US Department of Energy Begins Search For Nuclear Waste Dumps

The United States Department of Energy has begun a search to find a dumping ground for nuclear waste, given the significant prospect of nuclear growth in the near future.

Nuclear energy is one of the fastest-growing sources of renewable energy in the US and across the globe, with International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) estimates expecting nuclear capacity to double by 2050. Nuclear's reliable, constant energy production has quickly grown to make up a significant portion of domestic energy in the US, making up around 20% of the country's energy usage– more than all other renewable sources combined.

However, with the production of nuclear energy comes the production of nuclear waste. By using unstable uranium to generate electricity on a large scale, reactors are left with small amounts of radioactive waste after the fission process, which are harmful to the surrounding environment. Until now, this waste has been appropriately managed, but the capacity for nuclear plants to store this radioactive material is running out, and the number of reactors in the nation simply continues to increase.

Nevertheless, there is a solution: burying the waste. Low-level waste, which is less harmful and makes up around 90% of all radioactive waste, takes under 100 years to decay, while intermediate-level waste can take several thousand years to fully decay. High-level waste, though, can take hundreds of thousands to even millions of years to decay into a substance with radioactivity levels safe enough for humans, requiring it to be stored somewhere away from civilization.

Now, as stockpiles of radioactive waste begin to pile up, the Trump administration has denounced renewables but continues to champion nuclear energy. To deal with this excess waste, which already stands at over 100,000 tons, the US Department of Energy is looking for states that would be willing to open major facilities for the management of this spent fuel, which would include on-site nuclear reactors for electricity generation, deep holes to bury the waste, and other management operations to ensure the safety and adequate processing of the radioactive material.

According to Reuters, the states of Utah and Tennessee have already expressed interest in the deal, and Nevada remains an option– in 1987, the US government decided that Nevada's Yucca Mountain would be the next location for the storage of nuclear waste, but the program was halted by former President Barack Obama in 2010 amid safety concerns from Nevada politicians.

After deciding on the location, though, building it takes time. Finland is still building a nuclear waste management facility of their own despite having begun in 1983. Other countries have taken similar initiatives: Sweden expects to complete their facility in the late 2030s, Canada will finish by the late 2040s, Switzerland and France expect to be done by 2050, and the United Kingdom has not chosen a location but aims to finish the project by the late 2050s.

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