A 100-Year Plan for Nuclear Waste

Pooling resources: Facilities for storing spent fuel underwater, like the one here, are reaching capacity around the country, forcing nuclear plant operators to take ad hoc measures.
Credit: NRC

Energy

A 100-Year Plan for Nuclear Waste

An MIT study argues that keeping it in temporary storage for decades, rather than permanently burying it, has many benefits.

• Wednesday, April 27, 2011
• By Kevin Bullis

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The United States should plan to store spent nuclear fuel in cooling pools and concrete-and-steel casks for 100 years as it sorts out what should be done with it in the long term, according to a new study from MIT. Storing spent fuel temporarily, the study argues, is in some ways better than immediately transferring it into permanent underground storage at facilities like the proposed one at Yucca Mountain.
The report comes in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear-power-plant disaster in Japan, where stored fuel was a major source of radioactive material that escaped into the surrounding area. And it comes at a time when many are again worried about the vast amounts of nuclear waste piling up at power plants around the country.