IEER: Energy & Security No. 13 / Science for Democratic Action V8N3: Energy for Peace

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ANNUAL RADIOACTIVE WASTE GENERATION PER REACTOR
Low Enriched Uranium Once Through (LEU-OT) and Mixed-Oxide Once Through (MOX-OT) Cycles^a
In cubic meters per Gigawatt electricity-year (m³/GWe-yr)

(SF = spent fuel, HLW = high level waste, ILW = intermediate level waste, LLW = low level waste. Also see below)

Also see accompanying article, Radioactive Waste from Nuclear Power

LEU Once-Through Cycle MOX Once-Through Cycle

Steps SF^b ILW LLW Tailings SF^b HLW^b ILW LLW Tailings Comments

Mining
and
milling - - - 65,000 - - - - 50,060 In terms of radiation doses and numbers of people affected, uranium mining has been one of the most hazardous steps in the nuclear fuel chain, disproportionately impacting indigenous peoples. Mining produces large amounts of waste in the form of low-grade uneconomical uranium-bearing materials, that is not managed as radioactive waste. Mill tailings account for over 95% of the total volume of radioactive waste, not including mine wastes. Many tailings sites all over the world remain unremediated and/or neglected and pollute ground and surface water with radioactive and non-radioactive toxic substances.

Conversion - - 32-112 - - - - 25-86 - A number of chemical forms of uranium are created in the process of making uranium hexafluoride, which goes to the enrichment plant. Besides airborne and waterborne uranium, hazards include chemicals such as hydrofluoric acid, nitric acid, and fluorine gas.

Enrichment - - 3-40 - - - - 3-35 - Low-level waste from conversion and enrichment is typically buried in dumps. Many of these "low-level" waste dumps have leached radionuclides into the groundwater. Waste from enrichment also includes non-radioactive toxic chemical waste such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlorine, ammonia, nitrates, zinc and arsenic.

Fuel
fabrication - - 3-9 - - - 13 7.4-12.5 - Because fuel fabrication does not involve the production of liquid waste, its effects are mainly restricted to workers and are on the same order as for workers in the reprocessing sector. The increased radiological risk of handling fuel that has been repeatedly irradiated is cause for serious concern.

Reprocessing
and
vitrification not
applicable not
applicable not
applicable not
applicable - 2-4^c 17-39 8016-8037^d - Reprocessing creates some of the most difficult environmental problems of any part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Wastes from reprocessing, together with spent fuel, contain more radioactivity than any other waste in the fuel cycle. In 1957, a Soviet high-level liquid waste tank exploded. The risk of explosion exists today for other tanks which contain wastes from reprocessing in Russia, the US, and elsewhere. Leaks from some of these tanks have contaminated soil and groundwater. By volume, most radioactive waste from reprocessing is discharged directly into bodies of water. Because it involves the separation of weapons-usable material (uranium and plutonium) from spent fuel, reprocessing poses significant proliferation problems. There are also radioactive emissions of krypton-85 and carbon-14 to the air, which are not included here.

Reactor
operations - 22-33 86-130 - - - 22-33 86-130 - Nuclear reactors are vulnerable to catastrophic accidents (e.g., Chernobyl, Three Mile Island). Boiling water reactors have considerable emissions of radioactive noble gases.

Spent fuel
storage and
encapsulation^e - 2 0.2 - - - 0.3 0.03 - Considerable quantities of "low-level" waste are created due to fission products leaking into the spent fuel pools from cracks in the fuel cladding. These fisson products are trapped in resins in filters, which then become "low-level" waste in the United States and intermediate level waste in Europe.

Spent fuel
final disposal^f 26 - - - 26 - - - - The inability to isolate contamination from spent nuclear fuel from reaching the human environment for the duration of its hazardous lifetime makes the disposal of spent fuel one of the most difficult problems associated with nuclear power.

Decom-
missioning^g - 9 333 - - - 10.1 315 - Most of the radioactivity from reactor decommissioning waste is in a relatively small volume of intensely radioactive material. Most reactors and related commercial nuclear facilities have yet to be decommissioned.

TOTALS 26 33-44 457-624 65,000 26 2-4 62-95 8452-8615 50,060

Sources: All waste volumes are from Brian G. Chow and Gregory S. Jones, Managing Wastes With and Without Plutonium Separation (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999). The reprocessing LLW figure also uses data from Groupe Radioecologie Nord Cotentin, Inventaire des rejets radioactifs des installations nucléaires, vol. 1, July 1999, p. 19, and Cogema, Environmental Report, 1996, p. 54. Comments are from Makhijani, Hu, and Yih, eds., Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995).

Notes:

a. Waste volumes do not include radioactive emissions to the air and water, except for reprocessing-related liquid LLW discharges to bodies of water. Typical characteristics of modern light water reactors are used: All fuel is assumed to have a burnup of 42.5 Gigawatt days (thermal) per metric ton of heavy metal (i.e. uranium and plutonium); reactors are assumed to have a 33% thermal efficiency; it is assumed that 26 metric tons of uranium are required to generate 1 GWe-yr of electricity.

b. The actual volume of spent fuel and HLW is not an adequate proxy for their disposal burden. It is the heat generated by the spent fuel and HLW, not the volume, that determines, for example, the amount of space they would require in a geological repository. The need to space out the spent fuel and HLW (so they do not, for example, build up heat that could corrode waste packaging or cause unwanted changes in the geology) means that their effective volume in the repository will be much greater than their actual volume.

c. This figure does not represent the total, original volume of liquid HLW from reprocessing, but rather that which results from the evaporation, concentration, and vitrification of the original volume into a volume approximately 98 percent less. (Nuclear Energy Agency, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The Economics of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle [Paris: OECD, 1994], page 33).

d. This figure includes 7956 cubic meters per GWe-yr of liquid discharges into the environment (Groupe Radioecologie Nord Cotentin, 1999).

e. It is not assumed that the spent fuel storage and encapsulation step involves first transferring the spent fuel to an interim site for storage before final disposal. If, in addition to storing the spent fuel in a water pool, dry casks were used for interim storage, there would be an additional 6 cubic meters LLL/GWe-yr waste generated during interim storage.

f. While the resulting spent fuel volumes of the MOX and LEU fuel cycles are equal, MOX spent fuel is more difficult to manage because it is physically hotter than LEU spent fuel.

g. This includes decommissioning of reactor and conversion, enrichment, fabrication and reprocessing plants.

In the table above, radioactive waste is classified into five categories*:

Spent fuel: Discharged, irradiated fuel. Spent fuel and HLW contain more radioactivity than any other waste in the nuclear fuel cycle.

HLW (High-level waste): Waste generated from the reprocessing of spent fuel. HLW and spent fuel contain more radioactivity than any other waste in the nuclear fuel cycle.

ILW (Intermediate-level waste): Waste contaminated with alpha-emitting transuranic radionuclides with half-lives greater than 20 years and a total concentration of such radionuclides in excess of 0.1 Curie per metric ton of waste at the time of assay. (It is the same as the US Department of Energy's definition of transuranic waste, but ILW is a more commonly used term internationally.)

Tailings: Ore residues from milling after uranium is extracted.

LLW (Low-level waste): None of the above.

*These categories are based on existing regulations in the United States and some other countries. While we use them here in order to more simply communicate the estimates of the RAND study, the US waste classification is fundamentally flawed because the waste categories are based on the origin of the waste rather than the physical or chemical properties that determine the hazards of the waste and hence that determine its proper management. For a discussion, see Science for Democratic Action, vol. 6 no. 1, May 1997.

Also see accompanying article, Radioactive Waste from Nuclear Power

Science for Democratic Action Vol. 8 No. 3 Index
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Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

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

May 2000

	*LEU Once-Through Cycle*				*MOX Once-Through Cycle*
Steps	SF^b	ILW	LLW	Tailings	SF^b	HLW^b	ILW	LLW	Tailings	Comments
Mining and milling	-	-	-	65,000	-	-	-	-	50,060	In terms of radiation doses and numbers of people affected, uranium mining has been one of the most hazardous steps in the nuclear fuel chain, disproportionately impacting indigenous peoples. Mining produces large amounts of waste in the form of low-grade uneconomical uranium-bearing materials, that is not managed as radioactive waste. Mill tailings account for over 95% of the total volume of radioactive waste, not including mine wastes. Many tailings sites all over the world remain unremediated and/or neglected and pollute ground and surface water with radioactive and non-radioactive toxic substances.
Conversion	-	-	32-112	-	-	-	-	25-86	-	A number of chemical forms of uranium are created in the process of making uranium hexafluoride, which goes to the enrichment plant. Besides airborne and waterborne uranium, hazards include chemicals such as hydrofluoric acid, nitric acid, and fluorine gas.
Enrichment	-	-	3-40	-	-	-	-	3-35	-	Low-level waste from conversion and enrichment is typically buried in dumps. Many of these "low-level" waste dumps have leached radionuclides into the groundwater. Waste from enrichment also includes non-radioactive toxic chemical waste such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlorine, ammonia, nitrates, zinc and arsenic.
Fuel fabrication	-	-	3-9	-	-	-	13	7.4-12.5	-	Because fuel fabrication does not involve the production of liquid waste, its effects are mainly restricted to workers and are on the same order as for workers in the reprocessing sector. The increased radiological risk of handling fuel that has been repeatedly irradiated is cause for serious concern.
Reprocessing and vitrification	not applicable	not applicable	not applicable	not applicable	-	2-4^c	17-39	8016-8037^d	-	Reprocessing creates some of the most difficult environmental problems of any part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Wastes from reprocessing, together with spent fuel, contain more radioactivity than any other waste in the fuel cycle. In 1957, a Soviet high-level liquid waste tank exploded. The risk of explosion exists today for other tanks which contain wastes from reprocessing in Russia, the US, and elsewhere. Leaks from some of these tanks have contaminated soil and groundwater. By volume, most radioactive waste from reprocessing is discharged directly into bodies of water. Because it involves the separation of weapons-usable material (uranium and plutonium) from spent fuel, reprocessing poses significant proliferation problems. There are also radioactive emissions of krypton-85 and carbon-14 to the air, which are not included here.
Reactor operations	-	22-33	86-130	-	-	-	22-33	86-130	-	Nuclear reactors are vulnerable to catastrophic accidents (e.g., Chernobyl, Three Mile Island). Boiling water reactors have considerable emissions of radioactive noble gases.
Spent fuel storage and encapsulation^e	-	2	0.2	-	-	-	0.3	0.03	-	Considerable quantities of "low-level" waste are created due to fission products leaking into the spent fuel pools from cracks in the fuel cladding. These fisson products are trapped in resins in filters, which then become "low-level" waste in the United States and intermediate level waste in Europe.
Spent fuel final disposal^f	26	-	-	-	26	-	-	-	-	The inability to isolate contamination from spent nuclear fuel from reaching the human environment for the duration of its hazardous lifetime makes the disposal of spent fuel one of the most difficult problems associated with nuclear power.
Decom- missioning^g	-	9	333	-	-	-	10.1	315	-	Most of the radioactivity from reactor decommissioning waste is in a relatively small volume of intensely radioactive material. Most reactors and related commercial nuclear facilities have yet to be decommissioned.
TOTALS	26	33-44	457-624	65,000	26	2-4	62-95	8452-8615	50,060