The nuclear power plant construction boom of the 1960s and 1970s held the promise of a new energy era and at the same time brought about a new challenge: dealing with the spent fuel discharged by the plants. Could this fuel be recycled? Could it be disposed of? Could it be stored and, if so, for how long and under what conditions?
Over the years, experts have developed answers to these questions. Almost four decades’ worth of research on spent nuclear fuel management coordinated by the IAEA is now available in a new publication. Behaviour of Spent Power Reactor Fuel during Storage (IAEATECDOC-1862) is the title of an IAEA publication that compiles relevant data, observations and recommendations recorded by experts on this topic since 1981.
“When we started doing the research with the IAEA in the early 80s, we were aware that storing spent fuel, which is highly radioactive, had a series of technical and scientific implications,” said Ferenc Takáts, Managing Director of TS Enercon, a Hungarian engineering consulting firm. “We were looking for basic information on these implications to build a general database of countries with experience, because there was no such thing back then.”
In the early days of nuclear power, many countries had planned to recycle their spent fuel and, by doing so, maximize the utilization of their uranium. The first step of recycling is reprocessing, a chemical process that involves separating the fissile material, unused plutonium and uranium in the fuel for reuse in new mixed oxide (or MOX) fuels. France, Russia and the United Kingdom currently have commercial reprocessing facilities.
Several other countries have chosen to dispose of spent fuel instead of recycling it. These include Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States. This alternative involves safely placing the spent fuel in a location deep in the ground, under conditions that do not allow for its retrieval.
Initially, all countries had planned to reprocess their spent fuel, either in their own facilities or abroad. However, direct disposal became the favoured option in most countries in the 1980s and 1990s, as uranium prices remained low and environmental concerns related to reprocessing were raised. Then, in the early 2000s, the appeal of reprocessing again grew in light of the need for cheap, low-carbon electricity and concerns about the availability of uranium in the longer term.
While this debate was ongoing and views shifted, authorities often delayed their decision, and, eventually, spent fuel remained in temporary storage for longer than anticipated.
Each one of us can offer a different angle on the same shared issue.
