Homeless nuclear waste
Some 60,000 metric tons of radioactive waste is stored at nuclear power plants across the country, awaiting federal action that’s already a decade late.
By Colin Woodard | Correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor/ September 15, 2009 edition
Colin Woodard
Boom! Explosives implode the dome that housed the nuclear reactor of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in 2004. It operated from 1972 to 1996.
WISCASSET, Maine
Standing on the end of Bailey Point, looking out on a cold, blue inlet of the Atlantic, you’d never know a nuclear power plant once stood here.
The massive concrete containment dome, the spent fuel storage pool, and the six-story-high turbine hall were all torn down earlier this decade, leaving a rain-soaked meadow of grass. The engineers and technicians who tended the 900-megawatt reactor packed up and left town a decade ago, when the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station stopped producing power.
All that’s left is radioactive waste: the remains of the plant’s reactor vessel lining and the 1,435 spent fuel assemblies that passed through it over a quarter century of operations.
It has nowhere else to go. The owners of the defunct plant have put the waste in sealed canisters and placed them inside 64 two-story concrete silos that stand in regimented formation behind a 12-foot earthen berm and twin rows of razor-wire-topped fencing. Guards, insurance, maintenance, and other costs add up to $8 million a year, which is currently borne by utility customers. If it weren’t for the need to watch over the waste, the company would have been dissolved with the rest of the plant in 2005.
Wiscasset, a community of fewer than 4, 000 sometimes called the prettiest little village in Maine, is one of eight US towns that have found themselves stuck with high-level waste after the power plants that produced it disappeared. Other communities will join them in the coming decade as more plants reach the end of their life spans.
Maine Yankee’s owners worry that spent fuel and other wastes may sit where they are for decades, given the Obama administration’s decision to abandon work on a controversial federal repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
“We’re kind of in limbo now,” says Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes, standing next to a concrete barrier at the approach to the interim storage yard. “The law says the federal government was supposed to take this stuff away 11 years ago. There are places they could take it, so we want them to please enforce the law.”
Fifty years after the first civilian nuclear power plant came on line, the United States has yet to decide what to do with the spent fuel they produce, raising questions about proposals to build more plants to meet future energy needs and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. “If you don’t have a credible endpoint for spent fuel that deals with the long-term safety and security issues, you really have to wonder if nuclear power is a reasonable choice,” says physicist Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Washington.
By law, the federal government was supposed to have built a permanent repository and begun taking custody of the spent fuel piling up at the nation’s 104 nuclear plants in 1998. Complications – both political and technical – delayed work at Yucca Mountain, where the government has spent more than $13 billion. The delays caused spent fuel to begin piling up, filling storage pools at power plants across the country and forcing some of them to build special facilities to warehouse the waste.
Today there are 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel awaiting permanent disposal, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association, and the nation’s power plants produce 2,000 tons more each year. Even if work on Yucca Mountain had continued, it wouldn’t have solved the problem: By the early 2020s, when it would have been completed, the nation’s nuclear waste would have already exceeded the repository’s 70,000-ton capacity.
The owners of decommissioned plants want the federal government to build its own interim storage site and to take their spent fuel away first, allowing them to close their facilities, sell property, and dissolve their companies.
“Here in New England there are three high-level nuclear storage sites, each of which has to be protected by three separate companies with redundant facilities,” says Bob Capstick, the Boston-based spokesman for two decommissioned plants, Yankee Rowe in Rowe, Mass., and Connecticut Yankee in Haddam, Conn. “It makes a lot more sense for the feds to bring it to a central storage location.”
Either way, the federal taxpayer will probably be stuck with the bill because the government was under a legal obligation to begin taking possession of spent fuel in 1998. In 2006, a federal judge awarded the three New England plants $142 million in damages, but the Department of Energy (DOE) has appealed the way the damages were calculated.
“It’s bad enough to have spent fuel stored on the site of an operating plant, but at least then you already have a security force and the technical skills to deal with radiation risks,” says Jerry Stouck, the attorney who represented the New England plants. “If you have to keep the same expertise on the site and all you’re doing is baby-sitting the fuel, it’s just a waste of money.”
Others say a centralized interim storage site makes sense from a security point of view. “If you have a hundred and some odd sites in 30 or more states where a terrorist attack could take place, you would think it might be better to house it all in one, centralized, highly secure location,” notes Patrick Dostie, Maine’s state nuclear safety inspector.
Centralized interim storage has its critics, though. Dr. Lyman of UCS says the concept is a bad one, as it requires spent fuel to be transported twice before it reaches its final resting spot.
“The less you move the fuel around, the better,” he says, pointing out that it is probably most vulnerable to accident or attack when it’s moving overland on trucks or rail cars, sometimes through densely populated areas. “The standards for transportation are pretty lax, and the risks of moving fuel twice outweigh the benefits.”
Asked about the prospects for a central interim storage facility, DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller says the government is not currently “focused on specific sites” but rather on developing “thoughtful, long-term solutions to nuclear waste storage that do not involve Yucca Mountain.” Energy Secretary Steven Chu plans to delegate that task to a special blue ribbon commission whose membership has yet to be determined.
The Nuclear Energy Institute isn’t opposed to a centralized interim site, just as long as the federal government doesn’t run it, according to Steven Kraft, the industry group’s senior director for used fuel management.
“DOE could rent space in a private facility, but we do not think it would make sense for it to be a government facility,” he says, adding that government management would be more expensive and cumbersome. “Look at how well the government has done with Yucca Mountain,” he says with irony.
Mr. Kraft also says the uncertainty over spent-fuel disposal would have “no effect at all” on efforts to expand nuclear power generation. “Whether or not you build new nuclear plants in this country will be determined by traditional business factors,” he says. “We have to have a plan to deal with spent fuel, but we do not see it as an impediment.”
Back in Wiscasset, Don Hudson isn’t so sure.
“The constipation of the nuclear fuel cycle – our inability to develop a plan to deal with the waste – effectively puts a hold on any kind of significant redevelopment of nuclear power in this country,” says Mr. Hudson, who’s president of the Chewonki Foundation, an environmental education group that owns former Maine Yankee land adjacent to the interim storage site, and also serves on the facility’s community advisory committee.
“I’m very comfortable with the way the [Wiscasset] site is being managed right now,” he says, “but I don’t think it is a sustainable plan to have 60 or 70 of these installations spread across the country for any number of economic, ecological, and radiological reasons. I think it’s just crazy for us to be talking about developing an increased capacity to make waste when we don’t have a plan to deal with it.”
Editor’s note: For more articles about the environment, see the Monitor’s main environment page, which offers information on many environment topics. Also, check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed.
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Comments
2. Burton Segall | 09.15.09
This article covers many of the issues around the ever-lasting toxic and economic negative aspects of this technology, sold to the public as safe, clean, and too cheap to meter so many decades ago. It is now time for the mythology of nukes being the answer to global warming to rest. Building a nuclear power plant has a larger carbon footprint than other electrical generators, as they all need certain features, and the nukes need containment, which involoves more metal and concrete, more fuel wasted to create the unit. Then, after 20-30 years, it is a huge nuclear waste site. This is a larger carbon footprint (in construction alone) that is guaranteed to become unusable in short order, and the hazardous legacy is an additional bonus to remind everybody of a failed technology.
3. Liz2009 | 09.15.09
The fact that we have spent in Senator Reid’s home state of Nevada billions for a national storage facility with no waste in it is unexcusable. A “bridge to Yucca Mountain” is wrong! We need this facility or one like it and adopt a move to expand using non-polluting nuclear power immediately.
4. Nikola | 09.15.09
The US is one of the few countries that doesn’t take reprocessing (and thus reusing) spent fuel seriously. It’s not a perfect solution, but it would shrink the magnitude of the problem considerably.
5. Tom Hagan | 09.16.09
Great to see this subject aired.
“The US is one of the few countries that doesn’t take reprocessing (and thus reusing) spent fuel seriously. It’s not a perfect solution, but it would shrink the magnitude of the problem considerably.”
As I understand it, the reason we don’t reprocess is that doing so creates bomb makings, specifically U235, with the danger of that material falling into the wrong hands. France and others, in reprocessing their spent fuel, tolerate this danger.
Aside from spent fuel disposal, I recall reading of another adverse consequence of atomic power generation: really long term contamination of the land under the plant. Is this true? As I recall, that land remains dangerously radioactive and can’t be put to any other use for some 50,000 years. If so, here is another powerful argument for the unsustainability of atomic power that never gets discussed.
Finally, many railing against healthcare reform don’t want to see the government in the insurance business. Of course, government is already in very deep with Medicare etc, but almost no one knows that the atomic power industry would never have happened but for the government taking on liability insurance for the power comapanies. It was clear from the outset that liability insurance would never be offered in the free market, so it has been “socialized” ever since the beginning of Ike’s “Atoms for Peace” in the 1950’s. Yet another government subsidy for atomic power, unknown to almost everyone.
6. Big Chris | 09.18.09
An interesting article. I would like to have had the reporter ask the persons who were in favor of a central storage site where they think it should be. It seems to me that the former Maine Yankee site or any other current or former nuclear power plant site would be acceptable - if they are OK to store SNF now, then why not put more there? You can imagine what the reaction from the interviewees would have been - NIMBY!
7. Henry Peters | 09.19.09
[“DOE could rent space in a private facility, but we do not think it would make sense for it to be a government facility,” he says, adding that government management would be more expensive and cumbersome. “Look at how well the government has done with Yucca Mountain,” he says with irony.]
I believe we must not forget that Yucca Mountain repository project was produced with the mind set that the production of nuclear energies (electricity or other) would be & was indeed, a successful endeavor. Nothing could be further from the truth; It is a FAILED experiment (approximately 60 years later, & no closer to being able to appropriately deal with wastes, for one example), & the whole endeavor wouldn’t have happened (the way it did, quantitatively) if it were not for enforced government projections… (from Manhattan Project, onwards) & financing (for one example, the Price-Anderson indemnity act), which indeed,followed this direction (for any doubts about this, look in to the Atomic Energy Act, it says nothing about the possibility of failure, it just assumes it was & is proceeding with no special problems & mandates this country to pursue an atomic energy policy, unquestioningly).
What I think is needed now is mostly a differing mind set… & subsequent appropriate actions, public or “private,” (& I’m not talking “recycling” here, i.e., reprocessing). The only solution to nuclear waste, is not to make it in the first place… (what is the old saying? “what do you do if you find your self digging your self into a hole? Ans:Stop digging!”
This points to the really, really serious importance of credible (!) other energy development & sources, public & or private. & just so’s you don’t think I am being overly negative here, I’m not totally against nuclear energies: 93 million miles is even a relatively good distance from such a generator… (don’t forget to use some sunscreen), only about 4 billion years left for it though… get it while we can?
8. John d | 09.21.09
I am not sure if, it is a good idea to eject this 60 million tonnes of
radioactive waste in space(Our Universe space, I Mean) guided towards a nearest blackhole, if possible.
Then the cost-effectiveness of producing nuclear energy would be in question.
Well at least our earth will be more environmental friendly for at
least 4 billion years.
9. Wam | 09.21.09
Maybe the old word “reprocessing” should be renamed “recycling”. Of course we need reprocessing: in France’s La Hague reprocessing plant, all the radioactive waste is stored in a small building, and they’ll build another small building once that is full - it’s so easy. Also it wasn’t the government that “spent billions” on Yucca mountain, it was the ratepayers that paid for this, and the government wasted the money on Yucca mountain, only to grandstand now and act as if they’re cleaning up someone’s mess. In truth they received $30 billion for the job, and in 20 years were not able to complete it (license Yucca), and Harry Reid should be ashamed of himself and should be thrown out of office as soon as possible.
10. Bob Vessels | 09.21.09
Why bury reactor fuel elements that still have 65% of the energy potential locked in the fuel? Fuel reprocessing that is being done by the rest of the world takes usable material and makes mixed oxide fuel elements. The final end product is less toxic and is simpler to store. We used to be the leaders in the nuclear field and now we aren’t even good “followers”. It is time to realize that current energy plans for windmills, solar power, energy conservation, and other sources being considered, while important,are clearly part of a no growth energy policy. We need an energy initiative that puts nuclear power at the head of our list of initiatives. Let’s turn this major source of fear into a major source of fuel. Don’t build the kind of plants we have now. Structure a program that is geared to use the full energy potential locked in the nuclear fuel and that leaves the least amount of waste product possible. Our scientific community can do this and the end result will be positive from an environmental viewpoint and could bring us back as a leader in the nuclear business. Fuel reprocessing is an essential part of any effective nudlear program.
11. Nancy Sneed | 10.05.09
Thank you CSM for posting an article about nuclear issue.
There are so many people that want to utilize this source of energy now that we pay fuel costs like other nations.
What stopped the building of nuclear plants was ASTRONOMICAL COST.
Sadly ,these costs STILL LEFT OUT the catastrophic waste issue.
America should never have built over 70 nuclear reactors WITHOUT WASTE FACTORED INTO THE EQUATION.
More importantly, why build a plant on the premise that WASTE CAN BE DUMPED ON SOMEONE ELSE.
The same experts that SOLD US ON NUKES, down played the health hazards telling us waste was acceptable.
They told officials the waste” wasnt bad” ;WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, made laws saying that WASTE HAD TO BE TAKEN TO LOW POPULATION SITES. They knew it was hazardous or that stipulation would never have been made
Thankfully, time has exposed this industry for all its problems.Keep posting articles on the NUKE issue to keep America from back paddling!
12. Joe DeMare | 11.04.09
Reprocessing is not recycling. It actually generates more nuclear waste than it “uses.” Also the waste it creates is deadlier than the waste it reprocessed.
How can that be? You may ask. Well, to reprocess spent fuel rods, you have to first dissolve them in incredibly strong acids. Then you have to chemically separate out the Uranium. Then you have to separate out the isotopes of Uranium that can be reused, usually with centrifuges.
So in place of one spent fuel rod, you have now generated thousands of gallons of highly acidic radioactive “soup” that contains the ultra-deadly Plutonium as well as many other deadly radioactive isotopes. And remember, every tool, beaker, robot arm, and barrel that you are manipulating the waste with is getting bombarded with so much radiation, that it, too, becomes radioactive and has to be treated as high level waste.
Everywhere this has been tried, it has been a disaster. West Valley, New York is just one example.
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1. Wally | 09.15.09
Perhaps the old Maine Yankee facility should be roped off at the new boundary and the property, complete with the spent fuel, titled to the federal government right where it sits. Uncle Sam required the industry to pay him to take the spent fuel to keep it out of bad hands - so why is Uncle Sam not taking the spent fuel. Why are former Maine Yankee ratepayers paying anything at this point - they already paid once. Time for Uncle Sam to be paying (yes that means I start paying since I do not live in Maine Yankee territory and Uncle Sam didn’t really save that money he collected - he already frittered it away). Still in any case, this problem belongs to the Federal Government.