Nuclear Energy

V. Nuclear Fuels and Wastes

The hazardous fuels used in nuclear reactors present handling problems in their use. This is particularly true of the spent fuels, which must be stored or disposed of in some way.

A. The Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Any electric power generating plant is only one part of a total energy cycle. The uranium fuel cycle that is employed for LWR systems currently dominates worldwide nuclear power production and includes many steps. Uranium, which contains about 0.7 percent uranium-235, is obtained from either surface or underground mines. The ore is concentrated by milling and then shipped to a conversion plant, where its elemental form is changed to uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6). At an isotope enrichment plant, the gas is forced against a porous barrier that permits the lighter uranium-235 to penetrate more readily than uranium-238. This process enriches uranium to about 3 percent uranium-235. The depleted uranium—the tailings—contain about 0.3 percent uranium-235. The enriched product is sent to a fuel fabrication plant, where the UF6 gas is converted to uranium oxide powder, then into ceramic pellets that are loaded into corrosion-resistant fuel rods. These are assembled into fuel elements and are shipped to the reactor power plant. The world’s supply of enriched uranium fuel for powering commercial nuclear power plants is produced by five consortiums located in the United States, Western Europe, Russia, and Japan. The United States consortium—the federally owned United States Enrichment Corporation—produces 40 percent of this enriched uranium.

A typical 1,000-MW pressurized-water reactor has about 200 fuel elements, one-third of which are replaced each year because of the depletion of the uranium-235 and the buildup of fission products that absorb neutrons. At the end of its life in the reactor, the fuel is tremendously radioactive because of the fission products it contains and hence is still producing a considerable amount of energy. The discharged fuel is placed in water storage pools at the reactor site for a year or more.

At the end of the cooling period the spent fuel elements are shipped in heavily shielded casks either to permanent storage facilities or to a chemical reprocessing plant. At a reprocessing plant, the unused uranium and the plutonium-239 produced in the reactor are recovered and the radioactive wastes concentrated. (In the late 1990s neither such facility was yet available in the United States for power plant fuel, and temporary storage was used.)

The spent fuel still contains almost all the original uranium-238, about one-third of the uranium-235, and some of the plutonium-239 produced in the reactor. In cases where the spent fuel is sent to permanent storage, none of this potential energy content is used. In cases where the fuel is reprocessed, the uranium is recycled through the diffusion plant, and the recovered plutonium-239 may be used in place of some uranium-235 in new fuel elements. At the end of the 20th century, no reprocessing of fuel occurred in the United States because of environmental, health, and safety concerns, and the concern that plutonium-239 could be used illegally for the manufacture of weapons.

In the fuel cycle for the LMFBR, plutonium bred in the reactor is always recycled for use in new fuel. The feed to the fuel-element fabrication plant consists of recycled uranium-238, depleted uranium from the isotope separation plant stockpile, and part of the recovered plutonium-239. No additional uranium needs to be mined, as the existing stockpile could support many breeder reactors for centuries. Because the breeder produces more plutonium-239 than it requires for its own refueling, about 20 percent of the recovered plutonium is stored for later use in starting up new breeders. Because new fuel is bred from the uranium-238, instead of using only the natural uranium-235 content, about 75 percent of the potential energy of uranium is made available with the breeder cycle.

The final step in any of the fuel cycles is the long-term storage of the highly radioactive wastes, which remain biologically hazardous for thousands of years. Fuel elements may be stored in shielded, guarded repositories for later disposition or may be converted to very stable compounds, fixed in ceramics or glass, encapsulated in stainless steel canisters, and buried far underground in very stable geologic formations. However, the safety of such repositories is the subject of public controversy, especially in the geographic region in which the repository is located or is proposed to be built. For example, environmentalists plan to file a lawsuit to close a repository built near Carlsbad, New Mexico. In 1999, this repository began receiving shipments of radioactive waste from the manufacture of nuclear weapons in United States during the Cold War. Another controversy centers around a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Opposition from state residents and questions about the geologic stability of this site have helped prolong government studies. Even if opened, the site will not receive shipments of radioactive waste until at least 2010 (see Nuclear Fuels and Wastes, Waste Management section below).

B. Nuclear Safety

Public concern about the acceptability of nuclear power from fission arises from two basic features of the system. The first is the high level of radioactivity present at various stages of the nuclear cycle, including disposal. The second is the fact that the nuclear fuels uranium-235 and plutonium-239 are the materials from which nuclear weapons are made. See Nuclear Weapons; Radioactive Fallout.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the U.S. Atoms for Peace program in 1953. It was perceived as offering a future of cheap, plentiful energy. The utility industry hoped that nuclear power would replace increasingly scarce fossil fuels and lower the cost of electricity. Groups concerned with conserving natural resources foresaw a reduction in air pollution and strip mining. The public in general looked favorably on this new energy source, seeing the program as a realization of hopes for the transition of nuclear power from wartime to peaceful uses.

Nevertheless, after this initial euphoria, reservations about nuclear energy grew as greater scrutiny was given to issues of nuclear safety and weapons proliferation. In the United States and other countries many groups oppose nuclear power. In addition, high construction costs, strict building and operating regulations, and high costs for waste disposal make nuclear power plants much more expensive to build and operate than plants that burn fossil fuels. In some industrialized countries, the nuclear power industry has come under growing pressure to cut operating expenses and become more cost-competitive. Other countries have begun or planned to phase out nuclear power completely.

At the end of the 20th century, many experts viewed Asia as the only possible growth area for nuclear power. In the late 1990s, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan had nuclear power plants under construction. However, many European nations were reducing or reversing their commitments to nuclear power. For example, Sweden committed to phasing out nuclear power by 2010. France canceled several planned reactors and was considering the replacement of aging nuclear plants with environmentally safer fossil-fuel plants. Germany announced plans in 1998 to phase out nuclear energy. In the United States, no new reactors had been ordered since 1978.

In 1996, 21.9 percent of the electricity generated in the United States was produced by nuclear power. By 1998 that amount had decreased to 20 percent. Because no orders for nuclear plants have been placed since 1978, this share should continue to decline as existing nuclear plants are eventually closed. In 1998 Commonwealth Edison, the largest private owner and operator of nuclear plants in the United States, had only four of 12 nuclear power plants online. Industry experts cite economic, safety, and labor problems as reasons for these shutdowns.

B.1. Radiological Hazards

Radioactive materials emit penetrating, ionizing radiation that can injure living tissues. The commonly used unit of radiation dose equivalent in humans is the sievert. (In the United States, rems are still used as a measure of dose equivalent. One rem equals 0.01 sievert.) Each individual in the United States and Canada is exposed to about 0.003 sievert per year from natural background radiation sources. An exposure to an individual of five sieverts is likely to be fatal. A large population exposed to low levels of radiation will experience about one additional cancer for each 10 sieverts total dose equivalent. See Radiation Effects, Biological.

Radiological hazards can arise in most steps of the nuclear fuel cycle. Radioactive radon gas is a colorless gas produced from the decay of uranium. As a result, radon is a common air pollutant in underground uranium mines. The mining and ore-milling operations leave large amounts of waste material on the ground that still contain small concentrations of uranium. To prevent the release of radioactive radon gas into the air from this uranium waste, these wastes must be stored in waterproof basins and covered with a thick layer of soil.

Uranium enrichment and fuel fabrication plants contain large quantities of three-percent uranium-235, in the form of corrosive gas, uranium hexafluoride, UF6. The radiological hazard, however, is low, and the usual care taken with a valuable material posing a typical chemical hazard suffices to ensure safety.

B.2. Reactor Safety Systems

The safety of the power reactor itself has received the greatest attention. In an operating reactor, the fuel elements contain by far the largest fraction of the total radioactive inventory. A number of barriers prevent fission products from leaking into the air during normal operation. The fuel is clad in corrosion-resistant tubing. The heavy steel walls of the primary coolant system of the PWR form a second barrier. The water coolant itself absorbs some of the biologically important radioactive isotopes such as iodine. The steel and concrete building is a third barrier.

During the operation of a power reactor, some radioactive compounds are unavoidably released. The total exposure to people living nearby is usually only a few percent of the natural background radiation. Major concerns arise, however, from radioactive releases caused by accidents in which fuel damage occurs and safety devices fail. The major danger to the integrity of the fuel is a loss-of-coolant accident in which the fuel is damaged or even melts. fission products are released into the coolant, and if the coolant system is breached, fission products enter the reactor building.

Reactor systems rely on elaborate instrumentation to monitor their condition and to control the safety systems used to shut down the reactor under abnormal circumstances. Backup safety systems that inject boron into the coolant to absorb neutrons and stop the chain reaction to further assure shutdown are part of the PWR design. Light-water reactor plants operate at high coolant pressure. In the event of a large pipe break, much of the coolant would flash into steam and core cooling could be lost. To prevent a total loss of core cooling, reactors are provided with emergency core cooling systems that begin to operate automatically on the loss of primary coolant pressure. In the event of a steam leak into the containment building from a broken primary coolant line, spray coolers are actuated to condense the steam and prevent a hazardous pressure rise in the building.

B.3. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl'

Despite the many safety features described above, an accident did occur in 1979 at the Three Mile Island PWR near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A maintenance error and a defective valve led to a loss-of-coolant accident. The reactor itself was shut down by its safety system when the accident began, and the emergency core cooling system began operating as required a short time into the accident. Then, however, as a result of human error, the emergency cooling system was shut off, causing severe core damage and the release of volatile fission products from the reactor vessel. Although only a small amount of radioactive gas escaped from the containment building, causing a slight rise in individual human exposure levels, the financial damage to the utility was very large, $1 billion or more, and the psychological stress on the public, especially those people who live in the area near the nuclear power plant, was in some instances severe.

The official investigation of the accident named operational error and inadequate control room design, rather than simple equipment failure, as the principal causes of the accident. It led to enactment of legislation requiring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to adopt far more stringent standards for the design and construction of nuclear power plants. The legislation also required utility companies to assume responsibility for helping state and county governments prepare emergency response plans to protect the public health in the event of other such accidents.

Since 1981, the financial burdens imposed by these requirements have made it difficult to build and operate new nuclear power plants. Combined with other factors, such as high capital costs and long construction periods (which means builders must borrow more money and wait longer periods before earning a return on their investment), safety regulations have forced utility companies in the states of Washington, Ohio, Indiana, and New York to abandon partly completed plants after spending billions of dollars on them.

On April 26, 1986, another serious incident alarmed the world. One of four nuclear reactors at Chernobyl', near Pripyat’, about 130 km (about 80 mi) north of Kyiv (now in Ukraine) in the USSR, exploded and burned. Radioactive material spread over Scandinavia and northern Europe, as discovered by Swedish observers on April 28. According to the official report issued in August, the accident was caused by unauthorized testing of the reactor by its operators. The reactor went out of control; there were two explosions, the top of the reactor blew off, and the core was ignited, burning at temperatures of 1500° C (2800° F). Radiation about 50 times higher than that at Three Mile Island exposed people nearest the reactor, and a cloud of radioactive fallout spread westward. Unlike most reactors in western countries, including the United States, the reactor at Chernobyl' did not have a containment building. Such a structure could have prevented material from leaving the reactor site. About 135,000 people were evacuated, and more than 30 died. The plant was encased in concrete. By 1988, however, the other three Chernobyl' reactors were back in operation. One of the three remaining reactors was shut down in 1991 because of a fire in the reactor building. In 1994 Western nations developed a financial aid package to help close the entire plant, and a year later the Ukrainian government finally agreed to a plan that would shut down the remaining reactors by the year 2000.

C. Fuel Reprocessing

The fuel reprocessing step poses a combination of radiological hazards. One is the accidental release of fission products if a leak should occur in chemical equipment or the cells and building housing it. Another may be the routine release of low levels of inert radioactive gases such as xenon and krypton. In 1966 a commercial reprocessing plant opened in West Valley, New York. But in 1972 this reprocessing plant was closed after generating more than 600,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste. After the plant was closed, a portion of this radioactive waste was partially treated and cemented into nearly 20,000 steel drums. In 1996, the United States Department of Energy began to solidify the remaining liquid radioactive wastes into glass cylinders. At the end of the 20th century, no reprocessing plants were licensed in the United States.

Of major concern in chemical reprocessing is the separation of plutonium-239, a material that can be used to make nuclear weapons. The hazards of theft of plutonium-239, or its use for intentional but hidden production for weapons purposes, can best be controlled by political rather than technical means. Improved security measures at sensitive points in the fuel cycle and expanded international inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) offer the best prospects for controlling the hazards of plutonium diversion.

D. Waste Management

The last step in the nuclear fuel cycle, waste management, remains one of the most controversial. The principal issue here is not so much the present danger as the danger to generations far in the future. Many nuclear wastes remain radioactive for thousands of years, beyond the span of any human institution. The technology for packaging the wastes so that they pose no current hazard is relatively straightforward. The difficulty lies both in being adequately confident that future generations are well protected and in making the political decision on how and where to proceed with waste storage. Permanent but potentially retrievable storage in deep stable geologic formations seems the best solution. In 1988 the U.S. government chose Yucca Mountain, a Nevada desert site with a thick section of porous volcanic rocks, as the nation's first permanent underground repository for more than 36,290 metric tons of nuclear waste. However, opposition from state residents and uncertainty that Yucca Mountain may not be completely insulated from earthquakes and other hazards has prolonged government studies. For example, a geological study by the U.S. Department of Energy detected water in several mineral samples taken at the Yucca Mountain site. The presence of water in these samples suggests that water may have once risen up through the mountain and later subsided. Because such an event could jeopardize the safety of a nuclear waste repository, the Department of Energy has funded more study of these fluid intrusions.

A $2 billion repository built in underground salt caverns near Carlsbad, New Mexico, is designed to store radioactive waste from the manufacture of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. This repository, located 655 meters (2,150 feet) underground, is designed to slowly collapse and encapsulate the plutonium-contaminated waste in the salt beds. Although the repository began receiving radioactive waste shipments in April 1999, environmentalists planned to file a lawsuit to close the Carlsbad repository.

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