Waste Management: Technological Challenge or Social Issue?

Abstract

Competitiveness, cleanliness towards the environment and consequent waste management, are the essential reasons for the achievements of nuclear energy in the world. As regards the principles for waste management, since the origin, nuclear operators have been responsible for the wastes generated and have adapted appropriate management for each category of wastes. Besides, waste management costs are included in the cost of the nuclear kwh and are of the order of a few per cent. Nuclear energy is far in advance in comparison with many other industries as concerns waste management. Appropriate and definite solutions for the back-end of the fuel cycle are essential to a secure nuclear programme. In this respect, two alternative policies respectively the open fuel cycle and the closed fuel cycle are available to utilities. The open fuel cycle policy consists in simply storing for final disposal the used fuel which are High Level Waste whereas the closed fuel cycle policy consists in reprocessing used fuel and recycling fissile products. The reprocessing/recycling strategy which offers a sustainable and environmentally safe solution is shared by a number of Western European countries : Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom as well as the former Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. Sweden and Finland have made the option for final storage. Whereas reprocessing and recycling are an industrial reality, the direct storage is still in a study phase. The key concept for a safe disposal of nuclear wastes lies in minimization which may be mainly obtained by : the reduction of the volume and/or, by the reduction of the waste package. For Low Level Wastes surface storage facilities are built that should remain under survey for 300 years. For High Level Wastes which are small in quantity (1/10), reducing their volume is still a concern for the nuclear industry, especially by a more efficient and elaborate partitioning and important R and D programmes are pursued. The principle of underground storages in bedrocks associated with multiple barrier protections has been retained by almost all Western European countries and equivalent organizations have been set up and national bodies in charge of waste management have developed closed relationship in shared experiences and constitute a real specified network. The future development of nuclear power depends largely on the safe management of the spent fuel and radioactive wastes. As a matter of fact, waste management is not a technological challenge, it is more a social issue that can only be achieved through excellence in communication with the public.