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| Fig. 1: Yucca Mountain TBM at South Portal. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Nuclear waste is a very important issue due to its lasting presence in our environment. Humans have been producing waste since our very existence. Now, with the advent of technology, not only are we producing more and more waste, our waste disposal has become more and more complicated. Nuclear waste is when material produced from nuclear activity contains radionuclides. [1] Due to its dangerous properties, such material needs to be handled properly. The greater the amount of radionuclides in the material, the more dangerous the material becomes if not handled properly. [1] This article will cover different methods of handling waste as well as some historical considerations that were made specifically in the U.S.
One way nuclear waste has been handled is through recycling. Recycling nuclear waste has additional considerations in comparison to other types of waste because it is relatively challenging to reuse radionuclides from radioactive materials in new products. Consequently, it is often the case that radioactive materials are instead treated to be safely stored (also known as being immobilized) and then eventually disposed of. [1] In 2018, among the 435 nuclear power reactors that were operating across the world, 10,500 tons of spent nuclear fuel (recyclable fuel used to generate electricity) was used, of which 5% of uranium is consumed. [2] Waste minimisation is another process of handling waste in which the amount of waste produced is attempted to be reduced to as little as possible. Waste minimisation was implemented in the 1970s and 1980s and has now been able to reduce low level waste production by 10 times to about 100 m3 annually per GW(e). [1] Nuclear waste is also often processed before being disposed of. One way it is treated is called immobilization which attempts to prevent the spreading of the radionuclides in the waste. Other forms of processing include conditioning the waste so that it is safe for transportation on large scales. [1]
In the United States the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are two federal agencies that make considerations on the way nuclear waste is handled. The Nuclear Regulatory Commision handles nuclear waste that comes from NRC related functions. It also has agreements with 32 state governments which are also known as Agreement States which allows these states to manage their own nuclear waste. [3] The three main types of nuclear waste in the U.S. are transuranic nuclear waste (TRU), high-level nuclear waste (HLW), and low-level nuclear waste (LLW) all of which have their own disposal facilities in the United States. [2] TRU waste is being handled at a facility known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and as of 2017 it has reached about half of its entire capacity. [2] Originally in the United States, LLW was buried but now LLW has historically had eight disposal sites total and currently has four operational sites. [2] There is currently no disposal site for HLW. In 1982 the Department of Energy was planning to build a disposal site in Yucca Mountain in Nevada (see Fig. 1) but in 2010 the Obama administration announced it would not be a viable solution and consequently a HLW disposal site was not established there. [2]
© Leon Bi. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] M. I. Ojovan, W. E. Lee, and S. N. Kalmykov, An Introduction to Nuclear Waste Immobilisation, 3rd Ed. (Elsevier, 2019).
[2] F. Buncom IV, "Nuclear Waste Recycling and Disposal: What's the Proper Road?" Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2018.
[3] K. Tzoumis and N. Bozzetti, "Evaluating Nuclear Waste Disposal Policy in the US: A Comparative Case Study," Int. J. Arts Sci. 10, 619 (2017).
