What is nuclear waste?
Nuclear waste is the material that nuclear fuel becomes after the fuel is used in a reactor. The waste, sometimes called spent fuel, is highly radioactive, and remains so for thousands of years. The disposal of this spent fuel is a hot topic, and is often an argument against the use of nuclear reactors.
Nuclear reactors are typically loaded with Uranium Oxide fuel, UO2. Neutrons are introduced to the system, and many of them are absorbed by uranium atoms, causing them to become unstable and split, or fission, into two smaller atoms known as fission products. Sometimes, the uranium absorbs a neutron and does not fission, but rather transforms to a heavier isotope of uranium, such as U-239. U-239 beta-decays to Np-239, which in turn beta-decays to Pu-239. The heavier nuclide may then absorb another neutron to become an even heavier element. These heavier atoms are known as transuranics. Nuclear waste, with regard to nuclear reactors, is the collection of isotopes left over after a reactor has extracted some energy out of nuclear fuel. Many of the isotopes are very radioactive for a very long time before they decay to stability. The radioactivity causes the spent nuclear fuel to continue emitting heat long after it has been removed from the reactor. A few of the radioactive isotopes in the mix of spent fuel are gaseous and need to be carefully contained so that they do not escape to the environment and cause radiation damage to living things. Other types of nuclear waste exist, such as low level waste from other applications. This discussion will focus on high-level waste (HLW), the spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors.
Composition of nuclear waste
Spent nuclear fuel composition varies depending on what was put into the reactor, how long the reactor operated, and how long the waste has been sitting out of the reactor. A typical US reactor's waste composition is laid out in table 1. Notice that most of the Uranium is still in the fuel when it leaves the reactor, even though its enrichment has fallen significantly. This Uranium can be used in advanced fast reactors as fuel and is a valuable energy source. The minor actinides, which include Neptunium, Americium, and Curium, are very long-lived nuclides that cause serious concern when it comes to storing them for more than 100,000 years. Fortunately, these are fissionable in fast reactors and can thus be used as fuel! This still would leave us with the fission products.
When atoms split, the smaller remaining atoms are often radioactive. There is no known way of getting rid of these atoms, and geological storage is often suggested as means of storing them until they decays to stability. Some fission products, such as Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and Iodine-131, are readily absorbed by biological systems and are capable of causing serious health problems. When the Chernobyl disaster occurred, these three isotopes caused most of the concern.
How much nuclear waste does nuclear energy create?
If all the electricity use of the USA was distributed evenly among its population, and all of it came from nuclear power, then the amount of nuclear waste each person would generate per year would be 39.5 grams. That's the weight of 7 U. S. quarters of waste, per year! A detailed description of this result can be found here. If we got all our electricity from coal and natural gas, expect to have over 10,000 kilograms of CO2/yr attributed to each person, not to mention other poisonous emissions directly to the biosphere (based on EIA emissions data).
If you demand raw numbers: in 2002, there were 47,023.40 metric tonnes of high-level waste in the USA. 105,793 GW-days of thermal energy has been produced by nuclear power plants throughout the years to create that waste. Also in 2002, operating reactors added 2,407.20 metric tonnes [1] (1 metric tonne = 1000 kg).
| Charge | Discharge | |
|---|---|---|
| Uranium | 100% | 93.4% |
| Enrichment | 4.20% | 0.71% |
| Plutonium | 0.00% | 1.27% |
| Minor Actinides | 0.00% | 0.14% |
| Fission products | 0.00% | 5.15% |
Table 1. Heavy metal composition of 4.2% enriched nuclear fuel before and after 40,000 MWD/MT. Minor actinides include neptunium, americium, and curium. This table does not include structural material such as zirconium and stainless steel.
Figure 1. A busy chart of the activity of all the radioactive nuclides as a function of time up to 1 million years. Click for a larger view. Data was computed on the most recent version of ORIGEN-S from Oak Ridge by whatisnuclear.com.
Figure 2. If all electricity was generated by nuclear power, every American would generate a weight equivalent to 7 quarters of waste per year.
What to do with nuclear waste (recycle it!)
Current US policy
Currently, nuclear waste created in the US is stored underwater in spent fuel pools near nuclear power plants. Assuming the DOE eventually licenses the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, this waste will eventually be stored deep underground. Since Yucca Mountain is on the Nevada test site,[*] and since the area is geologically stable, the location is suitable. However, the repository is designed to a certain capacity of nuclear waste. If it ever opens, it will fill quickly thanks to the buildup of waste throughout the last few decades and another repository will need to be constructed. However, there are ways around this.
Recycling nuclear waste
As mentioned previously, nuclear waste is over 90% uranium[*]. Thus, the spent fuel (waste) still contains 90% usable fuel! It can be chemically processed and placed in advanced fast reactors (which have not been deployed on any major scale yet) to close the fuel cycle. A closed fuel cycle means much less nuclear waste and much more energy extracted from the raw ore.
France and Japan currently recycle spent fuel with great success, although they only recycle one time before disposal. The US had a recycling program that was shut down because it created Plutonium, which is arguably the easiest material with which to make a nuclear weapon. Were some plutonium diverted in the recycling process, a non-nuclear entity could be one step close to building a bomb. However, under new programs such as the GNEP [DOE], proliferation-free waste recycling can exist.
The longest living nuclides in nuclear waste are the ones that can be used as fuel: plutonium and the minor actinides. If these materials are burnt in fuel through recycling, nuclear waste would only remain radioactive for a few hundred years, as opposed to a few hundred thousand. This significantly reduces concerns with long-term storage.
The Ideal Scenario: Thorium Fuel
Ideally, we would switch from Uranium-238 based fuel to Thorium-based fuel. This would allow for recycling and breeding without creating any plutonium or minor actinides whatsoever. There is also 4 times the amount of Thorium on earth than uranium. The best solution for our long term energy needs (until Fusion is mastered) is Thorium. A thorough thorium page is in the works here at whatisnuclear.com
You will be able to find more discussion of proliferation on our up and coming proliferation page. Please remember to contact us with your comments or questions.
The next stop
Try our article index page to find something else you are interested in.