The biggest roadblock in the move to build new nuclear power plants in the US is the ever-present problem of nuclear waste disposal or recycling. Nuclear power authorities recently met at the MIT to discuss how best to address this issue. US Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, said, “We need another Manhattan Project to figure out what to do with all of the spent fuel.”
In the current scenario, the US has 104 active power reactors that will expectedly produce ‘more than 105,000 metric tons of high-level waste over their operating lifetimes.’ To dispose of these properly, the US needs a ‘subsurface storage facility of more than 1,700 acres.’ That’s twice the size of New York’s Central Park. There is no such facility as of yet, that is why nuclear waste is simply stored at their producing plants.
US nuclear scientists admit that there is no immediately technological cause to dispose of spent fuel permanently. A policy on disposing the material has yet to be designed, as well. Experts say that this policy will depend on the US decision as to how it wants to regard nuclear waste: whether the waste will be considered disposable or recyclable. Nuclear experts disclose that nuclear waste can be ‘reprocessed to harness much more of that potential.’
Via MIT news
