Radioactive waste has often been referred to as the Achilles heel of nuclear power. It should be. It poses a threat to human health and our environment for hundreds of thousands of years. To date, a safe and viable way to permanently isolate it has not been identified. However, this dilemma has not kept nuclear out of the U.S. energy portfolio or dampened the zeal for a new generation of nuclear reactors by the industry and its congressional allies. A recent court decision, the termination of the Yucca Mountain geological repository and lessons from the Japan nuclear crisis present new arguments for why radioactive waste should be a chief reason we abandon nuclear power once and for all, but it is still might not be enough.
Getting around the waste issue
The dilemma of what to do with the high-level nuclear waste generated by reactors has always been divorced from the licensing process. In fact, those participating in licensing are not allowed to raise concerns about the waste that would be generated by a proposed reactor because of a generic rule set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 1984 that is based on the so-called Waste Confidence Decision.
The main tenets of the Waste Confidence Decision are based on the assumptions that radioactive wastes generated by nuclear power plants can be safely disposed of, a permanent disposal site will eventually be available, and radioactive wastes can be safely stored onsite past the expiration of existing facility licenses until a permanent disposal site is available. But when it comes to waste that remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years, assumptions are a reckless gamble.
A federal court agrees.
No confidence
On June 8, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia ruled that Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Waste Confidence Decision is inadequate and that the commission has failed to fully evaluate risks associated with its regulations on the storage of spent nuclear fuel as required under the National Environmental Policy Act
In other words, the reasonable assurances that have served as the rationale for allowing the use of an energy source whose byproduct poses a serious danger to human health – and because of its toxicity and longevity, must be permanently isolated from our environment – are not valid.
In response, 24 groups challenging both new reactor licenses and license renewals for existing reactors filed a petition urging the NRC to respond to the court ruling by freezing final licensing decisions until it has completed a rulemaking action on the environmental impacts of highly radioactive nuclear waste in the form of spent, or “used” reactor fuel storage and disposal.
On July 8, 2012, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission complied with the group’s request, stating, “in recognition of our duties under the law, we will not issue licenses dependent upon the Waste Confidence Decision or the Temporary Storage Rule until the court’s remand is appropriately addressed.”
Contrary to initial reports, however, this doesn’t mean that there will be no new reactor until policy-makers decide the next course of action on nuclear waste management, Nor does it mean that existing reactors whose licenses expire will have to stop functioning.
It means the agency has to technically assess the environmental consequences of storing waste at nuclear power plants for the foreseeable future, address the possibility that the waste would need to be managed onsite indefinitely and demonstrate how it will mitigate those consequences. How the NRC will fulfill these new mandates in unclear. However, while options are being considered, license and relicense reviews will proceed. In the long-term, some license renewals –which allow aging reactors to operate for an additional 20 years will be delayed. But even if the NRC fails to satisfy the new regulatory demands by the time reactors’ licenses expire, they will be able to continue operation since it is the NRC that is holding up the process.
Beyond the question of waste reactors facing extensions are rife with other problems that make their renewals questionable and new reactor licenses will more likely fail not because of agency inaction but because of cost overruns, declining energy demand and cheap natural gas. The NRC could also still appeal the court’s decision, but based on the July 8 vote, it is unlikely that it will.
However, Congress could step in and legislate the Waste Confidence Decision, effectively overturning the court decisions, by enacting policy that would amend the NRC’s National Environmental Policy Act requirements, eliminating the NRC’s responsibility to technically prove that waste stored onsite for several decades will not harm the environment. Further, congressional nuclear boosters could see this as an opportunity to resuscitate Yucca Mountain.
Yucca Mountain and Fukushima
The court’s decision comes in the wake of other harsh realities facing the nuclear industry and its regulators. In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, requiring the establishment of a deep geologic repository for nuclear waste storage and isolation. In 1989, Congress designated Yucca Mountain, about 80 miles north of Las Vegas, as the future waste repository site. It was controversial because it was located in an earthquake zone and near a drinking water aquifer In 2010, after more than 20 years, the plug was pulled on the project.
A recent failed court case attempted to compel the NRC to resume consideration of the Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding. Whether nuclear proponents in Congress will take up the fight to keep Yucca Mountain on the table is unclear. Even if the licensing process for this site was resumed or the siting and licensing of a new repository is pursued, it could take another decade or more to come to fruition, which means for the foreseeable future the waste will need to be stored onsite.
The Japanese nuclear crisis, in part, exposed the vulnerabilities in the way waste is being stored at U.S. nuclear power plants. According to the Department of Energy, 65, 000 metric tons of spent fuel is being stored at U.S. nuclear power plants, and approximately 75 percent of that fuel is packed into cooling pools. A report by the Institute for Policy Studies reveals that these pools are beyond capacity and lack proper containment, a potentially lethal combination that demands regulatory action.
Unfortunately neither the near-term task force created to review the lessons from Fukushima accident nor the Blue Ribbon Commission established to review policies for managing nuclear waste and recommend a new plan, adequately address the issues associated with current onsite storage practices.
The court’s decision, underscored by the current realities of waste management and disposal, are testament to the abject failure and perhaps hubris of developing a risky technology under the assumption that one day there would be a place to permanently store the lethal waste generated and that the nuclear waste could be safely stored onsite in the meantime. But there are few signs that our government and the nuclear industry have any intention to stop digging deeper into the nuclear hole.
Rosa Antoine
I’ve been saying for years the only place to “store” this waste that might be safe is by sending it to the sun.
August 14, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Lance J Konover
Everyone is just sleep walking along while this problems gets worse. Much of the waste that there is now is carelessly stored.
Yucca Mountain will never open for waste. People don’t want the stuff near them, and it’s a nightmare to transport. There is no “safe” with this stuff – never has been, never will be. The best thing right now is to make no more of it. That is the only positive step that we know how to take.
August 14, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Deborah
No country must continue developing nuclear power until there is a safe way to dispose of wastes. This hasn’t been achieved in the 67 years since the development of the atomic bomb. There is no incentive for nuclear companies to foot the sky high costs to make their product safe, (if that is even possible), when all they must do is buy off government officials to rubber stamp more nuclear plants. If we fail to learn the lessons of Fukushima, we risk the survival of planet earth.
August 14, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Deborah
We must discontinue nuclear power development until there is a safe way to handle wastes with eons long half lives. The nuclear industry would rather buy off elected officials than tackle the daunting costs of trying to make their product safe. The Fukushima disaster should teach us we must use safe, sustainable energy rather than risk the survival of planet earth.
August 14, 2012 at 10:06 pm
Allison Fisher
I wanted to share Public Citizen’s position on waste storage http://www.citizen.org/documents/PrinciplesSafeguarding2009.pdf That said, we agree that the first tenet is stop making it.
August 28, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Deborah
What kind of moderation do you want me to make regarding my comment. I can understand why you have no comments on this. I am at sea as to what is required. I give up.
Deborah Stucklen
August 14, 2012 at 10:09 pm
TN Independent Voter
Tennessee needs to be allowed to vote in and retain many more noncentrist, environmental, pro-union, and non-nuclear democrats in on all levels of Government, state/local/Federal and Presidential, in Tennessee in 2012!
We need to be allowed to go much more democrat in the US TN 3rd cong dist, and at least one, if not both, our US Senators ALWAYS needs to be a (non-TVA),civilrights/affirmative action, progressive liberal higher education, healthcare, and environmental democrat that will help with out smartgrowth, clean energy,air,and water, needs and not add to the problems instead!
August 15, 2012 at 12:10 am
Len Fosberg
I live in Germany where half the nuclear plants were shut down last year. The Hamburg newspaper ran a lengthy article on the problems now being encountered just cleaning up after one of the plants (which was shut down several years ago) in Stade, along the Elbe river above Hamburg. It is costing them over 500 million Euros, and much of the waste is so dangerous it is being transported out of the country. They have been working for years, and expect it to take another two years. And this is just cleaning up! Further complicating the matter is the nuclear waste dump at “Asse” here in Germany which was created many years ago (with the usual assurances that it would be a safe operation). Turns out it was a sloppy operation and is now suffering serious leaks. Various ‘experts’ have proposed solutions but none have really gotten it right. Thus, Germany is also faced with massive clean-ups of old plants with no really good place to put the dangerous leftovers.
August 15, 2012 at 5:27 am
Jason
A nice recap and report on some of the apparent difficulties facing the nuclear power industry. I believe we must have better, clean, sustainable energy sources; and it’s well past time to make the transition to these.
August 16, 2012 at 9:29 pm
antonio lucero
For decades I have argued against the use of nuclear reactors, primarily because of the nuclear waste issue. In fact, this was the reason I decided not to pursue a career in that field.
Another issue against nuclear reactors is the low-level radiation that can be released into the air and which prevailing winds can blow into communities. The low-level radiation can induce the formation of free radicals in our bodies which, in turn, can cause cancer.
The low-level radiation is often considered too low to be harmful. This is because the standards on what is harmful are based on the atomic bomb explosions in Japan in World War II.
But this is comparing apples and oranges: The Japan case is high energy radiation which literally can break apart the bonds that hold tissue together. Whereas the low-level radiation is sufficient to ionize some atoms which remain bonded to other atoms, but which are now free (free radicals) to form new harmful molecules in the body.
Bless you for pursuing this problem.
August 18, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Adam
People always bring up Chernobyl and Fukushima whenever the subject of nuclear power comes up. (Well, just Fukushima in this case, but I’m going to address Chernobyl anyway, just because it tends to crop up a lot as well.)
First of all, those plants are obsolete. Fukushima was operating when they built Chernobyl. Should it have been shut down? Probably. But the reason that we’re still running out-of-date nuclear power plants is because of the ever growing obstacles to building new and more efficient ones. Not replacing old reactors is more dangerous than replacing them with new ones, which are less dangerous and work in a completely different way.
Secondly, people claim that because these plants failed spectacularly, nuclear is an unsafe power source. But any major power source is going to cause major problems when it fails. Fossil fuels contaminate huge swaths of land, even when they’re working properly. Add to that the 10,000 mining deaths a year worldwide, the several million dead or chronically ill from air quality issues, the deposition of mercury and radioisotopes from traces in coal deposits… and of course, the CO2. Whether you’re in favor of nuclear power or not, you can’t possibly claim that nuclear power is dirtier than fossil fuels.
Before you bring up the waste, we can just recycle the spent fuel from uranium reactors and use it in ts plutonium reactors. The waste from plutonium reactors- 5% of what we would have without recycling- has a half-life of 80 years. Nuclear transmission can use some of that waste and create waste products with half-lives of 30 years or less. There still is some waste, so it’s certainly not perfect, but it’s silly to argue about how nuclear waste is “the Achilles heel of nuclear power” when most of it can be eliminated.
Now to be fair, Public Citizen did address reprocessing in that PDF posted above:
“The reprocessing of irradiated fuel has not solved the nuclear waste
problem in any country,”
Tell that to France: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html
As Christian Batallie said in the article, “Today we stock containers of waste because currently scientists don’t know how to reduce or eliminate the toxicity, but maybe in 100 years perhaps scientists will.” And before you quote the end of that article, it’s been six years, and France still produces 77.1% of its energy using nuclear power. It seems to me that they’ve got their waste under control for the most part.
“and actually exacerbates it by creating numerous additional waste
streams that must be managed.”
Most of these waste streams will be recycled into new fuel. And any waste left over after THAT will have decayed away to being mostly inert within a century or less. And within a thousand years at the latest, everything will have decayed to the point that whatever’s left will only be dangerous if someone decides to live there- and I have no idea who would want to live in a concrete encased bunker in Yucca Mountain. All this assumes that scientists won’t find a way to “reduce or eliminate the toxicity” in all that time, which they very well might (we ARE talking a hundred to a thousand years here).
“In addition to being expensive”
The only costs involved in reprocessing are regulation, which can be massively reduced by using standardized, small reactors. If anything, reprocessing will save money, since most of the waste produced will just go back into the reactor. And wind and solar cost a lot more than nuclear energy.
“and polluting,”
Like I said earlier, it creates far less pollution than fossil fuels. Meanwhile, we’re going to keep burning coal, which releases more radioactivity than nuclear plants do, and creates open ponds of coal ash waste that can kill millions and poison the earth for centuries. But hey, at least it’s not nuclear!
“reprocessing also increases nuclear weapons proliferation threats.”
If you’re talking about the reactor grade plutonium nuclear test, the plutonium used in it came from a Magnox reactor specifically designed to create plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. Modern reactors don’t create that kind of plutonium. Besides, getting plutonium for a bomb isn’t too hard. It’s building it that’s the really hard part. Anyone who wants to build a plutonium bomb will be able to get the plutonium whether we reprocess or not.
Back to Chernobyl and Fukushima.
People tend to forget a few things about Chernobyl. For instance, the design of the reactor is one that is not used anymore, the reactor did not have the safety features of a western reactor, and the safety features it did have were purposely turned off during an experiment. In fact, more people died from the coal plants put up to replace the reactor than from the original radioactive leak.
As for Fukushima, less than a hundred people are predicted to develop thyroid cancer due to increased radiation exposure. Which sounds bad, but think about it. This only means that 100 people MIGHT get cancer, and thyroid cancer is pretty treatable. Furthermore, it took a tsunami that killed over 15,000 people and caused the largest amount of property damage from a natural disaster ever to cause the Fukushima disaster. And remember, Fukushima was 40 years old. Compare that to, say, Deepwater Horizon.
Even if 100 people were guaranteed to eventually die due to Fukushima, nuclear power still has fewer average deaths per year than every other type of power generation with the exception of wind, solar, and geothermal, all of which we would be unable to use for full sustained worldwide or nationwide power generation.
“But won’t the plants be run in a slapdash and unsafe manner? This is the private sector we’re talking about!”
Not if the Navy runs them as part of a defense initiative, and lets the public utilize the excess power. That’s how the federal highway system got made, after all. The military’s regulatory system is fast, efficient, and best of all, not in the pockets of the nuclear industry or politicians. How often do you hear about nuclear accidents aboard Navy submarines?
Whatever the case, I hope we can all agree that we need to get off fossil fuels ASAP. While nuclear power is an imperfect solution, it’s better than no solution at all.
Of course, I might be wrong about the practicality of renewable energy. Maybe using that locally would be better, but I still feel that nuclear energy has a part to play in solving our energy needs.
August 31, 2012 at 7:25 pm