Wanted: Volunteers who will host nuclear waste forever

The Trump Administration's plan to release a wave small futuristic reactors that will power the AI age relies on an ancient strategy to dispose the highly toxic waste. Bury it at the bottom a very deep pit.

There's still a problem. The hole is not very deep, but the temporary stockpiles of 100,000 tons of radioactive waster at nuclear plants and other sites in the United States keep growing.

The U.S. government is now offering a radioactive reward to resolve this dilemma.

According to a proposal released by the Department of Energy last week, states are being asked to offer to host a permanent geological storage facility for spent fuel. This repository will be part of a campus of new nuclear reactors, waste processing, uranium enlargement and data centers.

The request for information marks a major shift in policy. A spokesperson for DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy said that the plan to boost nuclear power is now accompanied by a requirement to find "a permanent home" for waste. This puts the decision-making in the hands of the local communities and could result in tens of millions of dollars of investment and thousands of new jobs.

Lake Barrett, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official and DOE employee, said, "By combining all of this together, it is a matter that big carrots are placed next to a less desirable waste facility." He said that states such as Tennessee and Utah have expressed an interest in investing in nuclear energy.

The Nuclear Office said that the request generated interest, but did not comment about individual states. States have 60 days to reply. Utah and Tennessee officials did not respond when contacted for comment.

The President Donald Trump is looking to quadruple the U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050 to 400 gigawatts as the electricity demand increases for the first decade thanks to artificial intelligence, the growth of data centers and the electrification in transport.

The DOE has selected 11 advanced nuclear test reactors for licensing on a fast track in 2025. It aims to build three pilots by the 4th of July this year.

According to the U.S., British and European Commission governments, the public's acceptance of nuclear power is partly based on the "promise" of burying the nuclear waste deeply underground.

The spokesperson for the Office of Nuclear Energy said that "a complete nuclear strategy must include durable, safe pathways for final disposal, and this remains a requirement element of the RFI."

Prior attempts to find a resolution have met with strong opposition locally.

The DOE began looking for a permanent facility to store waste in 1983. In 1987, it settled on Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Former President Barack Obama stopped funding the project in 2010 because Nevada legislators were concerned about safety, and how it would affect casinos and hotels. Nearly $15 billion had already been spent.

NEW REACTOR DESIGNS

Small modular reactors are being promoted by countries such as the United States, Britain Canada, China, and Sweden to accelerate the deployment nuclear power.

SMRs are attractive because they can be largely prefabricated in factories. This makes them easier to assemble and faster than larger reactors.

The new SMR designs will not solve the waste issue. Designers are not required to take into account waste from the start, but they do need to have a plan on how it will managed.

Seth Tuler is an associate professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He was previously a member of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

According to a 2022 study published by the Proceedings of the?National Academy of Sciences, the majority of the new SMRs will produce the same amount of waste or more per unit of electricity as today's large nuclear reactors.

SMRs could also be located in areas that lack the infrastructure required for larger plants. This raises the possibility of many other nuclear sites becoming interim waste dumps. According to the U.S. Nuclear Power Regulator, the term "interim" in the United States can refer to more than a century after the reactor has closed.

We contacted nine companies that were behind the 11 SMR designs supported by DOE's Fast-Track programme. Some people said that nuclear waste was a problem for both the reactor operators and the government.

Some said that they hoped for technological advancements in the next decade to improve prospects for reprocessing, but they still agreed that a permanent repository is needed.

Reprocessing spent fuel, where uranium, plutonium, and other elements are separated and sometimes reused, is gaining interest due to the prospect of a second wave of nuclear reactors.

The spokesperson of the Nuclear Energy Office said that "modern technologies, especially advanced recycling and processing, can shrink the volume nuclear material that needs to be disposed," Reprocessing is not a substitute for permanent disposal.

However, nuclear security experts questioned whether the reprocessing process would be included on any of these new campuses.

Ross Matzkin Bridger, a former DOE official, said that "every time it has been tried, it has failed. It creates security risks and proliferation, costs are huge, and it complicates the waste management." He claimed that the few countries recycling fuel recycled between zero and 2%. This is far below the 90 percent promised.

A PERMANENT PROBLEM

Most waste is currently stored indefinitely on-site in the United States of America, Canada, Europe and Britain, initially in spent fuel pools for cooling, then in concrete or steel casks. France sends spent fuels to La Hague, Normandy, for reprocessing.

According to the DOE, the more than 90 reactors in the United States -- the largest nuclear power producer in the world ahead of China and France -- add about 2,000 tonnes of waste each year to the existing stockpiles.

Office of Nuclear Energy data indicates that by the end of 2024 U.S. tax payers will have paid $11.1 billion in compensation to utility companies for storing spent nuclear fuel. Some of this fuel can remain dangerous to humans for hundreds of thousand of years.

According to the British Government, the decommissioning of Scotland's Dounreay plant, where the last nuclear reactor closed in 1994 has been extended several times due to problems with waste handling. This is a sign that the industry will face many issues as old plants close.

As Dounreay is demolished, vast vaults will be filled with large metal containers containing low-level radioactive material.

Since the first commercial nuclear power plant in England went online in 1970, there has been a consensus that burying toxic wastes deep underground was the best option. However, no repository is currently in operation in any part of the world.

It takes time to get a repository operational. The government needs community support and geological studies to determine how the groundwater flows and the rock's stability up to 1,000 metres underground (1,090 yards).

Finland is the country that has made the greatest progress, and is on the verge of opening the first permanent nuclear repository to be located in the world in Olkiluoto. The process began in 1983.

Posiva, the Finnish firm behind the project began moving test?canisters over four hundred meters underground in 2024. It said its goal was to begin commercial operations in this year. However, it is still waiting for the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority) to approve the operating license, which will then be followed by technical inspections.

After the system is up and running, separate tunnels underground will be filled with canisters of copper and steel housing waste and sealed forever.

Sweden started building its permanent repository on January 20, 2025. It aims to be operational by the end of 2030s. Canada has chosen a site to operate in Ontario by the end of 2040. Switzerland and France, too, have selected sites and plan to open their repositories around 2050. The UK is aiming for late 2050s but has not yet decided on a site.

In the interim, until a permanent repository is built in the country for high-level nuclear wastes from sites like Dounreay, they are sent to Sellafield (England) for storage.

Data centers are being built on some decommissioned nuclear sites including Dounreay. They're already connected to the grid and don't require a wait.

There is still a long way to go in the cleanup. The sea was contaminated with irradiated fuel decades ago, and a "minor fragment" of radioactive material was discovered on a local shore in January.

The last "significant particle" was found in April, and fishing has been banned within a radius of 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) of Dounreay’s outlet pipe due to radioactive particles.

The British government extended the deadline for cleaning up Dounreay from 2033 to 2070 last year.

(source: Reuters)