231
Nuclear proliferation concerns are pretty much old hat these days anyway. Many
of the countries seeking nukes that worried the United States in the 1970s now possess them. The technology required back in 1945 on the Manhattan Project to build
the first simple fission weapons significantly taxed American intellectual and financial resources. It is important to remember that this occurred 75 years ago during the
age of vacuum-tube radios, party line telephones, and commercial flights on DC-3 s.
By today’s standards, the technology is pretty simple, and directions for constructing nukes can even be found on the Internet.
So most of the nations that wanted atomic weapons now have them, and many of
these countries are finding nukes to be more of an expensive curse than a blessing.
Every country that possesses atomic weapons is experiencing the same Cold War
conundrum that tied the hands of the United States and the Soviet Union for decades:
despite spending huge sums of money to develop these weapons, they cannot be
used. Any use of nuclear weapons will only result in retaliation in kind, leading to
mutually-assured destruction, appropriately known as the MAD doctrine. Climate
change from fossil fuel GHG emissions is a much more likely disaster for humanity
than someone randomly starting an unwinnable nuclear war. Dated fears of nuclear
proliferation should not be used to stifle the development of nuclear energy as a
clean, non-carbon resource.
A major barrier to the expansion of nuclear energy is dealing with the waste. The
entire inventory of hundreds of fuel rods in a commercial reactor is replaced every
3 years. Over the typical 30-year operating lifetime of a reactor, this is ten full sets
of spent fuel rods. Because of the difficulties involved in licensing new reactors,
many existing reactors have had their operating lifetimes extended to 40, 50 or even
60 years, creating even more spent fuel. Without spent fuel reprocessing, each and
every fuel rod must be handled as high-level radioactive waste. Even with reprocessing, there is still a substantial amount of high-level radioactive waste that must
be safely disposed of.
The current best practice worldwide for managing this waste is to place it deep
underground in a geologic repository. The goal of a repository is to keep the waste
out of the environment for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years until
the radioactivity decays to safe, background levels. This has been a challenge
because of a limited number of technically-suitable sites, an even smaller number of
sites that are suitable both technically and politically.
Other nations that use nuclear power have underground repositories established in their country or access to repositories in neighboring countries for the
management of high-level radioactive waste. The United States, unfortunately, has
no option at present for the long-term storage of nuclear powerplant waste. This is
the result of some lofty promises and ham-handed decisions made by Congress and
government officials in the past that continue to haunt nuclear waste policy in the
U.S. The spent fuel rods are being stored on-site at the powerplants in concrete
casks, known as “dry cask storage.” One of the more concerning problems about
this waste is the concentration of plutonium and related heavy elements like americium that are collectively known as “transuranics.” These can be particularly dangerous to life and health if a population is exposed.
12.1 Technological Solutions
Nuclear proliferation concerns are pretty much old hat these days anyway. Many
of the countries seeking nukes that worried the United States in the 1970s now possess them. The technology required back in 1945 on the Manhattan Project to build
the first simple fission weapons significantly taxed American intellectual and financial resources. It is important to remember that this occurred 75 years ago during the
age of vacuum-tube radios, party line telephones, and commercial flights on DC-3 s.
By today’s standards, the technology is pretty simple, and directions for constructing nukes can even be found on the Internet.
So most of the nations that wanted atomic weapons now have them, and many of
these countries are finding nukes to be more of an expensive curse than a blessing.
Every country that possesses atomic weapons is experiencing the same Cold War
conundrum that tied the hands of the United States and the Soviet Union for decades:
despite spending huge sums of money to develop these weapons, they cannot be
used. Any use of nuclear weapons will only result in retaliation in kind, leading to
mutually-assured destruction, appropriately known as the MAD doctrine. Climate
change from fossil fuel GHG emissions is a much more likely disaster for humanity
than someone randomly starting an unwinnable nuclear war. Dated fears of nuclear
proliferation should not be used to stifle the development of nuclear energy as a
clean, non-carbon resource.
A major barrier to the expansion of nuclear energy is dealing with the waste. The
entire inventory of hundreds of fuel rods in a commercial reactor is replaced every
3 years. Over the typical 30-year operating lifetime of a reactor, this is ten full sets
of spent fuel rods. Because of the difficulties involved in licensing new reactors,
many existing reactors have had their operating lifetimes extended to 40, 50 or even
60 years, creating even more spent fuel. Without spent fuel reprocessing, each and
every fuel rod must be handled as high-level radioactive waste. Even with reprocessing, there is still a substantial amount of high-level radioactive waste that must
be safely disposed of.
The current best practice worldwide for managing this waste is to place it deep
underground in a geologic repository. The goal of a repository is to keep the waste
out of the environment for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years until
the radioactivity decays to safe, background levels. This has been a challenge
because of a limited number of technically-suitable sites, an even smaller number of
sites that are suitable both technically and politically.
Other nations that use nuclear power have underground repositories established in their country or access to repositories in neighboring countries for the
management of high-level radioactive waste. The United States, unfortunately, has
no option at present for the long-term storage of nuclear powerplant waste. This is
the result of some lofty promises and ham-handed decisions made by Congress and
government officials in the past that continue to haunt nuclear waste policy in the
U.S. The spent fuel rods are being stored on-site at the powerplants in concrete
casks, known as “dry cask storage.” One of the more concerning problems about
this waste is the concentration of plutonium and related heavy elements like americium that are collectively known as “transuranics.” These can be particularly dangerous to life and health if a population is exposed.
12.1 Technological Solutions