The U.S. government must clearly define nuclear waste disposal polisies.

by Tim Fister

There are two words that strike unnecessary fear into the minds of many. Those two words? Nuclear power.

Exploiting the energy emitted from the fission of a reactive nucleus has long intrigued scientists. In 1947, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created for this very purpose. Although the first priority of the AEC was furthering the development of atomic weapons, the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech of the same year paved the way for industrial nuclear energy. After the apocalyptic and terrifying arms race, developing ways to use nuclear energy in a positive way was every scientist's dream. In 1957, the first nuclear power plant began operation in Shippingsport, Pennsylvania.

The following two decades were a time of growth in the nuclear power industry. During this period, the AEC decided to dispose of radioactive byproducts by burying them in a former salt mine located near Lyons, Kansas. Local opposition was fierce. Up to this point, the public had not expressed an opinion about this highly classified issue.

Since then, the AEC and its successor, the Department of Energy (DOE) have had problems choosing appropriate means of disposal. In 2010, the federal government hopes to build a waste-storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Once again, local opposition has delayed completion for at least ten years. Frustrated over constant delays and bureaucracy, Xcel Energy (formerly Northern States Power) is suing the government for breach of contract and is pursuing private means of waste disposal.

How did the U.S. dream for nuclear power become such a nightmare? President Carter's 1977 executive order banning the reprocessing of nuclear fuels is one reason. During the ban, new ways of disposing nuclear waste were supposed to be developed. Instead as, former Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy A. David Rossin states, "during that time all the industrial momentum where nuclear energy was concerned was lost."

The federal government has simply ignored reprocessing while the rest of the world has developed a reprocessing industry. With a waste crisis close at hand, the United States should reconsider reprocessing. Reprocessing spent fuel is trickier than simply burying it in Nevada, but it represents the first step toward a closed fuel cycle that allows radioactive byproducts to be reused.

Nuclear Waste Flow Chart

During reprocessing, byproducts contained in used fuel rods are isolated. The byproducts are not extremely radioactive. Some of the byproducts are sold to other industries and are used for everything from medical applications to smoke detectors. Some of the plutonium components of the waste can be used in a breeder reactor. In Japan and France, breeder reactors "burn" these byproducts with a flux of high-energy neutrons. This causes uranium 238 to transmute into plutonium 239 faster than it burns the supplied plutonium, creating a viable, commercial source for energy.

Unfortunately, today's breeder reactors use liquid sodium - an extremely reactive and potentially dangerous substance - as a coolant. But one solution may be to replace the neutrons with a beam of high-energy protons, that will localize the energy, the liquid sodium, and the inherent risk involved in a breeder reactor. The remaining waste, with half-lives ranging from one to one hundred years, is then stored. Storage concerns must still be addressed with reprocessing, but it is still preferable to the waste-storage facilities used in the United States.

In addition to eliminating the need for the vast uranium reserves needed to power nuclear plants, reprocessing is profitable. Professor John Broadhurst, a nuclear physics expert, says that the reprocessing industry located in Wales, United Kingdom, turned the local economy around.

"Wales used to farm sheep and mine coal and build ships, all three of which are not popular today," says Broadhurst. "Now they reprocess much of the world's fuel. It's quite a profitable industry."

Broadhurst concedes that there are risks in reprocessing but argues that "the mining, refining, and transporting of uranium ores creates a risk similar to that of processing spent fuel."

Clearly, there are some safety issues in reprocessing, just as there are with burying waste. Ideally, the DOE and power companies could weigh both options, but the government has been stubbornly resisting reprocessing since Carter's executive order.

It seems that Carter's 1977 moratorium on reprocessing was motivated by Cold War politics. Presidents Carter and Ford were afraid of nuclear proliferation. They feared that weapons-grade plutonium - a byproduct of reprocessing based fuel - would be used by terrorists. However, this fear is ridiculous because plutonium is so radioactive that human contact is practically impossible. Terrorism would most likely occur in nations where monitoring is not as stringent.

Carter was attempting to set an example for the rest of the world, but the rest of the world reprocesses. "The theoretical possibility [of nuclear proliferation] was enough to drive their thinking to the conclusion that all stocks of separated plutonium had to be eliminated," says Rossin.

In fact, by sticking to its Cold War logic, the United States has actually increased the chance of nuclear waste accidents. Currently, the United Kingdom is the world's leading reprocessing contractor. Even Japan has to transport highly radioactive materials for reprocessing to England. If we had appropriate facilities to handle this waste, we could narrow the chances of a waste transport disaster. Many nuclear plants, including Minnesota's Prairie Island plant, are already equipped to handle reprocessing.

In addition, other nations have developed alternate, safer means of reprocessing, and let's not forget that reprocessing is cost-effective. Apart from the laborious task of converting those wacky metric units (but that¹s another rant altogether), the cost would be minimal.

Time is of the essence. Governmental bureaucracy is limiting the amount of on site waste allowed at nuclear power plants, and the future of U.S. plants in doubt. Prairie Island's 17 waste containers are expected to reach capacity by 2003-04. Even with the recent court-acquired extension of Prairie Island operations to 2007, the projected opening of Yucca Mountain in 2010 is too long to wait. If waste disposal problems force an end to nuclear power production, Prairie Island will operate the plant turbines with steam power generated by burning coal. The conversion from nuclear power is inefficient and expensive.

"Our electricity bills will double or more," predicts Broadhurst.

One immediate solution is to ease the restrictions placed on the number of on-site waste containers used by power plants. Secondly, the government should stop its duck-and-cover policy and investigate reprocessing scientifically. Finally, the public has to adopt a more realistic approach towards nuclear waste disposal. If they don't, they'll learn all about nuclear physics the hard way. Through their electric bill.