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Nuclear waste is pretty much the most hated substance on earth. And for good reason—exposure to the waste and its radiation can cause a slew of adverse health effects. That's putting it lightly. And yet, as long as we keep running nuclear power plants there's going to be nuclear waste. Lots of it.
According to the Department of Energy, there are 131 separate sites storing nuclear waste in 39 states across the country. And they're pretty full, too: there are literally millions of gallons of nuclear waste in the US alone, according to the DOE. In fact, at a single site in Fernald, Ohio the DOE counted 31 million pounds of uranium waste product. So what to do with all this radioactive nuclear material?
What to do indeed.
Nuclear waste disposal is one of the most difficult and most widely debated environmental energy topics of the past decades (right up there with peak oil and renewable technologies). There are currently no widely held nuclear waste management solutions. So, we typically preserve the waste for long term storage in a process called vitrification, which turns the liquid nuclear waste into an amorphous glass-like solid. But what then? Nuclear waste can't just sit around onsite forever can it—that can could lead to leaks or contamination.
Currently, the ostensible plan in the USA is to one day ship it all into a massive storage facility in Nevada, Yucca Mountain. But environmental and NIMBY concerns, as well as huge money issues have caused Yucca to be delayed for decades. With recent cuts to the plan's budget, the earliest the facility is expected to open is 2020.
With Yucca looking bleak as a solution, it looks like we'll be facing the separate site storage situation for a while yet. Expect nuclear waste to be an issue for ages to come.
More on Nuclear Waste:
Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor... Your Nuclear Waste
Next Stop for Radioactive Waste: Texas
Green Nuclear Waste?
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