As discussed in Chapter 1, one of the major problems associated with radioactive waste is the fact that much of it will be radioactive -- and thus will require isolation from the human environment -- for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. Since this is a time period far longer than all of recorded history, the problem of waste disposal presents an enormous challenge.
Yet when the first high-level nuclear wastes were produced in the 1940s as a result of the Manhattan Project to construct the first atomic bomb, they were stored in what were at the time considered to be "temporary" storage tanks. There was no plan for permanent disposal, and as far as the U.S. government was concerned, the exceptional and pressing circumstances of World War II relegated such long-term issues to a low priority.
Over ten years later, when the exigencies and shortages of that war were long past, the U.S. government made a definitive commitment to commercial nuclear energy by licensing the first commercial reactor in 1957 -- even though there was still no waste disposal solution in sight. In remarks before the National Academy of Sciences conference in 1955, for example, A.E. Gorman of the Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) reactor development division acknowledged that the attitude of the Commission had been to "sweep the problem under the rug."2 And as Carroll Wilson, the first general manager of the AEC, acknowledged much later,
Chemists and chemical engineers were not interested in dealing with waste. It was not glamorous; there were no careers; it was messy; nobody got brownie points for caring about nuclear waste. The Atomic Energy Commission neglected the problem... The central point is that there was no real interest or profit in dealing with the back end of the fuel cycle.3Today, 50 years after the first sustained fission reaction, and over 30 years after the first commercial reactor began operating, a great many studies have been done at much expense, but the subject is still controversial and there is still no demonstrated long-term solution to the million-year disposal problem presented by nuclear waste.
The disposal of highly radioactive waste deep below the earth's land surface in mined geological repositories was the first form of disposal seriously proposed (in 1957),4 and is today the legally designated (though not yet technically demonstrated) form of disposal. However, there have been many other alternatives proposed and researched over the years.
Among the options that have been considered are disposal by shooting into space, or emplacement under the Arctic ice cap. Although the land-based deep geologic repository approach is the legally designated solution, continuing research on sub-seabed disposal is also authorized. This is essentially disposal in geologic formations under the ocean floor with an emphasis on areas which appear to have long-term stability.5
Current Law
In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, a law which designated deep geologic disposal as the preferred technical solution, essentially curtailing or terminating serious research and development on other disposal methods. Revisions to the law in 1987 established an Office of Sub-seabed Disposal to explore the potential of the geologic layers under the ocean floor for containing wastes, although this office has had little support from the DOE.
The law provided states selected as potential hosts for the repositories with a limited veto and recognized the rights of Native American tribes as equal to the states. It finally -- 25 years after the advent of commercial nuclear power -- provided for industry financing of waste disposal through the establishment of a Nuclear Waste Fund (funded so far by a 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour fee imposed on nuclear electricity). The law also obligates the DOE to contribute to this fund for DOE's repository-destined military wastes. The DOE has contributed only $5 million to this fund so far, an insignificant sum even when compared to the level of obligation of about $500 million which the DOE itself acknowledges.6,7 It also imposed the requirement that explicit site selection and environmental criteria be adopted, and that a final site be selected from among numerous sites examined on the basis of detailed characterization studies.
However, DOE's problem-ridden site selection process, flaws in the 1982 law and in EPA and NRC regulations (see below), and vigorous citizen opposition led the DOE and others once more to a more politically convenient solution.8 Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1987,9. overriding many of the site selection and characterization provisions of the 1982 act and designating Yucca Mountain, near the U.S. Nuclear Test Site in Nevada, as the sole site to be examined as a candidate for the first high-level waste repository. Thus, the final selection of Nevada came about as a result of a process that, in part, started with the fact that the government already controlled the land, and ended in a decision in which politics overwhelmed science.
One misguided element that was a prominent part of both the 1982 and 1987 legislation was a sense of urgency about the need to develop a permanent solution for nuclear waste as soon as possible. The lack of a disposal solution had long been a political albatross around the neck of the nuclear industry, and so industry lobbyists exerted strong pressure to get the job done quickly. As one observer of the 1982 legislation noted, "the industry feeling was that the sooner this solution could be effectively demonstrated, the better for the industry politically."10
Some anti-nuclear, environmental, and arms control groups, for their part, wanted to head off the reprocessing option for commercial spent fuel by disposing of it as soon as possible. The 1982 law thus established target dates for repository siting and construction that were far too ambitious. These target dates came to be seen as deadlines which only increased the sense of urgency about the waste disposal problem and, when these deadlines were not met, DOE's already low credibility was even further eroded.
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Last Updated October, 1996
2. Carter 1987, p. 54
3. Wilson 1979, p. 15.
4. NAS 1957
5. A number of these alternatives are discussed in DOE 1979. For an overview of sub-seabed disposal see OTA 1986, or Hollister 1981.
6. Personal communication from Ron Callen, to Arjun Makhijani (11 June 1991).
7. DOE 1989a.
8. The DOE's problems in implementing the 1982 act are discussed in more detail in Makhijani 1989, pp. 37-43.
9. The 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, Public Law 100-203.
10. Carter 1987, p. 196