Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons reprocessing. The storage and disposal of radioactive waste is regulated by government agencies in order to protect human health and the environment.
Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors. The reprocessed uranium, also known as the spent fuel material, can in principle also be re-used as fuel, but that is only economical when uranium supply is low and prices are high. Nuclear reprocessing may extend beyond fuel and include the reprocessing of other nuclear reactor material, such as Zircaloy cladding.
The Rocky Flats Plant was a U.S. manufacturing complex that produced nuclear weapons parts in the western United States, near Denver, Colorado. The facility's primary mission was the fabrication of plutonium pits, which were shipped to other facilities to be assembled into nuclear weapons. Operated from 1952 to 1992, the complex was under the control of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), succeeded by the Department of Energy (DOE) in 1977.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, is the world's third deep geological repository licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. The storage rooms at the WIPP are 2,150 feet underground in a salt formation of the Delaware Basin. The waste is from the research and production of United States nuclear weapons only. The plant started operation in 1999, and the project is estimated to cost $19 billion in total.
The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States, located in the state of South Carolina on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River. It lies 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons. It covers 310 square miles (800 km2) and employs more than 10,000 people.
The Mayak Production Association is one of the largest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, housing a reprocessing plant. The closest settlements are Ozyorsk to the northwest and Novogornyi to the south.
The West Valley Demonstration Project is a nuclear waste remediation site in West Valley, New York in the U.S. state of New York. The project focuses on the cleanup and containment of radioactive waste left behind after the abandonment of a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in 1980. The project was created by an Act of Congress in 1980 and is directed to be a cooperative effort between the United States Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
Pondcrete is a mixture of cement and sludge. Its role is to immobilize hazardous waste and, in some cases, low-level and mixed-level radioactive waste, in the form of solid material. The material was used by the United States Department of Energy and its contractor, Rockwell International, in an attempt to handle the radioactive waste from contaminated ponds in the Rocky Flats Plant for burial in Nevada desert. Portland cement is mixed with sludge to solidify into “pondcrete” blocks and placed into large, plastic lined boxes. The sludge is taken from solar evaporation ponds which are used to remove moisture from waste materials, therefore reducing their weight. To do this, liquid waste is poured into artificial, shallow ponds. The waste is heated by solar radiation and any moisture is evaporated, leaving behind the waste. These ponds contained low level radioactive process waste as well as sanitary sewage sludge and wastes, which categorize them and the Pondcrete as a mixed waste.
Saltcrete is a mixture of cement with salts and brine, usually originating from liquid waste treatment plants. Its role is to immobilize hazardous waste and in some cases lower-level radioactive waste in the form of solid material. It is a form of mixed waste.
A waste pond or chemical pond is a small impounded water body used for the disposal of water pollutants, and sometimes utilized as a method of recycling or decomposing toxic substances. Such waste ponds may be used for regular disposal of pollutant materials or may be used as upset receivers for special pollution events. Often, chemical ponds themselves are addressed for cleanup action after their useful life is over or when a risk of groundwater contamination arises. Peak usage of waste ponds in the United States occurred in the period 1955 to 1985, after which the environmental risks of pond technology were sufficiently understood, such that alternative technologies for waste disposal gradually began to displace many of the waste ponds. Waste ponds often have pond liners, such as concrete or robust synthetic polymeric materials, to prevent infiltration of chemicals to soil or groundwater.
Nuclear power has various environmental impacts, both positive and negative, including the construction and operation of the plant, the nuclear fuel cycle, and the effects of nuclear accidents. Nuclear power plants do not burn fossil fuels and so do not directly emit carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide emitted during mining, enrichment, fabrication and transport of fuel is small when compared with the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuels of similar energy yield, however, these plants still produce other environmentally damaging wastes. Nuclear energy and renewable energy have reduced environmental costs by decreasing CO2 emissions resulting from energy consumption.
High-level radioactive waste management concerns how radioactive materials created during production of nuclear power and nuclear weapons are dealt with. Radioactive waste contains a mixture of short-lived and long-lived nuclides, as well as non-radioactive nuclides. There was reportedly some 47,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste stored in the United States in 2002.
Mound Laboratory in Miamisburg, Ohio was an Atomic Energy Commission facility for nuclear weapon research during the Cold War, named after the nearby Miamisburg Indian Mound.
Nuclear Power and the Environment, sometimes simply called the Flowers Report, was released in September 1976 and is the sixth report of the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, chaired by Sir Brian Flowers. The report was dedicated to "the Queen's most excellent Majesty." "He was appointed "to advise on matters, both national and international, concerning the pollution of the environment; on the adequacy of research in this field; and the future possibilities of danger to the environment." One of the recommendations of the report was that:
"There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear fission power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of longlived, highly radioactive waste for the indefinite future."
The Church Rock uranium mill spill occurred in the U.S. state of New Mexico on July 16, 1979, when United Nuclear Corporation's tailings disposal pond at its uranium mill in Church Rock breached its dam. The accident remains the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history, having released more radioactivity than the Three Mile Island accident four months earlier.
The Rocky Flats Plant, a former U.S. nuclear weapons production facility located about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Denver, caused radioactive contamination within and outside its boundaries. The contamination primarily resulted from two major plutonium fires in 1957 and 1969 and from wind-blown plutonium that leaked from barrels of radioactive waste. Much lower concentrations of radioactive isotopes were released throughout the operational life of the plant from 1952 to 1992, from smaller accidents and from normal operational releases of plutonium particles too small to be filtered. Prevailing winds from the plant carried airborne contamination south and east, into populated areas northwest of Denver.
From 1946 through 1993, thirteen countries used ocean disposal or ocean dumping as a method to dispose of nuclear/radioactive waste with an approximation of 200,000 tons sourcing mainly from the medical, research and nuclear industry.
Shpack Landfill is a hazardous waste site in Norton, Massachusetts. After assessment by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) it was added to the National Priorities List in October 1986 for long-term remedial action. The site cleanup is directed by the federal Superfund program. The Superfund site covers 9.4 acres, mostly within Norton, with 3.4 acres in the adjoining city of Attleboro. The Norton site was operated as a landfill dump accepting domestic and industrial wastes, including low-level radioactive waste, between 1946 and 1965. The source of most of the radioactive waste, consisting of uranium and radium, was Metals and Controls Inc. which made enriched uranium fuel elements for the U.S. Navy under contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Metals and Controls merged with Texas Instruments in 1959. The Shpack landfill operation was shut down by a court order in 1965.
West Lake Landfill is a closed, unlined mixed-waste landfill located in Bridgeton, Missouri. It was featured in the 2015 documentaries The First Secret City, The Safe Side of the Fence and the 2017 HBO documentary Atomic Homefront. Its contents have been shown to include radioactive waste; it is thus also an EPA Superfund cleanup site.
