Abstract
“Radioactive Wastes and the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership,” by Robert Alvarez, Institute for Policy Studies, 2007
In May 2006, the U.S. Energy Department launched a new initiative, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). It's an ambitious plan that, according to Energy, will “provide abundant energy without generating carbon emissions,” will recycle spent nuclear fuel to “minimize waste and reduce proliferation concerns,” will allow developing nations to “safely and securely” develop nuclear power, and will “assure maximum energy recovery from still-valuable used nuclear fuel.” GNEP's first steps envision the creation in the United States of a reprocessing plant capable of handling 2,000-3,000 metric tons of waste per year to separate spent fuel from U.S. light water reactors into its component parts; the deployment of an advanced burner fast reactor that could burn (transmute) the separated plutonium and possibly the other trans-uranics (heavy radioactive isotopes, such as americium, neptunium, and curium) contained in the spent fuel; and the development of an advanced fuel cycle research facility.
The goal of GNEP is to move the United States from its current reliance on a once-through fuel cycle–which produces some 2,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste annually–into a closed fuel cycle in which the transuranic material would be separated from the spent reactor fuel and then recycled repeatedly into a fleet of fast reactors until the transuranics are mostly fissioned. Theoretically, this would reduce the heat load of the waste and increase the effective capacity of the Yucca Mountain geological repository by a factor of 50-100.
It all sounds good, yet there is a lot not to like about GNEP. First of all, it will be extremely costly. A 1996 study by the National Research Council argued that the excess costs of a separation and transmutation disposal system over once-through disposal for 62,000 metric tons of spent fuel “is uncertain but is likely to be no less than $50 billion and easily could be over $100 billion.” (By 2030, when the reprocessing plant under GNEP is planned to go online at full capacity, more than 105,000 metric tons of spent fuel will have been discharged by U.S. civilian reactors.) Secondly, the GNEP scheme is remarkably convoluted, involving repeated recycling of plutonium and other transuranics over a period of 100-150 years to achieve significant net reductions in the total transuranic inventory relative to a once-through fuel cycle. And thirdly, the separation of fissile materials raises serious proliferation concerns.
To this already formidable catalog of problems, a new study by Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, adds still another layer of doubt to the wisdom of the GNEP initiative: the environmental consequences of reprocessing. Alvarez is especially well positioned to undertake such an analysis. A past codirector of the Environmental Policy Institute, a former senior investigator for the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, and a senior policy adviser at Energy between 1993 and 1999, Alvarez has in the past years undertaken several detailed studies of the environmental legacy of reprocessing at U.S. defense sites, notably the Hanford Site, the Idaho National Laboratory, and the Savannah River Site.
Reprocessing produces two types of radioactive waste: high-level waste, including the fission products and the transuranic elements, and various types of low-level waste. Alvarez presents a sobering list of the critical waste streams involved: Spent solvents and resins, stabilized liquid waste, and contaminated equipment are among the articles that will require shallow burial for disposal; fuel cladding and hardware, transuranics, and many fission products will have to be burned in fast reactors or eventually geologically disposed.
The GNEP scheme is remarkably convoluted, involving repeated recycling of plutonium and other transuranics over a period of 100-150 years to achieve significant net reductions in total transuranic inventory relative to a once-through fuel cycle.
Such waste streams are typical for the “plutonium-uranium recovery by extraction” (PUREX) process, which is the reprocessing technology now being used worldwide and which would probably be the technology used in the new reprocessing plant. PUREX separates out plutonium but still yields other highly radioactive transuranics as waste. Eventually, GNEP proposes to use a modified process of uranium extraction, termed UREX, in which the plutonium would be kept associated with some of the other transuranics. As Alvarez notes, however, UREX will produce still other waste streams. Whichever reprocessing technology is used, the fission products, cesium 137 and strontium 90, both with a half-life of about 30 years, will have to be dealt with.
To handle these isotopes, GNEP proposes to separate them from the spent fuel and then store them above ground for hundreds of years, until they decay to levels where they could be buried shallowly as low-level waste. Alvarez puts a spotlight on this odd plan. Instead of keeping the cesium and strontium locked in the spent fuel, which could be stored safely for a hundred years or more in aboveground dry casks (and then either reprocessed or sent to a geological repository), the isotopes are to be immediately separated, placed in interim storage for a very long period, and ultimately disposed of in a manner that Alvarez worries will not sufficiently protect the public. Alvarez estimates that the waste might need to be stored for 600 years or more before it meets low-level waste disposal criteria.
Alvarez does not examine in detail how the various waste streams will be disposed and the public protected, but by referring to the tremendous existing problems facing disposal and cleanup at the defense sites, he does raise several red flags if the United States does embark on large-scale reprocessing.
JOURNAL ROUND-UP
The moral landscape
War is proving to be a powerful motivator for geographers. In the
First presented at a 2005 Association of American Geographers conference, the essays veer toward the esoteric but outline the concrete value of broadening the scope of geographic work. In one of the more informative essays, University of British Columbia geographer Brian Klinkenberg details the expanding use of graphical information systems and geospatial technologies, such as global positioning systems. The same tools that have revolutionized research demand that geographers adopt new responsibilities, writes Klinkenberg.
When the proper context and analysis does not accompany presentations of maps and geographic data, public misinterpretation is frequent. (Klinkenberg cites research on pre-World War II German cartography, which was used by nationalists to exaggerate the military and socioeconomic threats to the country.) Geographers need to inform the public about the abuses and proper uses of maps and spatial analyses, develop more “nuanced quantitative data analyses,” and collaborate with local communities. Klinkenberg writes: “Geographers must fully engage in thinking deeply on the moral and ethical dilemmas that lie ahead.”
One interesting aspect of the report is Alvarez's guess at where the GNEP reprocessing plant will be located. Energy has invited expressions of interest from industry, laboratories, and communities in hosting the indicated facilities and now reports that it will consider 13 sites as possible locations for one or more of the proposed facilities. Alvarez believes that the prime candidate to host the reprocessing plant is the Savannah River Site in South Carolina “because of its proximity to the nation's reactor fleet, access to ports, and its nuclear material processing infrastructure.”
Alvarez does not address the proliferation implications of reprocessing, but these could be profound. Substantial civilian reprocessing has long been going on in France, Britain, Russia, and India, and a large civilian reprocessing plant in Japan has just started operation. A new U.S. reprocessing plant will not be novel. But for over 30 years, the United States has opposed reprocessing partly on proliferation grounds, since it is a method of “harvesting” plutonium. During this period no country that had not already had a reprocessing operation under way initiated one. The U.S. example and also in some cases U.S. pressure, have to a large extent kept the lid on reprocessing.
Those who advocate GNEP recognize explicitly the proliferation risks of reprocessing, should it become widely practiced, and therefore look to the adoption of policies where only some countries will be allowed to have reprocessing and fast reactors, while others will be given assurances of fuel supply and nuclear assistance by the nuclear haves. Such a two-tier fuel cycle arrangement has not been embraced by most developing countries, and it is doubtful that it ever will be accepted. In the meantime, as this discussion plays out, Alvarez's report is especially valuable in spotlighting the severe environmental challenges that reprocessing poses for any country.