nuclear-news

Problem of Where to Put Waste Besets Nuclear Industry, WSJ, By BEN CASSELMAN, JUNE 9, 2011 No question has bedeviled the U.S. nuclear-power industry more than what to do with the thousands of tons of radioactive waste generated by its reactors every year.

U.S. nuclear reactors run on enriched uranium fuel. A nuclear reaction splits the uranium atoms, emitting heat that boils water, turning a turbine and generating electricity. The process leaves behind waste that is no longer capable of sustaining a nuclear reaction but is still highly radioactive.

The country’s 104 nuclear reactors generate about 2,000 metric tons of waste a year. In all, there are some 65,000 metric tons of this waste in the U.S., almost all of it stored at current or former reactor sites.

That was never the plan. When the first commercial nuclear reactors were built in the 1960s, the federal government expected to reprocess the spent fuel so it could be used again. But reprocessing creates plutonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons, leading to fears the material could go astray.

Instead, in 1982, Congress decided to create a permanent underground storage facility for the nation’s used-up nuclear fuel, with utilities covering the costs………The majority of the country’s waste—about 50,000 metric tons—is stored in pools of water known as spent-fuel pools. The circulating water gradually cools the hot radioactive fuel rods……

“I think Fukushima brought to the forefront that you also have to manage the spent fuel that’s coming out of the reactor,” said Roger Kranenburg, a utilities expert at the energy consulting group IHS CERA.

U.S. nuclear operators have begun moving some of their spent fuel out of pools and into “dry casks,” considered safer because the casks require only natural air flow, not mechanically pumped water, to cool the fuel. But only about 15,000 metric tons of fuel are stored this way in the U.S., in part because the system is expensive. Even dry-cask storage isn’t a permanent solution. The casks are expected to last decades, not the thousands of years it takes the fuel to become safe.

“That’s a daunting challenge, to find a place that’s secure for 10,000 years into the future,” said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that has been critical of the U.S. nuclear industry. “No one else on the planet has a solution either.”…http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304778304576375990718887036.html?mod=googlenews_wsj