How long does nuclear waste remain dangerous

"Much of this nuclear waste will remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years, leaving a poisonous legacy to future generations". This message from the environmental organization Greenpeace, conveyed by politicians and media generates understandable fears. What is its veracity? What do the physicist, the engineer think? What does Nature say?

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2. The U.S. generates about 2,000 metric tons of used fuel each year
3. Used fuel is stored at more than 70 sites in 34 U.S. states
4. Used fuel is safely transported across the United States
5. Used fuel can be recycled

The chosen observation period ranges from 10 years to 100,000 years. The 10-year period is the time elapsed between the spent fuel extraction from the reactor and the production of vitrified waste, years during which the most radioactive atoms with a very short lifetime disappear. The 100,000-years deadline echoes the hundreds of thousands of years mentioned above. Will humanity come to those 100,000 years? We do not know. We are at the very beginning of the path that leads to these extraordinarily distant deadlines. In 2015, the oldest waste is barely fifty years old!

100,000 years for the most radioactive waste? ... Slogan or reality ?

It is impossible to exactly define a duration for a radioactive species, because mathematically we can not define the moment when the species will disappear. On the other hand we can define the moment when 50%, 90%, 99.9% of its atoms will have disappeared. In a radioactive package, the most active radioelements, therefore the most dangerous, will disappear slowly at the scale of our human lives, but well before the first millennium! For instance, cesium-137 will lose 99.9% of its radioactivity in 3 centuries. On the other hand only 3% of the atoms of a minor actinide like neptunium-237 will have decreased in 100 000 years. The species remaining at these time scales are not very radioactive. A neptunium atom is for example 71 000 times less active than a cesium-137 one: If we are lucky enough to reach 100 years, only 1 nucleus of neptunium out of 31000 will have emitted a ray during our earthly stay!

To clarify what is said above, let us compare the evolution of the radioactivity of the two types of waste envisaged for a deep geological repository in France: the spent fuels coming out of the reactors ; the high activity vitrified waste produced at the La Hague plant by reprocessing these spent fuels. In the latter, plutonium and uranium that can be reused have been removed. Based on standard compositions, this comparison gives a good idea of the level of radioactivity of both types of waste and their evolution.

Evolution of activities in one ton of spent fuelCharacteristic evolutions - from 10 years to 100,000 years ago - of the activity of the main elements present in a spent fuel: plutonium, short-lived fission products, minor actinides and long-lived fission products. The activities expressed in terabecquerels are calculated for a fuel initially containing one tonne of uranium and discharged from a reactor after a standard irradiation of 3 years.

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Let us first consider a tonne of spent fuel that has undergone standard irradiation. Unloaded from the reactor, it contains four main types of radioactive atoms: plutonium isotopes, short-lived fission products including cesium-137 and strontium-90, minor actinides (neptunium, americium and curium), and a handful of long-lived fission products. (NB: the radioactivity of 940 kg of uranium is negligible)

The radioactivity of the ten kilograms of plutonium is dominant throughout the 100,000 years. The overall radioactivity decreases very slowly due to the very long radioactive half-lives of certain isotopes. But the decay is very important at the scale of one hundred millennia, more than 5,000 times, according to the evaluation of the curve below in the case of spent fuels; more for vitrified waste.

The contribution of two short-lived fission products, cesium-137 and strontium-90, competes with that of plutonium during the first hundred years, the years we are living. But divided by 1,000 every 300 years, it will be the first to vanish. The decay of minor actinides is similar to that of plutonium, also an actinide. Their contribution is 10 to 20 times lower than plutonium. Finally, the radioactivity of the fourth category, the long lived fission products, is very low and its contribution negligible due to extremely long lifetimes.

Fig 2 : Decrease of activity in spent fuel and high-level wasteCompared evolutions, evaluated for one ton of initial uranium, of the activities of three types of waste: 1) Standard nuclear spent fuel stored as waste; 2) vitrified waste obtaned from spent fuel with plutonium removed; (3) Vitrified waste from which minor actinides have also been removed. The diminution of radioactive activity in the long term is 10 times faster for the second, and even more so for the third.

IN2P3

In 100,000 years, the radioactivity will have decreased nearly 10,000 times ...

Figure 2 compares the evolution of the radioactivity of spent nuclear fuels and vitrified waste packages produced in France. Their radioactive activity and the risks they presents will have decreased several thousands of times at the end of the 100,000 years. However, this decrease remains very slow. How to accelerate a return to activities if not harmless at least well attenuated?

The figure also shows that removing plutonium from spent fuel divides radioactive activity by 3 to 8 beyond 100 years, and by 1000 at the end of the first millennium. It will take less than 10,000 years to reach the level of decay that nuclear spent fuel will reach in 100,000 years. In addition, the radioactive atoms - fission products and minor actinides - are conditioned at the La Hague plant within a vitreous material, the virtue of which is to immobilize them for millennia. The resilience of these glasses to radiation would be at least 10,000 years, at an age when their radioactivity would be divided by about 5,000.

To further accelerate the diminution of radioactivity, it is planned to remove minor actinides as well. The 100,000 years would then be reduced to around 300 years. But, what to do with plutonium and minor actinides? The plutonium removed is not of a military grade. It can be burned as fuel in fast neutron reactors. As for the minor actinides, less abundant, they could be also burned so if waste burners reactors saw the light some day.

One can not consider storing indefinitely near humans highly radioactive material such as spent fues or vitrified waste. For the former, it will be necessary one day or the other to reprocess them, or to bury them at a great depth, or both at the same time. Some activists oppose both the deep storage of these materials, reprocessing that frozes their radioactivity, after having opposed in France the first reactor plutonium burner (Superphenix). To follow them, to refuse all the solutions, is the best way "to leave to future generations a poisoned legacy"!

Logic and a positive ecology would not oppose techniques aimed at reducing the quantity and activity of long-lived waste that some day or another will require to be stored. Let us remember the wise words of a specialist; "If we want to store the long-lived waste in stable underground geological layers, it is to add a further barrier between the radiations emitted by this waste and us, but it is also to protect the waste against human intrusions, intentionals or not: at 500 meters underground, they will be safe. "

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WATCH: Get up to speed on these 5 fast facts about spent nuclear fuel.

Video courtesy of the Department of Energy

Nuclear energy is one of the largest sources of emissions-free power in the world.

It generates nearly a fifth of America’s electricity and more than half of its clean energy.

During this process, it creates spent or used fuel (sometimes incorrectly referred to as nuclear waste) but it’s not the green oozy liquid you might be thinking of when watching “The Simpsons.”

In fact, some in the industry actually consider it a valuable resource.

Say what?

Don’t worry, we’ll get you up to speed with these 5 fast facts on used fuel that’s generated from nuclear power.

Used fuel refers to the uranium fuel that has been used in a commercial reactor. The fuel is made up of metal fuel rods that contain small ceramic pellets of enriched uranium oxide. The fuel rods are combined into tall assemblies that are then placed into the reactor.

It’s a solid when it goes into the reactor and a solid when it comes out.

Sorry “Simpsons.”

2. The U.S. generates about 2,000 metric tons of used fuel each year

This number may sound like a lot, but it’s actually quite small. In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards.

3. Used fuel is stored at more than 70 sites in 34 U.S. states

Commercial used fuel rods are safely and securely stored at 76 reactor or storage sites in 34 states.

The fuel is either enclosed in steel-lined concrete pools of water or in steel and concrete containers, known as dry storage casks.

For the foreseeable future, the fuel can safely stay at these facilities until a permanent disposal solution is determined by the federal government.

4. Used fuel is safely transported across the United States

Over the last 55 years, more than 2,500 cask shipments of used fuel have been transported across the United States without any radiological releases to the environment or harm to the public.

The fuel is shipped in transportation casks that are designed to withstand more than 99 percent of vehicle accidents, including water immersion, impact, punctures and fires.