Waste Knot

Spent fuel from nuclear reactors is a thorn in the side of those pulling for a nuclear energy renaissance. Radioactive waste just keeps piling up at nuclear power plants across the country, and there’s no consensus on what to do about it. The Obama administration’s decision to pull the plug on the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository means there is no long-term solution (good or bad) on the horizon.

At Senator Tom Carper’s forum on nuclear waste at MIT today, the panelists — Matthew Bunn from Harvard, and Charles Forsberg, Ernest Moniz and Andrew Kadak from MIT — agreed that today’s interim storage is good for another half-century or so and we have time to work on a permanent solution.

The source of their confidence is the dry cask system of entombing spent fuel in big metal and concrete cylinders. The Union of Concerned Scientists supports the use of dry cask storage for 50-year timeframes but has expressed concern about safeguarding the casks.

Moniz called for a semantic change. We should call on-site storage “managed” storage rather than “interim” storage, he said. “We have to stop thinking of this as kicking the can down the road.”

Forsberg and Carper expressed interest in reprocessing spent fuel but Bunn, Moniz and Kadak soundly rejected the idea of reprocessing using today’s technology, which produces large quantities plutonium and increases the risk of nuclear proliferation. The three voiced support for continuing the US government’s moratorium on reprocessing. “Today we have about 270 tons of separated plutonium essentially in storage in multiple countries,” Moniz said. “Not a pretty picture.”

There was consensus on the need for a geological repository for spent nuclear fuel. They also all disagreed with the administration’s decision on Yucca Mountain.

Bunn, who is an expert in nuclear nonproliferation, called for the government to take ownership of nuclear waste. I asked Senator Carper after the forum about the idea of shifting the burden of nuclear waste management from rate payers to taxpayers. “We’re running a deficit of 1.6 or 1.7 trillion dollars,” he said. “That’s not a subject that’s going to get a lot of traction, to be honest with you.”

MIT Report

Meanwhile, MIT has updated its 2003 report on nuclear energy. The original report called for a terawatt of nuclear power worldwide by midcentury in order for nuclear power to have a measurable impact on climate change. The update’s authors lament the slow start toward that goal over the last six years.

“We don’t appear to be shovel-ready,” Moniz said at the forum. “There is no new plant under construction in the United States, and even if one looks at the 44 plants under construction around the world, the fact is we are not on a trajectory for a terawatt by midcentury.”

I’m not sorry we’re not shovel-ready. Nuclear power is expensive and there are real concerns about plant safety and fuel security. And having half a century to work on the spent fuel storage problem doesn’t mean we’ll solve it.

Eric Smalley is the editor of Energy Research News. He has written about technology since 1987 and has freelanced for many publications including Discover, Scientific American, Wired News and The Boston Globe on topics ranging from quantum cryptography to global warming.