious: http://goo.gl/ZTqxLB
Cell division rates at sperm in production in the testis are extremely high and DNA is then single stranded, so it cannot be repaired when hit by a passing radiation particle. Hence health damage due to small increases of radiation is so much bigger with newborn.
No WHO statement that denied LNT.
May be you can show where WHO and UNSCEAR denied LNT?
Bas: No one argues that WHO and UNSCEAR _deny_ LNT. What UNSCEAR has made clear is that applying LNT to populations after a nuclear accident is not appropriate.
Please show the link to the place where they stated that.
No indication in the 2017 UNSCEAR report to the UN, which reconfirms LNT, that applying LNT for populations such as newborn would not be appropriate.
“This solid study shows…”
you are referencing pseudoscience. I am unsure if Scherb or Mangano was first with cherry picking of statistical data to show correlation but they do use the same fraudulent methods.
Mattias, I consider calling decent scientific studies whose results:
– were confirmed by due diligence study by strong pro-nuclear scientists (check Gorleben conference);
– were the base on which German govt made serious decisions;
pseudo science without any real argument,
name-calling.
It’s the use of LNT to predict future health effects in large populations from small doses that is the issue. The results are always so small they cannot be seen in any population, which means the effects are indeed trivial. The use of collective doses and the LNT-theory has recently been condemned by UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation). They express this as;
“the Scientific Committee does not recommend multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or lower than natural background levels.”
ICRP and WHO still use the LNT theory for small radiation doses given at low dose-rates. However, it should be mentioned that ICRP in their publication 103 from 2007 expressed the following with regard to the collective doses:
“Collective effective dose is an instrument for optimisation, for comparing radiological technologies and protection procedures. Collective effective dose is not intended as a tool for epidemiological studies, and it is inappropriate to use it in risk projections. This is because the assumptions implicit in the calculation of collective effective dose (e.g., when applying the LNT model) conceal large biological and statistical uncertainties. Specifically, the computation of cancer deaths based on collective effective doses involving trivial exposures to large populations is not reasonable and should be avoided.”
Jim,
“multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects ”
is not what the studies did.
They did not refer to any collective dose or so.
No extrapolation needed as all birth were considered.
They checked the German birth registers around e.g. Gorleben (the due diligence study extra birth registers in the neighboring state) and found significant increased m/f ratio for new born around the nuclear facility.
That implies increased genetic, hence health damage as theory predicts (male DNA is smaller so less male sperm will be killed or damaged when radiation increases), and found many times in practice. E.g.:
– at Sellafield for the children of its workers
– in East and South Germany after Chernobyl.
The German studies:
– used all birth in the area;
– showed highly significant linear relationship between the level of the radiation contamination and the frequency of serious health damage (Down, abnormal limbs/heart/head, stillbirth, etc).
Thanks to the German birth registers, which administer all those serious birth defects.
It’s about the health & intelligence of our next generations.
Besides, no LNT prediction has ever come true, mainly because their predictions are always below the error in normal cancer rates and deaths.
This study found that LNT prediction confirming linear relationship for new born in districts in S.Germany contaminated after Chernobyl:
http://goo.gl/ZTqxLB
Significance level dependent on the type of of defect:
– Stillbirth: extra risk 33% per 1mSv/a extra radiation (P<0.00003)
– Serious deformities of limbs: extra risk 130% per 1mSv/a extra radiation (P<0.00004)
– etc.
Similar found for Finland though less significant.
More studies found linear relationships, confirming LNT down to levels below 1mSv/a, but this one with highest significance level.
Thanks for a nice summary James.
I find it equally intriguing and frustrating that so many people still condemn nuclear waste to being such a threat to humanity, despite the intense regulation and safety focus – eclipsing that of any other industry in the world – which has been the driving force behind it’s excellent safety record.
The word “Nuclear” generates so much fear and pre-judgement, mainly due to a lack of objective comprehension and a general fear and misunderstanding of radiation. Indeed high level waste poses a long-term storage issue, but this is why there have been, and continue to be, extensive engineering developments to ensure its safe and secure storage for durations exceeding 100,000 years.
Most intriguing to me is how many people still find that hard to accept. They struggle to look at the situation objectively and relatively, and instead they disregard the massive and obvious climate benefits of nuclear energy in replacing fossil fuels, to focus on its overemphasised negatives. Nuclear energy (on a much larger scale than currently deployed) is required in all credible scenarios to limit global warming to below 2 degrees. Yet still, people will choose to postulate situations in the order of 100,000 years time rather than considering the very real and impending destructive effects of climate change. To put that in context, going back 100,000 years takes us well before the last ice age and in the realms of the origins of our homosapiens species..
I think Nuclear’s biggest issue is one of PR. As a nuclear advocate working in the industry, I feel we have a responsibility to try and spread better understanding and promote a more rational, relative and objective view.
I was reading recently about 4th generation reactors, specifically the Molten salt reactors that can run on the waste from earlier types of reactors and the waste from the 4th generation reactors is only hazardous for hundreds of years.
Yes, if they are fast reactors they can burn almost all actinides and be left with mostly fission products that have less than 31-year half lives, so only hot for about 300 years. Molten salt is great since you can remove fission products much more easily.
With respect to commercial nuclear waste disposal sites, such as are found in South Carolina, it is important to note that even low doses of radiation can lead to death.
“July 30, 2005 The National Academies of Science released an over 700-page report yesterday on the risks from ionizing radiation. The BEIR VII or seventh Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation report on “Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation” reconfirmed the previous knowledge that there is no safe level of exposure to radiation—that even very low doses can cause cancer. Risks from low dose radiation are equal or greater than previously thought. The committee reviewed some additional ways that radiation causes damage to cells.” https://www.nirs.org/press/06-30-2005/
It’s also important to note that complex regulations for handling and storage of commercial nuclear waste in more recent years, points to the fact that no level of ionizing radiation is safe.
Nuclear waste is one of the most difficult kinds of waste to managed because it is highly hazardous. large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph241/xie2/
Nuclear waste (commercial once used fuel) is so small in volume and easy to contain and monitor that it just isn’t that much of a problem. I can see a future where this “waste” becomes a valuable resource, so the most important factor is to make it easily retrievable as well as safe.