The Potential Storage Methods For Caesium And Strontium From Snf

The Institute for Energy and Environment offered and alternative in 1999 for the management of nuclear waste. For short term storage the Institute for Energy and Research (IEER) recommended nuclear waste should be stored as near and safely as possible from where it was produced. IEER suggests that the sites need to be dry and as close as possible to the place where the waste was generated to avoid a potential terrorist disaster. The funding for the extra storage on the site should come from the Federal Governments Nuclear Waste Fund. For short term storage the Institute for Energy and Environment Research (IEER) recommended nuclear waste should be stored as near and safely as possible from where it was produced. IEER suggests that the sites need to be dry and as close as possible to the place where the waste was generated to avoid a potential terrorist disaster. The funding for the extra storage on the site should come from the Federal Governments Nuclear Waste Fund. Many repositories should be looked and studied for more than a decade and none prioritized. Finding a permanent and safe solution is very difficult and would require a lot of time because of the want for good science (Ledwidge,

•     Waste from nuclear energy stays radioactive for thousands of years. Great care has to be taken in storing this waste safely.

Since its discovery in the late 19th century, nuclear energy has been used in a diversity of areas such as atomic bombs, medicine, reducing pollution and food irradiation (Gupta, 2012). However, one of the biggest outcomes since this discovery is nuclear energy generation. This subject is largely controversial as it has many pros and cons. It is considered to be a more eco-friendly alternative source of electricity, as it emits less carbon emissions than coal-fired power stations, for example. Yet there still an environmental risk provided by the radio-active waste and its inability to be disposed of for 100,000 years (Phillips, 2012). Today in Australia there are no active nuclear power plants but that is predicted to change in the

There are two major categories of nuclear waste. High-level waste (HLW) and low-level waste (LLW). HLW has high amounts of radioactive materials in a small volume, and it also contains radionuclides with long half-lives .HLW is mainly composed of spent fuel and waste generated by military applications; on the other hand, LLW is generated from mining and excavation activities. [2].

Highly radioactive waste disposal has become one of the most controversial aspects of nuclear technology. As the amount of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear reactors and high-level radioactive waste from defense-related processing plants has continued to mount, the issue has become increasingly contentious and politicized.2 The politicization of this issue is especially evident in the site selection process of a permanent national repository for the disposal of highly radioactive waste.

The need for a permanent and efficient depository for nuclear waste was a growing problem in the United States. The federal government had failed to administer the issue over the storage of our nuclear wastes. Despite efforts to recycle and reuse nuclear fuel, it presented another problem. Myers (1986) explains that this process isolates the plutonium

Nuclear Waste The essay “Nuclear Waste” by Ricard A. Muller talks about the controversial matter of the disposure of radioactive waste. Despite the overwhelming concerns of citizens, Richard Muller believes the dangers associated with the transportation and deposit of nuclear waste is not as paramount as the issue may seem. The concepts that seems most alarming to the public are the number of year it takes for the radioactivity of the waste to subside and where it will be stored in the mean time that will not affect their safety. As Muller explains, ”Even after 100,000 years the radiation will still be above 10% of the level it had when it left the reactor.

Nuclear waste is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process and the operation of nuclear power plants. One of the most common radioactive isotopes found in nuclear waste is plutonium-239, which is capable of causing cancer-related fatalities for millions of people in very small amounts. Other isotopes include iodine-129, cesium-137, and uranium-238, all of which are highly radioactive and have half-lives in the tens of

The primary concern when disposing of nuclear waste and cleaning the facilities that produce it is the duration of half-lives of the elements that make up nuclear waste. One example is Uranium-235, which is used widely by nations that have a nuclear weapons program. U-235 has a half-life of 703,800,000 years. This means that U-235 will take over 700 million years for it to decompose by half. It is estimated that these elements will still be hazardous for ten times their half-lives. At this rate, U-235 will take around 7 billion years for it to become non-threatening to humans. It should be noted that seasons, temperature, or any known solvents will not affect the rate of decay. During the Cold War, very little attention was paid to the high volume of radioactive waste generated and even less to its effects on the environment. U-235 is an extreme example, we still have to contend with low level radioactive waste produced daily by Industry and Medical facilities. Some of the effects on the environment are; groundwater contamination, soil contamination, buried soil and water containing waste, and underground disposal facilities storing large volumes of hazardous, radioactive waste. One such facility was the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which was designated in 1987 by the NWPA Amendments, and located on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in Nye County, Nevada some 80 miles Northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Congress approved the site in 2002,

While reading Richard A. Muller Nuclear Waste a professor of physics from the University of California. I really enjoyed the reading and learning how nuclear waste “is one of the biggest technical issues that any president is likely to face”. In this chapter he also spoke of Plutonium which is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with symbol Pu and atomic number 94. Richard also went on to say that there is a “safe” nuclear waste disposal located in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In order to keep the waste disposal safe, it is buried in a storage room in which is 1000 feet below the surface.

Nearly 40 years of nuclear weapons production at Rocky Flats had left facilities, groundwater, soil, and surface waters contaminated with chemical and radioactive substances that posed potential health and safety risks to the public and workers” (Rocky Flats Plant (USDOE)). Accidents at those sites further contribute to environmental contamination. “Manufacturing activities, accidental industrial fires and spills, and support activities including waste management resulted in the release of hazardous and radioactive substances, hazardous wastes, and hazardous waste constituents to air, soil, sediment, groundwater, and surface water at Rocky Flats.” (Rocky Flats Plant (USDOE)). Similar to the contamination that is spread by the detonation of the atomic bomb, the contaminations caused by the manufacturing plants also have a very long half-life which means the contamination recovery from these sites will take a significant amount of time as well.

Bastin also acknowledges the potential for large amounts of plutonium to fall into the wrong hands, but asserts that if a reprocessing plant is well managed, unlike plants of the past, the security of the nuclear material is not a difficult issue to control. On the subject of exposure, Bastin uses the example of the first reprocessing plant built for the United States government by DuPont. This design was built to contain all reprocessing equipment and materials in order to limit radiation exposure to employees.

Iodine-131 is radioactive iodine with an eight day half-life, resulting in a large amount of absorption in the thyroid gland (Alcalay, 2011). Cesium-137 is similar to potassium with a 30 year half-life which concentrates in muscle, and is found in contaminated soil and food grown in these areas (Alcalay, 2011). Strontium-90 is similar to calcium, with a 28 year half-life which concentrates in bone, soil and ground water (Alcalay, 2011). Plutonium-239 is deemed as one of the greatest toxins found on earth with a half-life of 24,000 years (Alcalay, 2011). If strontium-90 is absorbed it is known to cause cancer and now it is, unfortunately, in the soil and ground water of the Marshall Islands (Alcalay,

Nuclear waste is the substance that nuclear fuel becomes after it has been used in a reactor. Although the metal rods appear unchanged after their use, the material inside has changed greatly. Before it was used to produce power, the fuel mainly consisted of uranium. In order to create heat energy in the reactor, U235 undergoes fission. Fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts. As a result of this, there is a chain reaction which creates heat. The control rods control the fission rate and the temperature. In the steam generator, the heat and cooling water create pressured steam which moves the turbine. The turbine creates energy that goes into a generator which gives off electricity. The water from the turbine is able to become usable since it gets cooled. Once a reactor reaches its lifetime, it becomes spent fuel and is treated as waste. Most countries bury the spent fuel or reuse it. In the U.S., we haven’t decided what to do with the spent fuel so most of the spent fuel rods are stored in temporary storage pools. In the future, the United States plans to bury the waste in the Yucca Mountains which are located in Nevada. This would be a suitable place since it is not close to humans or the environment.

The first waste form to be discussed is borosilicate glass. Glass is amorphous, so the principle of using this glass as the immobilization form is that the radionuclides are dissolved and randomly embedded in the structure, and stored interstitially. The basis for glass as a storage form is based on