Nuke power poised for explosive growth

Despite renewed interest in nuclear energy, dueling problems of waste minimization and weapons proliferation may take decades to sort out.

ALBUQUERQUE -- Energy has exploded onto center stage as one of the key issues of Campaign '08, driven there by skyrocketing fuel prices and concerns about global climate change.

The issue has forced some candidates into uncomfortable positions — Democrats supporting offshore drilling, for example, and Republicans embracing higher mileage standards from automakers or subsidies for solar and wind.

But almost all say nuclear power deserves a place at the nation's energy table, despite lingering questions that go to the heart of fission technology: what to do with the waste?

Sen. John McCain is leading the charge for a nuclear renaissance, calling for 45 new nuke plants to be constructed by 2030 and 55 more to follow. Sen. Barack Obama isn't so avid, but says atomic energy must play a role in the country's effort to wean itself off carbon. There's a similar nuanced divide in New Mexico, where candidates for the U.S. Senate and House either whole-or half-heartedly welcome the budding nuclear resurgence.

So far at least, the candidates have glossed over the issue of waste. Some voice faith in the current plan — bury it deep in the earth in Nevada and hope it stays put. Others call for storing the ever-expanding radioactive junkpile above ground until some other solution arises, and perhaps even then burying it, though not in Nevada.

But according to officials from Sandia National Laboratories and other experts, both camps have a long wait ahead.

By the numbers

First, a few numbers. The World Nuclear Association says there are 439 commercial nuclear power plants around the planet, which together provide 16 percent of the total energy produced. WNA statistics show France is by far the leader in atomic energy. After embracing fission technology after the big oil scare of 1973, nuclear plants proliferated and now provide 77 percent of the country's electricity.

Among the remaining G8 countries, Japan is a distant second in nuclear power use at 27 percent. At the other end of the G8 nuclear spectrum, Italy gets just 10 percent of its electricity from nuclear power — and recently shut down the last of its four nuclear plants, although the WNA says a nuclear revival is under consideration.

The United States is about average among all countries that have nuclear power — 19 percent of its electricity comes from 104 plants located in 31 states. Obama's home state of Illinois has the most commercial reactors, with 11, while 19 states including New Mexico have none, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

How to store the waste

Together, the world's nuclear plants produce almost 372,000 megawatts of power a year, along with nearly 1.9 million metric tons of highly radioactive waste, the WNA statistics show. Some of the waste is so hot it must sit underwater for decades to cool, and will continue to emit lethal amounts of radiation for thousands of years. Some of it eventually will be mixed with molten glass — a process known as vitrification — and poured into thick steel containers. Then it's ready for burial.

In the United States, the spent fuel from commercial reactors will be encased and buried after it cools down for several years.

"Deep geological disposal" is the method agreed upon by the world's nuclear experts to store high-level waste for the next 10,000 years, said Andrew Orrell, director of Sandia labs' Nuclear Energy Program Development. The theory is fairly simple: bury the waste deep in a stable geological formation like granite or salt, and keep it dry.

"We know storing it is feasible. It's been proven over and over and over" in geological studies, Orrell said. "It just hasn't been done anywhere yet."

Although at least 30 nations have nuclear power plants, none has has constructed its final nuclear resting ground. Finland appears to be the closest; its disposal site should be ready around 2020, the country says. China's storage facility isn't scheduled to be done until around 2030, while work in Japan won't start until the 2030s, according to the NRC.

What about Yucca Mountain?

Congress put the United States on the path toward deep geological disposal in 1982 when it passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Five years later the Department of Energy decided the best burial site was at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev. Since then the Yucca Mountain Project has been seen as the answer to the nuclear waste question.

But despite the federal government's $13.5 billion investment to date, Yucca Mountain is far from ready to take waste. The federal government only submitted its application to build the facility in June. It will take at least three years for the NRC to determine whether the plan meets federal safety and environmental requirements. Then construction will begin in earnest, which could take up to seven years, Orrell said.

He expects the first waste deliveries at Yucca Mountain around 2020, he said. That's if Congress and the next president keep the project on track. The expected total cost is pushing $100 billion, from the work done so far until the expected closing in 2033, the DOE said recently.

And even on that first day it could be virtually full, Orrell said. Some 60,000 metric tons is waiting for disposal today; the facility is only legally allowed to take 63,000 metric tons of commercial fuel rods, plus 7,000 tons of other waste. Yucca Mountain could be expanded to its technical capacity of nearly 120,000 metric tons, he said, but it will take an act of Congress to approve the expansion. Experts are already considering the possible need for a second disposal site, he said.

Some nations recycle

Municipal governments have had a similar problem as their own garbage dumps fill to capacity. Many have found it less expensive to reduce the amount of trash going into their landfills than to keep building new ones, and the same is true for the nation's high-level nuclear dump. The Department of Energy could reduce its radioactive waste pile by recycling, Orrell said.

Some countries already recycle their nuclear waste. It's called reprocessing, and according to the World Nuclear Association it reduces the volume of waste by about 80 percent and lowers the radioactivity of the remaining product.

What's not to like about it?

For one thing, it's extremely expensive, Orrell said. But perhaps more important, it also produces plutonium — the key ingredient in making nuclear weapons. In a nuclear reactor, a tiny amount of plutonium is formed within the fuel rod during the reaction process. Recycling the fuel rods requires the chemical removal of that plutonium, he said. "The process of separating it is identical to the process of creating weapons-grade material," Orrell said.

Fear of nuclear proliferation spurred President Carter to halt the U.S. commercial fuel reprocessing program in 1977.

Meantime, France, Japan, Russia and other nations have been reprocessing part of their own nuclear waste, and many nations, including the United States, are doing research on reactors that burn the plutonium from reprocessed uranium. The U.S. work is being done at the national labs in Idaho, Illinois, Tennessee and New Mexico.

"Almost everyone has an oar in the water," Orrell said. "Waste and nonproliferation are the key drivers of research."

Research needed

The U.S. Department of Energy started the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in 2006 to spur research into new reactors that will provide inexpensive, safe, carbon-free electricity with minimal waste and without creating weapons-grade materials.

But the new generation of reactors is still "decades away," according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Orrell said that he is optimistic about the future of nuclear power, but that it would take a man-on-the-moon-type effort to find technological solutions to the issues of waste minimization and weapons proliferation.

"The problems can be solved. We have the technology required," he said. "What we don't have is the commitment to pursue it technologically, either in government policy or within the industry."

Next: What the candidates want government to do.

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