IEER
SDA V7N3 / E&S #9

Rejected High Level Waste Management Methods 1

Waste Disposal Method Description Reasons for Rejection
Liquid Injection2 Injection of liquid waste (sometimes mixed with grout) into wells hundreds of meters deep.
  • difficult to assess waste isolation
  • lack of engineered barriers
  • migration of contaminants through soil to water, possibly rapid
Rock Melting Fill deep mined cavity with high-level waste so that surrounding rock is melted and encapsulates waste
  • high uncertainty about radionuclide migration
  • difficult to assess waste isolation
  • interaction of melted rock with host rock unknown
  • specific techniques not developed
  • inapplicable to older reprocessing waste with low heat
Ice Sheets Direct melting of waste through ice to bedrock or surface facility pushed down through ice due to accumulating snow and ice
  • migration of ice
  • formation of icebergs with waste
  • durability of waste container system unknown
  • pathways for waste migration unknown
Shoot it into Space Place waste into space or put rocket on collision course with sun
  • danger of accident during launch
  • large volumes of waste would entail many flights resulting in higher risks and higher costs
  • reduction of volume to dispose only long-lived radionuclides requires separation technologies, which pose serious environmental and non-proliferation risks

Source: Office of Technology Assessment 1985. Managing the Nation's Commercial High-Level Radioactive Waste. Washington, DC: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-O-171, March 1985


NOTES:

1. All of these methods were rejected by the DOE in the seventies.
2. See also Fioravanti, Marc and Arjun Makhijani 1997. Containing the Cold War Mess: Restructuring the Environmental Management of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex. Takoma Park: Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, October 1997; and McCarthy et. al. "Lanthanide Field Tracers Demonstrate Enhanced Transport of Transuranic Radionuclides by Natural Organic Matter." Environmental Science and Technology. Vol. 32, No. 24. December 15, 1998.

Return to SDA Vol. 7 No. 3 Main Page
Return to SDA Main Page
Return to IEER Homepage
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Comments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer@ieer.org
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA

May, 1999