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November 2009 Featured Story
Waste not, want not
Efforts under way to manage and reprocess nuclear waste
by Megan McKoy
Nuclear energy, first generated in the 1950s, supplies power to one out of five homes and businesses nationally. With climate change policy dominating congressional debate, nuclear power — largely dormant for the past 25 years — may be poised for a comeback.
Unlike fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, nuclear generation does not emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed as the principal contributor to global warming. In addition, nuclear reactors produce electricity in much larger quantities and more reliably than other non-carbon emitting generation sources like wind and solar.
“As a zero-carbon energy source, nuclear power must be part of our energy mix as we work toward energy independence and meeting the challenge of global warming,” said U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Stephen Chu.
Nuclear power plants use fission, the process of splitting atoms apart to produce electricity. When a uranium atom splits, heat and radiation are released. The heat turns water into steam, which spins turbines to generate electricity. The uranium, housed in special rods, becomes highly radioactive once used.
The main drawback to nuclear power has always been what to do with the waste. Currently, spent fuel rods are stored at nuclear power plants in one of two ways: in special cooling pools (similar to swimming pools) where water removes heat from the rods and shields the area from the radiation, and in dry cask containers stored in air-conditioned concrete or steel buildings. Both measures, however, were only meant as temporary steps. (Please see Department of Energy graphic at bottom of this story.)
For the last quarter-century, the federal government has pursued a policy of developing a permanent, central repository for storing the waste — an effort that has been hampered by political and legal resistance and now appears to have been abandoned. Yet as of the end of 2008, nearly 66,000 tons of nuclear waste (growing by 2,200 tons per year) was sitting at 126 “temporary” sites in 39 states, all of it in above-ground cooling pools or dry casks. Roughly 161 million Americans — including 85 percent of those on the East Coast — live within 75 miles of an interim nuclear waste storage location. DOE says the nation’s existing fleet of 104 commercial nuclear power reactors could produce 143,000 tons of waste over their operating lives.
Back to the Future
According to the Electric Power Research Institute, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based utility research consortium that includes electric co-ops, almost 100 times more energy remains available in spent fuel rods than is produced during the first cycle of use. To fully realize the potential of nuclear power as an essential part of America’s energy mix, scientists are researching how to effectively and safely recycle used nuclear fuel and affordably reprocess it to generate electricity again.
With this capability, nuclear power plants could operate with a closed fuel cycle; the same material being used many times, leaving limited waste to store. The World Nuclear Association estimates materials potentially available for recycling spent fuel rods could keep American nuclear reactors running for the next 30 years.
To recycle nuclear waste, usable uranium gets separated from spent nuclear fuel; a byproduct of this process is plutonium. Until the late 1970s nuclear reprocessing plants operated in New York, Illinois, and South Carolina. But waste recycling methods were costly, and fears of plutonium being stolen and used by rogue states for nuclear weapons made reprocessing politically unpopular.
“The United States should no longer regard reprocessing of used nuclear fuel to produce plutonium as a necessary and inevitable step in the nuclear fuel cycle,” President Gerald Ford announced in 1976, addressing public concerns. “We should pursue reprocessing and recycling in the future only if they are found to be consistent with our international objectives.”
The following year, President Jimmy Carter indefinitely suspended the commercial reprocessing and recycling of high-level nuclear waste. Although reversing the action was considered over the next two decades, it wasn’t until President George W. Bush suggested reprocessing as part of his proposed National Energy Policy in 2001 that the concept became politically feasible again.
In stark contrast to the U.S., France has long experience in recycling spent nuclear fuel. The country generates approximately 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, and maintains the world’s largest commercial nuclear waste reprocessing plants. More than 1,100 tons of spent fuel are reprocessed in France annually for both domestic and foreign companies. Smaller waste reprocessing plants can be found in India, Japan, and Russia.
“Like it or not, the nuclear fuel cycle needs to be addressed,” said John Holt, senior principal for generation and fuels at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. “Even if we don’t build any new nuclear power plants — although we will — we’re creating more nuclear waste just by operating existing plants. If we start reprocessing, the waste currently sitting at plants can be used as a second round of fuel. You’re still going to have waste, but there will be a lot less of it.”
To learn more about America’s evolving nuclear power program, visit www.ne.doe.gov.
Here's a link to November 2009 Featured Story on nuclear energy.
Here's a link to another story about nuclear energy from our "Environment of Change" series from 2008.
Sources: U.S. Department of Energy Study, A Sustainable Energy Future: The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy, August 2008, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Research Institute, World Nuclear Association, Congressional Research Service.
Megan McKoy writes on consumer and cooperative affairs for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the Arlington, Va.-based service arm of the nation’s 900-plus consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives.
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