Low-Energy Fridays: We have a nuclear waste problem—but it’s not what you think it is

Most people have probably heard the term “nuclear waste,” but not many know exactly what it is and why it’s a big federal energy policy concern. It may also surprise some to hear that we have a big nuclear waste problem in the United States—a problem that has nothing to do with knowing how to deal with it and everything to do with perpetually rising (and unaddressed) taxpayer burdens.

Some context is warranted. Nuclear waste is a term nuclear industry professionals hate because it refers to the “spent nuclear fuel rods” (SNF) utilized in fission reactors. This SNF is very useful and still has a ton of energy content, but it’s cheaper to make new fuel rods than to reprocess SNF. The United States has about 86,000 metric tons of SNF, but since it’s dense metal, that’s only about a football field’s worth. Most of this SNF is stored in cooling pools (basically just big swimming pools) at the very nuclear power plants they fueled. Water is extremely effective at shielding people from radiation—in fact, you’d be exposed to less radiation swimming in an SNF pool than walking next to it.

But storing SNF in pools indefinitely isn’t a permanent solution. If the cooling mechanisms lose power, the water will boil off from the heat of the radioactive fuel rods and release Cesium-137 into the open air, which is very unhealthy. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a private market in nuclear waste.

So, when it came time to face the problem, it was up to the government to solve it—which rarely inspires confidence. The federal government took formal responsibility for dealing with the nation’s nuclear waste via the “Nuclear Waste Policy Act.” They also levied a tax on nuclear power to establish a fund that would pay for the geologic disposal (burying) of nuclear waste, evaluating several sites for this purpose.

Then some political wizards in Congress realized they could jump-start the process by declaring Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nuclear waste site in what Nevadans call the “screw Nevada bill.” Every Nevada politician since has made it their mission to stop the construction of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository—including the late Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev), who ascended to the lofty station of Senate majority leader.

During the 2008 election, when it seemed Hillary Clinton was set to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Reid pushed for an earlier Nevada caucus, massively boosting then-senator Barack Obama’s campaign. A vocal opponent of the repository, Obama went on to clinch the nomination and the presidency, his administration quietly killing the Yucca Mountain project without Nevada ever receiving a nuclear waste delivery.

But the law declaring the federal government responsible for nuclear waste is still on the books, and even though Congress has for decades levied a tax to fund nuclear waste management, it has (unsurprisingly) spent the money elsewhere already. Back in 2008, the cost of that liability was estimated at $96 billion ($149 billion after inflation). In truth, it’s probably more than this, because the volume of SNF already exceeds the statutory limit of Yucca Mountain. Either the law must be amended to allow more storage, or additional repositories will be needed.

There wasn’t a plan B after Yucca Mountain, and few solutions have been offered. As of today, the SNF just sits in cooling pools. There was a half-hearted effort under the Obama administration to adopt a “consent-based” approach to siting for nuclear waste storage, but it never really went anywhere. Now, taxpayers are stuck with a bill they have no way to pay.

There are few alternatives to Yucca Mountain. One is “dry cask storage,” in which spent fuel is stored in large cylinders. But the cylinders themselves are bulky, and dry cask storage was intended as an interim-only solution to make room in cooling pools. Another is the development of a novel nuclear waste storage method by a company called Deep Isolation, which would use the same directional drilling technology that led to the fracking boom to store SNF rods deep underground in small-footprint sites. It’s much easier to permit a lot of small sites to store nuclear waste than one big one.

But, more practically, we should expect SNF to remain in cooling pools for some time yet. Since no permanent storage option currently exists, the SNF will gradually accumulate. The problem is manageable today, but given how difficult it will be to address in the long term, Congress ought to be working toward a solution now.