Nuclear and radioactive waste

DEFINITION: Broad range of radioactive by-products of nuclear materials used for energy generation, weapons production, research, medicine, and industry

Nuclear and radioactive waste can vary widely in the level and duration of their radioactivity. Some wastes may remain radioactive for as little as a few hours, while others can pose a hazard to human health and the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. Proper disposal of these wastes is fraught with technical and sociopolitical challenges.

Categories of radioactive include spent from nuclear energy facilities, high-level waste (HLW) from spent nuclear fuel reprocessing, radioactive waste by-products from nuclear weapons production at defense processing plants, from uranium ore mining and milling, waste generated during the operation of atomic particle accelerators, and low-level waste (LLW), which includes items such as clothing, rags, equipment, tools, and medical instruments that have become contaminated with radioactivity. The of a substance decreases naturally over time, according to the substance’s half-life (the time necessary for half of its atoms to decay). While some radioactive wastes may be safe to handle within a relatively short time, some of the more highly radioactive wastes remain unsafe to handle for many thousands of years.

Regulatory control of nuclear and radioactive waste in the United States is vested in a number of government agencies. At the federal level, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Energy (DOE) are the primary regulators of highly radioactive waste. Other federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Health and Human Services, can also play a role in the regulation of radioactive material. Individual states are responsible for the regulation, management, storage, and disposal of commercial LLW generated within their boundaries.

After the development of nuclear fission, little concern was initially exhibited over how to dispose of nuclear waste safely. Policy makers perceived nuclear waste disposal as a long-term issue that would need to be addressed sometime in the future. However, as the quantities and types of radioactive and nuclear wastes continued to grow, the issue became increasingly contentious and politicized. The “not in my backyard,” or NIMBY, syndrome complicated the process of finding and developing suitable disposal sites. The problem of radioactive and nuclear waste disposal became one of the most controversial and environmentally challenging aspects of the nuclear era.

Waste Disposal Challenges

Several LLW disposal facilities for commercial and federal, non-DOE radioactive waste are licensed to operate in the United States, including one located in Clive, Utah, at what was originally a disposal site for uranium mill tailings; one in Richland, Washington, within the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; one in Barnwell, South Carolina; and one in west Texas, near the New Mexico border. The Utah site is licensed only for those wastes with comparatively short half-lives, whereas the Washington, South Carolina, and Texas facilities accept wastes that will remain radioactive for hundreds of years. Because so few of these disposal sites exist and progress in developing new facilities is slow, much of the country’s LLW is stored at the locations where it was produced pending the construction of more permanent facilities. The lack of disposal options has served as an incentive for utilities and other generators of LLW to minimize their waste.

While LLW disposal sites are scarce, HLW disposal sites are even more limited in the United States. Congress designated Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the nation’s sole deep underground repository for spent nuclear fuel and HLW in 1987. Selection of the site proved highly controversial, with opponents maintaining that a number of factors make it unsuitable for the safe storage of nuclear waste. Among these are the area’s volcanic origins, its seismic activity, and the potential for groundwater to act as a transport mechanism for any nuclear waste material that might leak from the disposal facility. DOE scientists have countered that such potential dangers to the integrity of a deep underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain are minimal.

Technical, political, and legal issues have slowed development of a repository at Yucca Mountain in the decades since the site was selected. Progress came to a standstill in early 2010, when the federal budget for the coming fiscal year cut funding for the Yucca Mountain project. The DOE subsequently filed a motion with the NRC to withdraw the repository’s license application. The withdrawal met with legal opposition, notably from South Carolina and Washington, both states with substantial stores of nuclear waste.

Federally generated, defense-related waste (waste involving elements with atomic numbers greater than that of uranium) has been disposed of since 1999 in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico. At this site waste containers are emplaced in disposal rooms carved into thick salt beds approximately 655 meters (about 2,150 feet, or nearly half a mile) below ground surface. Disposal of commercial wastes, HLW, and LLW at the WIPP is prohibited.

Other Considerations

The delay in establishing a permanent national repository for the disposal of highly radioactive waste has prompted policy makers to search for alternative solutions to the problem of how to store nuclear waste safely. Commercial utilities and defense processing plants have been storing spent nuclear fuel on-site (either in cooling ponds or in aboveground canisters). However, because suitable on-site storage space for highly radioactive waste is running out, maintaining the status quo clearly is not an acceptable long-term alternative. One proposal for a more immediate solution involves the establishment of an interim storage facility for highly radioactive waste. This interim facility—also known as a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility—would store nuclear waste aboveground until a permanent repository is ready to accept highly radioactive waste. Environmentalists have expressed concern that any MRS facility could become a permanent aboveground storage facility, which clearly would not be as safe as a deep underground repository. Environmental justice advocates have also argued that Native American populations are likely to be unfairly affected by such facilities; in the past, tribes have been unsuccessfully approached to host MRS sites on their lands in exchange for federal grant money.

Opponents of centralized storage facilities have expressed concerns about the potential for an accident during the transport of nuclear waste to either a national permanent repository or an MRS facility. Transportation routes would carry nuclear waste through a number of highly populated areas. Proponents of regional and national storage facilities counter that a lack of centralization exacerbates management and problems and increases the possibility of an accident. They also point to the successful existing safety record for the transport of radioactive material.

Nuclear reprocessing has been proposed as a means to make the best use of the waste. Unused uranium and plutonium extracted from nuclear waste through reprocessing can be used to fuel nuclear reactors. Commercial reprocessing was formerly practiced in the United States, but it was suspended in 1976 and banned in 1977 because of concerns that creating stockpiles of uranium and plutonium would increase nuclear weapons proliferation. Reprocessing was a key element of President George W. Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, proposed in 2006. However, critics cited the dangers of nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the high cost of reprocessing technology, and the fact that reprocessing generates a high volume of LLW as reasons not to pursue commercial reprocessing. As such, in 2009, under the administration of President Barack Obama, the DOE announced that it was dropping nuclear reprocessing from its agenda. During the administration of President Joe Biden, efforts were undertaken to resolve existing issues surrounding nuclear waste disposal.

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