The WIPP Solution?

"Not to be Dr. Rain Cloud, so I will give the ray of hope. First off, the 4th generation of reactors which are currently being developed are much more efficient. In other words, what is waste today, will be more fuel tomorrow."

As some of my social media friends know, I have come down hard on the bloated Department of Energy. This organization came to life under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. Also coming out of that act was the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission). And intertwined between the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the development, safety and disposal of our nuclear energy and weapons. Of all this things they do wrong or poorly, the disposal of nuclear waste is at the top of that list.

First the good news. Nuclear energy keeps getting better all the time. And it is virtually carbon free, so the "Greenies" should love it. Now the bad news. Because of the complexity of bringing a nuclear plant on-line, it takes forever and a day to get a new plant approved. Then comes the much bigger problem - what in the world do we do with the spent uranium fuel rods? 

Some of our most lethal nuclear waste is currently being stored at a facility called the Waste Isolation Pilot Project. This is in a vast salt repository located in New Mexico. It is an interesting formation. And in large part, it was picked as a repository as the salt formation yields some of the most "tightly packed" soil we could find anywhere. In other words (According to the Scientific American), besides being practically leach free, it could take as long as 10,000 years before the salt caverns became unstable and then collapse in on themselves. One small problem. Some of the nuclear waste we have already put there has plutonium which could take as long as 250,000 years to lose its lethality.

Some might ask about Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Was that not suppose to be the super site that all types of nuclear waste could be deposited in? Yes and no. Yes, in that we have sunk $12B into it so far, just getting it ready. Studies have recently shown Yucca's rock formation are not impervious to leaching. For that reason alone, this site has lost its luster with former proponents. Now, it is just an expensive hole in the ground, not that far outside of Las Vegas.

Not to be Dr. Rain Cloud, so I will give the ray of hope. First off, the 4th generation of reactors which are currently under development are much more efficient than what we have now. In other words, what is waste today, will be more fuel tomorrow. Also, some countries are using a decades old technology of reprocessing spent fuel rods. A lower grade of uranium may then be obtained. Bottom line - both will yield less waste for us to deal with.

If we truly are to go down the path of carbon neutral fuel sources, then nuclear energy will have to be in the mix. But as one of my former Econ Professors would say, "We have some huge externalities of production to overcome first." In other words, we need to fix the waste issue, and fast. A bit of global warming will seem like a walk in the park compared to a permanent, highly contaminated, and lethal dumping ground for nuclear waste.