Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 7, High-Level Waste

I’ve spent most of my 35-year professional career directly involved in, or as an interested observer of, the nuclear waste crisis. This could be one of the biggest and most dangerously expensive problems for humanity to resolve worldwide as it has direct implications for the health and safety of communities, affects the military’s ability to use nuclear powered ships, as well as necessity of operating nuclear power to limit climate change impacts. Let me give a brief overview to provide my insights.

The issue is what to do with highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel that is now high-level waste (HLW) that it will be a problem for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, a federal court required EPA to require calculations of future dose amounts up to one million years in the future!

The waste currently is filling up wet and dry storage capacity at existing nuclear power plants as well as military sites that are close to population areas. The risk of accidents or terrorist activity only increases over time so something must be done as soon as possible.

In 1984-85 working for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), I joined a technical group reviewing nine environmental assessments for potential locations to store and dispose HLW. Department of Energy proposed and NRC agreed with three sites for characterization (bedded salt in Texas, basalt in Washington state, and volcanic tuff in Nevada) but Congress decided only one site would be characterized at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The extreme dry desert conditions seemed ideal for HLW disposal. However, working at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1998 on site hydrology, I learned the southwestern U.S. had been a very wet site during the Pleistocene epoch about 15,000 years ago. The water table had risen 300 meters and altered clay minerals. Several underground experiments in the 7 kilometer tunnel indicated much more water was present than anticipated which flowed through fractures and could pose a problem for building a repository to hold HLW.

I kept working on the Yucca Mountain project at NRC from 1999 to 2004 to evaluate geologic interactions with HLW. One of my first assignments in 1999 at NRC was to review the Environmental Impact Statement by Department of Energy on the proposed Yucca Mountain repository site. It became obvious that leaving the used fuel in current locations near population areas is much riskier than getting the waste moved to remote desert location(s). The greatest projected risk would be to miners creating the underground repository from being exposed to naturally-occurring radon.

We looked at many issues (risk scenarios) and developed performance assessment methods. As with everything we found pros and cons for the site but no other alternatives were considered. I gained confidence in the site by looking at multiple natural and engineered barriers such as the two billion year old Oklo nuclear reactor that occurred in nature so we can look at how far radionuclides migrated. I also got to tour underground walking through the seven kilometer experimental studies facility the day after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the Mojave Desert and shook Las Vegas. Underground I became surprised to learn there were no fallen rock or damage.

I left NRC in 2005 to become an environmental consultant then joined DOE in 2008 at the Las Vegas office to answer NRC questions on the Yucca Mountain license application and we made very good progress overall. However, after spending 20 years and $11 billion or so, President Obama ended the site program in 2010.

A book published this year by a former NRC Chairman, Greg Jaczko, describes his rise to power. After earning a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics, he went to work in Washington on a AAAS fellowship with Congressman Ed Markey and then states, “In March 2001, I joined Senator Reid’s staff…to help him fight the Yucca Mountain project.” He describes the powerful Nuclear Energy Institute and cites his concern for the nuclear industry having too much control over the regulatory environment. With Reid’s support, he became Commissioner of NRC for four years then was appointed Chairman with the election of President Obama. He cites a conversation with chief of staff Rahm Emanuel who said, “…the president wants to address climate change and he needs to have nuclear power as part of that program.”

However, support for nuclear energy did not include Yucca Mountain for storage and disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Jaczko states, “…I pushed to make good on the president’s promise to end the program to store nuclear waste in Nevada. The administration had bungled the effort to close down the Yucca Mountain project, so I stepped in, using my full authority of my office to finish the job.” Later in the book he states, “Yucca Mountain was, after all, essential to the industry’s success. Without a permanent depository for used nuclear fuel, it would continue to face challenges to its effort to operate and possibly even expand.”

Jaczko (in my opinion) coldly describes what happened next, “In February 2010…DOE closed down the Yucca Mountain site. Thousands of contractors and federal workers were terminated.”

A blue-ribbon commission (BRC) confirmed that geologic disposal in required. Despite any technological progress that had been made, there is no political willpower to resolve the HLW crisis. The BRC listed their recommendations:

“The strategy we recommend in this report has eight key elements:

1. A new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste management facilities.

2. A new organization dedicated solely to implementing the waste management program and empowered with the authority and resources to succeed.

3. Access to the funds nuclear utility ratepayers are providing for the purpose of nuclear waste management.

4. Prompt efforts to develop one or more geologic disposal facilities.

5. Prompt efforts to develop one or more consolidated storage facilities.

6. Prompt efforts to prepare for the eventual large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to consolidated storage and disposal facilities when such facilities become available.

7. Support for continued U.S. innovation in nuclear energy technology and for workforce development.

8. Active U.S. leadership in international efforts to address safety, waste management, non-proliferation, and security concerns.”

In addition, the U.S. government agreed in 1982 to take HLW from the industry by 1998 so the feds are paying industry for not taking HLW. A report in 2015 stated that the federal government will pay utilities an estimated $27 billion assuming they can find a storage site by 2021.

The DOE made several failed attempts to get consent-based siting including in North Dakota and a storage site in New Mexico does not have local support either.

On June 7, 2019, Congressional Representative Harley Rouda, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, held a field hearing in Laguna Niguel, California on “Examining America’s Nuclear Waste Management, Storage, and the Need for Solutions with the following takeaways:

• The Chairman, Ranking Member and all witnesses recognized that the disposal of nuclear waste is a bipartisan issue and stressed the need for a bipartisan solution.

• Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center testified that it will be necessary to have multiple repositories in several locations across the country, not just a single facility located in Yucca Mountain,  as the Trump administration proposed.  

• Reprocessing nuclear waste is not a long-term solution for America’s nuclear waste storage problem.  Nuclear waste disposal will be needed for the foreseeable future.

• Chairman Rouda focused on the need to provide economic incentives to encourage communities to consider hosting long-term storage solutions.  Siting long-term nuclear storage facilities must take into account environmental and health impacts as well as safety concerns.

Other countries including Finland, Sweden, and France are making much more progress with finding solutions to nuclear waste storage and disposal. In Finland, according to World Nuclear News, a First in the World full scale test is planned this summer for underground disposal of spent fuel which needed to obtain an operating license.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 5, Reactors

Nuclear reactors are used to generate electricity, make isotopes for medical diagnosis and to fight disease, and for research including space exploration and environmental science.

According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 454 operating nuclear reactors world wide and 54 under construction. In the U.S., according to the Energy Information Agency, 98 nuclear reactors operate in 30 states and 2 reactors are under construction in Georgia.

In addition to reactors still operating, many plants have retired or been dismantled, which is known as “decommissioned.” Again, according to the World Nuclear Association, 115 power reactors, 48 experimental reactors, and over 250 research reactors have been retired or decommissioned.

Uranium fuel pellets contained within rods and assemblies allow for the nuclear chain reaction of U-235 that releases neutrons and produces heat to boil water producing steam that turns a generator to produce electricity. The first nuclear reactor was built by Enrico Fermi known as the Chicago Pile-1 on December 2, 1942. The first commercial nuclear power plant to operate in the U.S. was built in 1958 near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since 1961, NASA with support from DOE used radioisotope heat decay to power deep space rockets such as the Cassini mission to Saturn.

The most common radioisotope used in medical diagnosis is technetium-99 (Tc-99), with some 40 million procedures per year, accounting for about 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures worldwide. I had this “Tech-99” test done many years ago to see how well my digestive organs function, including gall bladder, as a result of Celiac disease that’s been alleviated by my becoming gluten free.

Between 2003 to 2005, I served NRC as a Project Manager on relicensing nuclear power plants. I coordinated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for license renewal applications of nuclear power plants. Here is a list of license renewal applications completed by NRC. For example, I led the team to produce environmental reviews of the D.C. Cook plant on Lake Michigan near South Bend, Indiana. We compared the environmental and socioeconomic costs and benefits of continued nuclear operations as compared with all other potential sources of power generation and environmental impacts. Getting inside the nuclear power plant for inspections was a highlight.

One of the environmental impact issues that I raised concerned releases of tritium into groundwater, that were evident at D.C. Cook because Michigan state laws required groundwater monitoring of tritium. But at the time not all states required tritium or other groundwater monitoring which eventually became required by NRC. After citizens complaints, the Associated Press investigated in 2011 and NRC began requiring quarterly groundwater monitoring all all nuclear power plants and for industry to provide annual reports. Radioactive effluent and environmental monitoring reports are discussed by NRC. Here are two annual reports, A and B, provided for the D.C. Cook plant by Indiana Michigan Power.

According to NRC, “The list only includes leaks or spills where the concentration of tritium in the leak source, or in a groundwater sample was greater than 20,000 picocuries per liter (pCi/L). A tritium concentration of 20,000 pCi/L is used as the threshold for inclusion in the list because it is the drinking water standard in EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act…. Ten sites are currently reporting tritium, from a leak or spill, in excess of 20,000 pCi/L.”

Recently, I coauthored a paper on using the fission track method for identifying naturally-occurring uranium in soil by exposing thin section samples in a USGS research reactor. Here is link to the abstract.

Several new advanced reactor designs “Gen 4” are being proposed to be safer and produce less waste. On June 4th of this week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing about advanced nuclear technology being developed world wide.

If you have basic questions about nuclear science and technology or live near a nuclear facility, here are some useful educational websites from NRC and EPA. The next blog discusses spent fuel storage.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 2, Mining

Today, the National Mining Association (NMA) and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are holding the second day of their annual Uranium Recovery Workshop in Denver, Colorado. The meeting brings together mostly industry consultants and government officials to provide a status of uranium mining in America. Uranium production within the U.S. mostly comes from in-situ recovery (ISR) uranium mines located in Wyoming as well as one operating mill in Utah; however, because the U.S. only holds about 1% of the world’s supply, the bulk of the uranium needed to fuel nuclear power plants comes from other countries.

Worldwide about half are conventional mines (open pits and underground workings) and half are ISR mines. Australia holds about 30% of the world’s supply but currently only produces about 10% according to the World Nuclear Association. The largest supplier of uranium in the world is the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan which produces about 39% of the world’s supply of uranium. The other big producer is Canada providing about 22% of world uranium supply.

In 1984, I completed my Master’s of Science geochemistry thesis at the University of Wyoming on the in-situ recovery (ISR) process to extract uranium ore using groundwater well fields. The ore is typically found in sandstone deposits within confined aquifers where uranium was deposited in the absence of oxygen in contact with carbon and removed with ISR by injecting oxygen and chemicals to change the acid or base content as measured by pH. This is depicted in the Wyoming Geological Survey figure as yellow oxidized sandstone and the darker colored reduced-zone ore deposit. The ISR mine injects chemicals to remove the uranium. What I found based on laboratory testing was that the ISR process to remove uranium seemed quick and efficient; however, great effort would be needed to restore the aquifer back to pre-mining conditions and that rock-water-gas interactions must be understood. Here is what EPA currently says about mitigating hazards at ISR mines.

In 2007, the price of uranium spiked due to low supply and increasing demand (as well as stock market speculation) to prices around $136 per pound, an increase of about 20 times in four years. This resulted in a resurgence of mining applications and NRC prepared a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS). I had worked at NRC just two years prior and was very familiar with the regulatory process for reviewing license applications. At that time as an independent consultant, I wrote a journal article to provide my public comments on mitigating hazards for ISR mining and aquifer restoration. I advocated the need for site-specific EIS reports to which NRC eventually agreed! Here is link to the blog and article and background information on the importance of the National Environmental Policy Act. I shared this article at the 2008 NMA Uranium Recovery Workshop in Denver to create discussions on both sides of industry and regulators.

On March 11, 2011, the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Japan devastated coastal communities and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The nuclear disaster also sent shock waves through the industry initially causing demand to be cut, uranium prices to fall, and declines in mining production. However, as I will discuss in an upcoming blog on nuclear power, demand for uranium is rising as a source of zero-carbon energy production.

In January 2013, the U.S. Congress directed my office at the Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management (DOE-LM) to evaluate old uranium mines that were operated by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from about 1948 to 1970. I took on responsibility for managing the report on location and status of mines; based on permit records we found 4,225 mines that we reported to Congress. This report, delivered in 2014, spurred a new program to field locate and assess hazards at federal uranium mine sites. Hazards might include physical safety hazards from open shafts or chemical and nuclear hazards from hills of waste rock and low grade ore deposits. Here is a DOE-LM fact sheet on the process and preliminary results.

In December 2016, I took on an additional assignment at DOE-LM as program manager of the Uranium Leasing Program. AEC reserved 25,000 acres on public lands in Colorado for uranium mining. My efforts involved resolving a lawsuit filed under NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. Here is an article by the environmental litigants that sued DOE in 2011 and the case was resolved by the U.S. District Court in March 2018, just one month before my retirement! This appears to be a win-win solution for both sides.

During my 35-year career and currently renewed opportunity to express my independent opinion, I’ve observed very strong views of people in favor of uranium mining and nuclear power as well as strongly opposed anti-nuclear activists. Information coming from both sides is often skewed and obtaining the true facts is opaque. I’ve attempted throughout my environmental science career to stay neutral and find ways to improve the environment and public health by joining others to take positive actions. The most important action in resolving differences could be through more transparency and debate such as using NEPA public meetings before going to court to consider the benefits and risks of uranium mining worldwide. Mitigating the hazards of mining uranium in the U.S.and other countries might well be worth the risks of having (or not having) a dependable domestic supply of uranium needed for nuclear power generation of electricity. Public support for increasing regulatory oversight will cost more to consumers but is greatly needed to increase environmental protections and prevent or mitigate nuclear hazards. The next blog discusses the milling process that created contaminated waste tailings.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 1 Overview

To discuss my experience with mitigating nuclear hazards, I like to say that I am the only person I know of who has worked on almost every aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle. Please let me know if you know anyone else making such a bold claim so perhaps we can gain their perspective? Groups that gave me this experience include the University of Wyoming, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as well as several consulting assignments.

Ironically, in the U.S. we do not have a complete nuclear fuel cycle so a person would need to work with the French on reprocessing spent fuel to go full circle. The examination of the nuclear fuel cycle for mitigating hazards is relevant to nations and taxpayers under the construct of Conserve & Pro$per on many levels that will be discussed.

As shown on the figure, the nuclear fuel cycle is the process necessary to generate electric power (as well as medical isotopes) in a reactor. The cycle begins with mining, involves several steps to produce and burn fuel rods, store spent fuel, then ultimately burial in a engineered-geological repository. As discussed on my blog post about the Green New Deal, we all use nuclear energy, which accounts for about 20% or one-fifth of our electricity generated in the U.S. So even for the anti-nuclear activists, we all must be aware of the risks and costs involving the nuclear fuel cycle including the fact that we must properly deal with existing nuclear waste.

I will need many blog postings to explain my experience with the nuclear fuel cycle and provide examples of mitigating nuclear hazards. Here is my proposed outline to be provided in upcoming blog posts:

1. Overview

2. Uranium Mining

3. Uranium Mills and Clean Up

4. Yellowcake Conversion, Enrichment, and Fuel

5. Nuclear Reactors - Operations, Relicensing, and Decommissioning

6. Spent Fuel Storage

7. High-level Waste Disposal

8. Accidents

Thanks for your support and interest!