FILE – People leave the south portal of Yucca Mountain during a congressional tour on July 14, 2018, … [+]
In the previous postI have discussed some of the developments that are taking place to make nuclear energy safer so that a major accident like those at Chernobyl and Fukushima is simply no longer possible.
But the other major issue that nuclear opponents usually raise is what to do with the radioactive waste generated during the production of nuclear energy.
I posed this question to Dr. Kathryn Huff, Assistant Secretary in the Office of Nuclear Energy at the Department of Energy (DOE).
Treat nuclear waste
The good news is that the amount of waste generated is usually low. In fact, nuclear power plants have simply stored the waste on site, but this is not a long-term solution to the problem.
The storage of nuclear waste is always a hot political topic. Many communities do not want waste stored in their neighborhoods, and some even object to waste being transported through their towns. This has hampered projects such as the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility in Nevada, which has been studied as a potential storage facility since the 1970s.
Dr. Huff explained that nuclear waste is currently stored onsite at nuclear power plants, but the DOE is reviving the initiative to find a storage facility. Such permanent storage facilities are the approach favored by several other nations.
In fact, Finland is currently developing the world’s first permanent disposal site for high-level nuclear waste on an island off the west coast of Finland. The waste will be buried in about 100 tunnels approximately 1,400 feet underground. The facility is expected to contain all of Finland’s nuclear waste until around the year 2100 and is supposed to contain spent fuel rods for 100,000 years. The design relies on multiple barriers designed to prevent water from reaching the waste and transporting it into the water supply. It should start operating next year.
A different approach is to recycle nuclear waste to recover fissile and fertile material for additional electricity generation from nuclear power plants. The reprocessing of nuclear waste makes it possible to recover the plutonium, which is then mixed with depleted uranium oxide to manufacture new fuel.
This process reduces the volume of high-level (HA) waste by approximately 85%, while extracting up to 30% more energy in addition to uranium. It also reduces the amount of uranium that needs to be mined.
Recycling policies are in place in France, in certain other European countries, as well as in Russia, China and Japan.
Dr Huff explained that these policies work in France because the same entity is responsible for all parts of the nuclear process – the reactor, the waste and the repository. This is not the case in the United States, which complicates efforts to address this issue. So it’s more of a long-term option for the US
Rise of nuclear power
Finally, I asked Dr. Huff what the United States was doing to bring nuclear power to the United States and spread American technology to the rest of the world.
She said political support for nuclear power was improving. The bipartisan Infrastructure Act allocated $6 billion for current reactors and an additional $2.5 billion for newer reactor designs. There are initiatives for nuclear hydrogen, and production tax credits for clean energy, including nuclear. The goal is to double nuclear power in the United States by 2050
The International Energy Agency (IEA) also estimates that the world will need to double nuclear output by 2050 as it decarbonizes. So what is the United States doing to support these efforts?
There is an Office of International Nuclear Cooperation within the DOE – Office of International Affairs. There has been much interest in American nuclear designs from Eastern Europe due to energy security concerns. Dr. Huff noted that we have built American reactors in China, but they want to market their own technologies (which were clearly influenced by American designs).
In conclusion, Mr. Huff noted that not all options are suitable for replacing end-of-life coal-fired power plants. Energy planning models show the need for a second-to-second energy balance on the network. A day-to-day view might make you think you need less storage than you actually need, but short-term balancing requires fast-response power.
Nuclear power plants are physically similar in size and have the same energy efficiency and reliability as coal-fired power plants. The network is configured for these switches. Labor is also compatible. Similar types of skilled trades work in coal-fired power plants that would be needed in nuclear power plants.