New Nuclear Waste Solution.

Science/Business | David Wu | October 3rd, 2022.

Nuclear power is an essential energy source for climate change progress: it has no carbon emissions. To achieve the carbon-neutral goal by 2050, the United States has to increase the usage of nuclear energy and find ways to store nuclear waste. For decades, nuclear wastes and their radioactive effects have restrained the American adoption of atomic energy. The populous disdains the contamination. Nonetheless, on September 15, 2022, a new United States Department of Energy report on nuclear disposal and an advance in the Swedish Ministry of Environment’s dumping facility provided new hope for the future of humankind’s energy. 

Utilizing nuclear energy comes at the high cost of disposing of radioactive wastes. The issue is not atomic waste’s quantity but rather its longevity. The most common nuclear wastes (strontium-90 and cesium-137) have half-lives (the amount of time it takes for a radioactive isotope to lose half of its value) of approximately 30 years, meaning it would take another 100,000 years for all of them to fade away. Japan, the oldest nation on earth, has been around for 2600 years, and nuclear waste outlives that substantially. Humanity needs a safe way to store nuclear waste for an extended time.

Consider garbage or sewage repurposing center behind a household: no one wants to smell human waste, let alone live near it. To counter such issues, the new initiative by the United States government institutes a consent-based disposal agreement. This legislation allows the population near the proposed landfill to converse and determine the fate of a nuclear waste interim. Indeed, the typical land chosen for nuclear dumping is genuinely low value, and the people living near such establishments are often the minority without adequate representation in policymaking. By directing leverage to the people, the United States government creates systematic equality of public opinions in the energy sector.

The Swedish government has supplied a technical solution. Aspo Hard Rock Laboratory in southern Sweden has been researching the prospects of Geological Disposal, storing nuclear waste deep underground, since 2018. Knowing that the waste may last longer than the government, the Swedish want to keep the problem simply hundreds of meters below the surface and cover it with thick layers of concrete. This approach allows development on the land above and abides by consent-based disposal criteria. Realizing the project’s efficiency, the Swedish government invested 1.8 Billion USD (2021 Nominal Prices and Conversion Rate Between Euro and USD) into the Stockholm GDF, the first functioning Geological Disposal facility. 

With the advent of fully controlled nuclear fusion, the energy problem faced by nations worldwide will become less of a headache. Nuclear fusion mustn't cause additional issues, such as leaking atomic waste. The efforts expedited by the United States and Sweden are only fractions of the necessity to adopt a clean nuclear world; however, the strides today will set a monumental precedent for decades to come.