INTRODUCTION
This report examines nuclear waste disposal and storage as an ethical and scientific problem. Our purpose is to communicate our research and make recommendations about the future of high- level nuclear waste storage. We also want to evaluate the future of nuclear waste in an ethical framework. This evaluation is important because humanity needs an increasing amount of energy, and nuclear energy can provide some of the energy if scientists solve the nuclear waste problem. A solution to nuclear waste will allow nuclear energy to be an effective part of humanity’s response to the growing energy demand. The report begins with background about nuclear power. Next, the report examines current nuclear waste storage, the ethical problems with current waste storage, and future nuclear waste storage and disposal technologies. Finally, we evaluate each future technology in ethical terms and include recommendations for the future.
BACKGROUND (DEFINITIONS AND HISTORY)
The world’s energy demand is growing as industrialization and population expand. Countries are pursuing alternative energy sources to meet the demand. One promising alternative energy source is nuclear energy. However, nuclear energy produces hazardous wastes which humans must contain.
World Energy Supply Problem
The combustion of gas, coal, and oil accounts for about 80% of the world’s energy supply. Scientists expect our energy needs to increase between 30% and 70% in the next twenty years. Figure 1 shows that the world demands about 462 quadrillion Btu of energy, and projects that in year 2030, humans will need about 695 quadrillion Btu of energy. At the same time, hydrocarbon energy sources are dwindling and losing popularity because of the emissions of greenhouse gas. Even if highly speculative new hydrocarbon sources are successful, they will only postpone the future supply problem (Cugnon 2004; Ferguson and Smith 2009).
The inability of hydrocarbon sources to be a sustainable energy source will leave a large gap between the energy humans need and the energy humans can produce. An increase in human population and industrialization in the third-world countries will compound the energy demand. Additionally, the public is advocating for sustainable energy sources to fill the energy shortage that hydrocarbon combustion will leave behind (Cugnon 2004; Ferguson and Smith 2009).
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Nevertheless, highly-touted alternative energy supplies will not be able to meet our energy needs in the short term. Many alternative energy prospects are unsustainable or too small to contribute meaningfully. For example, wood consumption depletes forests, and biomass fuels compete with food staple production for farmland. Energy from Earth’s natural heat sources provides insignificant power. Using dams for power is unpopular, and many other fuel sources such as hydrogen fuel cells remain in early development. Among truly renewable resources, only solar and wind power are able to immediately provide an adequate supply of electricity. Moreover, despite advances in sustainability, humans continue to need more energy (Cugnon 2004).
Nuclear Power Plants
Nuclear power plants generated 15% of the world’s electricity in 2005. In the U.S., there are 66 nuclear power plants in operation. All the nuclear power plants use uranium and plutonium as fuel and operate similarly (Ferguson and Smith 2009; Holt 1998).
Basic Operation
A typical nuclear power plant consists of the reactor vessel, turbine, generator, and the condenser. A series of pumps and pipes connects the components together. The energy generating mechanism, fission, takes place inside the reactor vessel when a neutron hits a uranium-235 atom and the uranium atom absorbs the neutron. The uranium atom subsequently becomes unstable and splits. The nuclear fission reaction releases heat and more neutrons. The emitted neutrons initiate fission reactions of more uranium atoms, which create a self-sustaining chain reaction. Each uranium fission reaction releases a small amount of heat. Billions of fission reactions occurring every second in the reactor vessel produce enough heat to generate electricity (Energy 2001). Figure 2 depicts the basic layout of a nuclear power plant.
The heat generated by nuclear fission turns water in the reactor vessel to high-pressured steam. A series of pipes transfers the steam to the turbine. Inside the turbine, the steam flows through the turbine rotating the blades at about 1,800 revolutions per minute. The turning blades generate electricity. Another series of pipes sends the steam through a condenser which cools and condenses steam to liquid water. Then the water returns to the reactor vessel completing the cycle (Pressurized 2009; Energy 2001).
Inside the reactor vessel, there are control rods which move in and out of the reactor vessel. The control rods are made of boron. Boron absorbs neutrons and therefore the control rods decrease the fission rate when inserted into the reactor vessel. An operator controls the power of the fission reaction by regulating the number and depth of the control rods inserted into the reactor vessel. To stop the fission chain reaction completely, an operator fully inserts the control rods into the reactor vessel (Energy 2001).
Production of Waste
Humans use radioactive materials for electricity generation, disease diagnosis and treatment, and other functions such as nuclear weapons. Radioactive waste is a by-product of nuclear processes. Nuclear power plants generate waste when materials are in the proximity of nuclear fuel or other radioactive material. Depleted nuclear fuel also becomes waste when the fuel no longer releases enough heat to be efficient for producing electricity (Lowenthal 1997).
Types of Nuclear Waste
As time passes, the radioactivity of nuclear waste diminishes because of radioactive decay. The half-life of a radioactive material is the amount of time the material takes to decrease the number of radioactive atoms to one-half of the original level.
High-level Nuclear Waste
In a nuclear reactor, nuclear fuel becomes inefficient in generating heat and therefore the fuel is unable to produce a significant amount of electricity. Nuclear plants replace spent fuel with new fuel every 12 to 18 months. The depleted fuel is high-level nuclear waste (HLW). HLW is extremely harmful to humans. Direct exposure to radioactive spent fuel can be fatal. Ten years after a plant removes spent fuel from the reactor vessel, the fuel emits 20,000 rems per hour within a 1 m radius. Rem is the measurement of amount of radiation a person absorbs. Human exposure to a total of 5,000 rems can incapacitate and kill a human in one week. Therefore, 15 minutes of unshielded exposure to spent fuel rods emits enough radiation to kill a human (Lowenthal 1997; Spent 2009; Winkenwerder 2002).
Low and Intermediate-level Nuclear Waste
Low and intermediate-level nuclear waste includes materials contaminated by other radioactive materials or through exposure to neutron radiation. Examples of low and intermediate-level waste are industrial machinery and safety equipment in a nuclear plant. Low and intermediate-level nuclear waste varies in harmfulness to humans because of the waste’s different concentrations and types. The waste produced in the medical field does not cause an illness when an unshielded person the waste. In contrast, some low-level waste from nuclear power plants such as processing water increases the risk of cancer or cause a fatality because of the high dosages of radiation expelled (Lowenthal 1997).
Uranium Mining and Mill Tailings
Uranium mining activities have grown recently because the price of uranium increased from $9.7 to over $90 per pound in the last seven years. The by-products of these processes are uranium mining and mill tailings. Uranium mining and mill tailing contain the radioactive element radium which takes thousands of years to decay to background radiation level (Fact 2009; Lowenthal 1997).
Transuranium Waste
Transuranium waste includes materials contaminated with chemical elements that have atomic numbers greater than 92 like plutonium. Transuranium materials have unstable nuclei and emit alpha particles. The radioactive atoms must have half-lives longer than 20 years and concentration levels of at least100 nCi/g. nCi/g is a measure of the concentration of decaying particles in a material (Lowenthal 1997; Winkenwerder 2002 ).
CURRENT NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE AND DISPOSAL
There are no permanent storage methods for high-level nuclear waste. Fuel rods will decay to background radiation levels in 100,000 years. The techniques to storing high-level nuclear waste are on-site storage and spent fuel uranium reprocessing. Both methods have problems which make them incapable of being long-term solutions (Franceschetti, et al. 2002).
Techniques
High-level nuclear storage techniques are on-site storage and uranium reprocessing. Cooling pools and dry casks are the two high-level waste storage techniques which are implemented on-site. The other method is reprocessing which is the process of dissolving fuel rods to remove the uranium and plutonium to reuse as fuel (Holt 1998).
Low and Intermediate-level Waste
Nuclear reactor sites store low-level waste and intermediate-level waste in large steel vessels to decrease the radiation level. Next, the nuclear sites bury the low-level and intermediate nuclear wastes around 100 m underground because the waste will decay to background radiation levels within 100 to 500 years (Franceschetti, et al. 2002).
On-site Storage
Spent fuel rods removed from nuclear reactors have high levels of radiation. On-site cooling pools contain the spent fuel rods for 5 years. After 5 years, the plant removes the fuel rods from the cooling pools and places the rods in concrete and steel casks. The casks store the fuel rods and prevent radiation contamination on the surface. Figure 3 shows a diagram of a cask. Inside the storage cask is another containment canister to prevent contamination, and bundled in the middle are the spent fuel rods. Circulating air removes the heat produced from decaying uranium in order to prevent a cask from overheating. Nuclear reactor sites retain all the produced high-level waste either in the cooling pools or in dry cask storage depending on the storage phase (Franceschetti, et al. 2002; Holt 1998; Klevans and Farber 2005).
Reprocessing
Reprocessing is the technique of dissolving spent fuel rods and then removing the plutonium and uranium elements. Nuclear plants use the extracted plutonium and uranium as fuel and can continue reprocessing the spent fuel rods until the concentrations of uranium and plutonium are too low to allow reprocessing to be cost effective. The reprocessing method’s wastes are liquid and dangerous and difficult for disposal. Reprocessing plants utilize vitrification to turn the liquid wastes into solid waste. Vitrification is the process of dissolving the liquid high-level waste in molten glass and allowing the mixture to harden into a solid (Holt 1998).
Reprocessing allows the recycling of spent fuel rods decreasing waste by 75%. The waste also contains no plutonium which decreases the waste’s required storage time because plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years which is longer than the other materials’ half-lives. Reprocessed waste decays to a background radiation level within 2,000 years, while unreprocessed waste takes 100,000 years (Franceschetti, et al. 2002; Klevans and Farber 2005).
Drawbacks and Environmental Damage
There are many drawbacks to both reprocessing and on-site storage which make them unable to facilitate the permanent storage needed for nuclear waste.
On-site Storage Drawbacks
In the United States there are 44,000 tons of spent uranium fuel rods. Nuclear plants store all the high-level waste on-site. There are many risks to storing the spent fuel on-site in cooling pools and steel and concrete casks. The amount of spent fuel also increases the risks of on-site storage because the cooling pools are full and the storage of new waste is in dry casks. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that spent fuel rods stored in dry casks are safe for 100 years. Therefore, the cooling pools and the dry casks are not permanent solutions because dry casks can safely store waste for 100 years and cooling pools do not have any more room for spent fuel storage. Adding to the problem is that the United States is increasing the total spent fuel by about 2,200 tons per year. Therefore, the government must find a solution which will last for 100,000 years and safely store the waste preventing environmental contamination. Also, on-site nuclear waste would increase radioactive waste contamination in the event of a nuclear plant meltdown. A meltdown could destroy the containment shelter allowing for more radioactive waste to contaminate the surrounding area (Franceschetti, et al. 2002; Holt 1998).
Reprocessing Drawbacks
Reprocessing is also not a good solution because it has many drawbacks. The waste produced during the reprocessing method is liquid and more difficult to handle than the solid waste. Reprocessing plants must change the waste into a solid and then find a suitable storage facility for the waste. Nuclear plants also must transport the nuclear waste to reprocessing plants. For example, Japan transports their nuclear waste across the ocean to Great Britain for reprocessing. Transporting the waste increases the risk of environmental contamination. Another drawback is that reprocessing isolates the plutonium from the waste material. The weapons grade plutonium causes security concerns because a terrorist group could use the plutonium to build a nuclear weapon. The security concerns of reprocessing nuclear waste led the United States to discontinue reprocessing in the 1970s. France and Britain reprocess their high-level waste. Reprocessing reduces, but does not eliminate, the requirement for the nuclear industry to store spent fuel securely to prevent the waste from contaminating the environment (Cugnon 2004; Holt 1998).
NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE AS AN ETHICAL PROBLEM
Nuclear plants should make absolutely certain that nuclear wastes, especially uranium compounds, are or will be at safe levels before the plants release the waste into the environment. Water-soluble uranium compounds can easily contaminate ecosystems if they leak out of storage vessels. Uranium can pollute water sources such as rivers and underground water aquifers. When uranium enters the body, it causes diseases like kidney failure, heart disease, and cancer. High-level nuclear waste disposal is therefore as much an ethical problem as it is a scientific one (Talbott, et al. 2003).
Consequences of the Three-Mile Island Accident
At the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant located in Dolphin County, Pennsylvania in 1979 there was a partial core meltdown. The University of Pittsburgh conducted a mortality study on residents in the Three Mile Island (TMI) vicinity. This study assessed the long-term Three Mile Island Accident (TMIA) effects. The researchers concluded that TMIA caused an increase in background radiation in a 5-mile radius of the power plant. The accident increased average background radiation from 7.6 mrem to 24.6 mrem per individual. The increase in radiation elevated mortality rate for men and women in the area. Death from heart disease, which made up 39.9% of the total mortality, was the biggest difference from control populations (Talbott, et al. 2003).
Elevated background radiation increased in the breast cancer rate. Other diseases that attributed to the elevated mortality rate were cancer of the bronchus, trachea, and lung; Burkett’s lymphoid leukemia; connective tissue cancer; and Hodgkin’s disease. The TMIA proved that nuclear accidents have catastrophic consequences on surrounding areas. TMI is a reminder that nuclear safety is an ethical issue that has the potential to destroy many lives (Talbott, et al. 2003).
General Contamination Problem
Nuclear power plants use uranium as fuel, but human exposure to uranium compounds is toxic. Humans can ingest, inhale, or absorb uranium through the skin. Water-soluble uranium compounds are especially dangerous because the human body can absorb relatively large amounts of water-soluble compounds. Uranium compounds can cause lung irradiation, affect renal function, and cause kidney failure. Currently, the United States’ nuclear industry stores around 44,000 tons of uranium from nuclear power plants, and the amount is increasing by about 2,200 tons per year. There are ethical problems like leakage, contamination, and human contact with storing nuclear waste at the surface. The problems make technology for nuclear waste disposal more than a scientific feat. Instead, science is providing the solution to nuclear waste storage ethical problems (Franceschetti et al. 2002; Gavrilescu 2008; Holt 1998).
FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
The problems with nuclear waste disposal are difficult to solve with current technology. However, there are methods at various stages of development that attempt to alleviate the ever-growing problem of high-level nuclear waste storage and disposal.
Burial and Isolation
Finland, Sweden, and the United States are pursuing the burial method for minimizing the nuclear waste risk. The proposal is to bury nuclear waste in a multi-layered “tomb” far beneath the earth’s surface. Figure 4 illustrates the layout of a typical “tomb.” The purpose of burying the waste is to prevent the possibility of hazardous leaking or contamination when nuclear power plants store waste at the surface. However, there are difficult problems associated with the burial method, both technical and social (Cugnon 2004).
Finland is experimenting with solutions to the technical problems using scale models of a tunnel storage structure for high-level nuclear waste. The main obstacles are groundwater contamination and geologic instability. While the United States has struggled to find a repository site for its nuclear waste, Finland hopes to open a full-scale repository in 2020. If scientists overcome the remaining challenges, burial could solve the surface contamination problem because repositories would store high-level waste deep underground in isolated geological formations (Hansen 2006).
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Geological Issues
Radioactive waste takes 100,000 years to decay to the background radiation level. Underground repositories need to isolate the waste until it decays to prevent environmental contamination. Environmental contamination exposes humans to harmful radiation. To prevent contamination, an optimal repository requires no human maintenance after initial storage. Because the repository must remain operational for millions of years with minimal human interaction, scientists study the potential geological processes that could compromise a repository. One long-term problem is rock weathering and diagenesis. Diagenesis is the physical change in rocks due to the intense temperatures and pressures of deep burial (Curtis 2002; Franceschetti, et al. 2002).
Another geological issue is climate change. Changing climate can increase both temperature and the amount of water in an environment. More water and higher temperatures increase the weathering rate. Additionally, earthquakes and volcanoes are problematic because they can damage the waste repository structure (Curtis 2002).
Weathering and Diagenesis
Surface weathering and subsurface diagenesis are processes that degrade rock slowly over thousands of years. Weathering and diagenesis each have mechanical and chemical methods that breakdown rock differently. The chemical degradation of rocks is a serious problem for nuclear waste repositories because degradation increases the risk of subsurface rock failure. Rocks exposed to pure water will undergo chemical changes either by dissolution or hydration. Dissolution is the mechanism where ions in the rock dissolve into the water. Hydration occurs when minerals in the rock chemically react with water. For example, silicon dioxide—a basic building block of many minerals—chemically reacts with water to form dilute silicic acid (Si(OH)4). The amount of water, rock formation temperature, and water purity affect the chemical degradation rate. More water increases reaction rate, but water containing solutes has a lower dissolution rate. Diagenesis therefore occurs more rapidly in purer water (Curtis 2002; Chen et al. 2005).
Subsurface diagenesis may cause cave-ins which can compromise repositories. Water movement through rock pores also contributes to higher dissolution rate because dissolved ions are unable to precipitate and support the rock structure. Water has a higher solute concentration as depth increases, and there is little water migration at very low depths. As a consequence of these inputs, deeper repositories encounter lower dissolution rates (Curtis 2002).
Climate Change
Changing climate over a region is another problem for long-term subsurface repositories because changing climate influences the stability of subsurface rock. Geologists must find regions that are more likely to have a dry stable climate, but geologists have difficulty forecasting long-term climate change over thousands of years. If a region’s climate becomes more humid and rainy, weathering and diagenesis increase (Curtis 2002).
To lessen climate effects, repositories need to be deep underground because, at low depths, fresh water is less likely to displace deep saline water. Saline water is denser than fresh water which causes stratification. Stratification creates a barrier that prevents fresh water from migrating deep underground. Understanding climate change is important because the introduction of fresh water in an arid environment leads to rock dissolution, which can compromise nuclear waste repositories. Because climate change is difficult to predict, the solution is to locate repositories deep underground where climate change effects are insignificant (Curtis 2002).
Stable Rock Types
Different rock types have different physical properties. Only crystalline rock, salt, and shale have the necessary physical properties to support an underground repository. Crystalline rock is strong and stable at high temperatures, but it fractures under stress and becomes highly permeable. A rock with high permeability allows dissolved nuclear isotopes to migrate into the water table. Salt and shale have low permeability and prevent dissolved nuclear isotope migration better than crystalline rock. Also, when a shale or salt formation fractures, the formation can seal itself, unlike crystalline rock. However, shale can range from unconsolidated mud to a stable compressed rock. Again, deeper repositories are better because at lower depths shale is more compressed and stable. Salt, on the other hand, becomes mobile when compressed, and its mobility makes it a poor choice for an underground repository (Curtis 2002).
Another repository problem is the availability of suitable rock formations. For underground repositories to be effective solutions to the nuclear waste problem, countries need to find rock formations that can handle high stresses while also preventing nuclear waste from leaking. For example, Sweden and Canada have predominantly crystalline rocks, but neither have abundant shale. Both countries will have to address the problem of crystalline rock fracture before their geological storage repositories will be impregnable. Geological storage requires scientific solutions to natural processes that compromise repositories. After these processes are minimized, scientists must locate suitable repository sites. Despite these challenges, underground nuclear waste storage is a promising solution (Curtis 2002).
Volcanism and Tectonic Activity
Earthquakes and volcanic activity are a risk for underground nuclear waste repositories. Volcanic activity creates faults through the surrounding rock layers. If a fault forms in close proximity to a repository, the fault could compromise the repository’s containment walls. The added stress could damage the foundation or the repositories containment walls leading to radioactive contamination of the surrounding soil. However, the risk of a fault interacting with a repository is low, and scientist can also determine high volcanic risk regions and can thus abstain from building repositories in these high risk regions. Earthquakes though are more damaging to repositories than volcanic activity because earthquakes damage structures over a vast area. An earthquake occurring in the area of a repository could cause a structural failure because of the ground shaking and rock deformations. Earthquakes are more difficult to predict than volcanic activity and cause damage over a larger region. To reduce the risk of earthquake damage on a repository, the location must be in a region that has little history of damaging earthquakes (Curtis 2002).
Yucca Mountain
Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas, is a proposed site of an underground nuclear waste repository for the United States’ spent nuclear fuel. In 1987, Yucca Mountain was one of three sites proposed as geologically stable and remote enough to house the United States’ waste facility. In 2002, Congress certified Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository as a safe location. However, Nevada residents strongly opposed the waste facility plans. In 2008, Nevada’s congressional delegation succeeded in greatly reducing funding for the project. Although scientists were optimistic that construction on Yucca Mountain would begin by 2017, construction is unlikely to ever begin at Yucca Mountain (Putney 2008; Reid 2009).
The Yucca Mountain repository plan failed because there was local opposition to storing America’s nuclear waste in Nevada. As a result, Congress needs to move future geological storage sites away from large cities. Additionally, the Yucca Mountain plan showed that the waste disposal issue is not purely scientific. Nuclear waste storage is also an ethical and social problem. Simply solving the technical challenges of geological storage is not sufficient to persuade local residents of having a nuclear waste repository near their homes (Putney 2008, Reid 2009).
Waste Minimization
Waste minimization technologies do not eliminate the need for long-term nuclear waste disposal. Instead, waste minimization technologies reduce the amount of nuclear fission products. The graphite-cooled fast reactor, which is a modification of the common nuclear reactor, is able to cut waste products considerably. The reactor produces plutonium instead of the main waste products of traditional reactors. Next, the reactors use the plutonium as fuel which decreases the amount of nuclear waste. Fast reactors produce fewer by-products than traditional reactors because fast reactors are able to use the waste products as fuel (Bomboni, et al. 2008).
Light water reactors, which are the predominant reactors in use, use only about one percent of the possible fissile material, leaving unnecessary waste. The graphite-cooled fast reactor uses more of the wasted fuel. The fast reactor promises to ease the problem of geologic storage and isolation of high-level nuclear waste because graphite-cooled reactors decrease high-level waste (Bomboni, et al. 2008).
High-Level Nuclear Waste in Space
The current cost to launch an object into orbit around the earth is about $20,000 per kilogram. Beamed energy technology (BEP) based on laser-powered propulsion of objects into space may considerably lower the cost. Figure 5 is a model that shows the very small size of the BEP launch container. If BEP is successful, it could send waste into high orbit for about $200 per kilogram. However, BEP is at least 15 to 25 years from being a real alternative because the highest flight using BEP technology is currently less than a few hundred meters. Moreover, a conservative estimate of the cost of developing BEP technology is $10 billion. Therefore, the adoption of BEP technology is unlikely. Nevertheless, BEP would solve the problem of nuclear waste storage and disposal because BEP could send nuclear waste out of our atmosphere into orbit (Coopersmith 2006; Myrabo 2001).
EVALUATION
The current high-level nuclear waste storage practices are insufficient and pose clear ethical problems. The problems are the result of inadequate storage space and the possibility of contamination by leaks and accidents. The human health hazards and environmental risks that current storage options create make a strong case for a new storage strategy. The new strategy cannot abandon nuclear energy because the world already has high-level waste stockpiles that require storage.
There are four components that could be part of a long-term nuclear waste solution: burial, waste minimization, beam energy propulsion and conservation. Recent scholarship claims that conservation, although vital to our energy future, will not be sufficient to reduce the gap between the energy humanity can produce and the energy humanity will consume because of the increase in demand from developing countries (Cugnon 2004; Energy 2001). Therefore, humanity needs specific technological solutions to the nuclear waste problem.
Burial
Storage of high-level nuclear waste in deep, isolated, and remote underground geological formations will be part of any successful solution to the problem of abundant high-level nuclear waste at the surface. High-level nuclear waste burial is technically challenging and socially somewhat unpopular (Reid 2009). Nevertheless, scientists have solved almost all of the technical challenges associated with deep burial. As a result, burial is the most promising method for dispensing of nuclear waste that can be implemented within a reasonable time frame. The main advantage of burial is the ability to sequester nuclear waste for the entire time the waste remains dangerous.
The major ethical problem with the current storage of waste is contamination, and successful implementation would dramatically decrease the possibility of any contamination at the surface or of groundwater. There are limitations to this solution, however. First, there have not been any full-scale tests. Until there are full-scale tests, there will always be uncertainty about the effectiveness of burying nuclear waste. Second, there are a limited amount of sites for storage (Putney 2008). This limitation means that burial must not be the only solution pursued, because it has limited capacity. This shows that burial fits well with a method that reduces future waste—a method like waste minimization.
Waste Minimization
The ethical problems with current nuclear waste storage are compounded by the increasing amount of nuclear waste being produced. Additionally, about 90% of the uranium in fuel cells is classified as waste after fuel cells stop efficiently producing electricity. These facts, in addition to the need for another solution beside burial, make waste minimization necessary. The reactor design changes needed for minimizing waste don’t entail additional risks or exorbitant costs. Moreover, minimizing waste contributes to the sustainability of nuclear energy, which will make it more popular and more ethically sound (Cugnon 2004).
In combination with geological storage, waste minimization represents a breakthrough in the ethical problem of current waste storage. Current waste storage is dangerous because of its magnitude, and waste minimization is capable of decreasing the surface storage the nuclear industry needs in the future (Bomboni, et al. 2008; Cugnon 2004). The most reasonable nuclear waste disposal strategy for the future is therefore a combination of burial and waste minimization.
Nuclear Waste in Space
BEP represents a possible future solution to the nuclear waste storage problem, but it will be a long time before anyone can say whether it is effective. It promises to be a clean technology—the only trash that is left in space is the small capsule containing the nuclear waste, and there is no potential for explosions in the atmosphere. BEP would require tremendous resources and a lot of time to develop, but if the technology can do what scientists predict, it represents the easiest and cheapest of the solutions to the nuclear waste problem. Nevertheless, BEP ought to be dismissed from consideration for now because it is so great a leap in technology. It is not possible to say with certainty that it would ever be possible to send our waste into space in this way. As a result, BEP is not a factor in the ethical problem humanity faces, because that problem is occurring right now and cannot wait such a long time for an unproven technology (Coopersmith 2006; Cugnon 2004; Myrabo 2001).
CONCLUSION
Nuclear power is an important part of the solution to humanity’s growing energy demand. As a result, humanity cannot ignore the problem of large and increasing nuclear waste stockpiles. Current storage of the waste stockpiles is at the surface, and the waste represents a threat to humans and the environment. Therefore, for nuclear energy to be viable in the future, a technological response to high-level nuclear waste is necessary. The response ought to include both nuclear waste minimization using reprocessing and more efficient power plants and geologic nuclear waste storage in deep underground repositories. The two methods combine to reduce the nuclear waste humans produce and effectively dispose of nuclear waste stockpiles. The solution represents a satisfactory solution to the ethical problem of high-level waste storage at the surface because it removes humans and the environment surrounding waste facilities from the contamination risk. The consequence of the solution is that nuclear waste is no longer a reason for countries to overlook nuclear energy in favor of untested energy sources.
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