MIT experts tackle nuclear power waste problem
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Advocates say a nuclear power "renaissance" can solve global energy problems, but construction of new reactors in the U.S. faces a number of barriers, not the least of which is nuclear waste.
Delaware Senator Thomas Carper, who actively supports nuclear power, hosted a panel of experts on Monday to discuss nuclear waste at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT on Monday also updated its 2003 study on how nuclear power can play a role in reducing carbon emissions (click for PDF).
The four panelists--executive director of the upcoming MIT Nuclear Fuels Cycle study Charles Forsberg, MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering Andrew Kadak, Harvard University associate professor and proliferation expert Matthew Bunn, and MIT Energy Initiative director Ernest Moniz--all favored more nuclear power.
They also agreed that the U.S. should fund more research and development, particularly around long-term solutions to radioactive waste. They said that current methods give the U.S. time to develop new storage technologies.
Advocates of nuclear often point out that other countries, such as France and Japan, are reprocessing spent fuel from nuclear reactors, which allows them to essentially draw more energy from the original uranium.
But rather than pursue existing fuel reprocessing technologies, Bunn, Moniz, and Kadak said that the U.S. should take time now to develop different "advanced fuel cycle" technologies. The existing process is expensive and poses greater nuclear proliferation risks, said Bunn.
"Overall I would argue that those who are in favor of a bright future for nuclear power should be against near-term reprocessing of nuclear fuel," he said.
Today's dry cask storage method, where spent fuel is put in underground bunkers, can work for decades, the panelists said. "Future technologies may change that picture. We don't know today what the best fuel cycle for nuclear fuels will be," Bunn said.
The panelists agreed that there should be some sort of underground storage for nuclear wastes, such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which the Obama administration recently decided to stop funding. At the very least, that decision has opened up a "national discussion" on how to handle nuclear wastes, said Forsberg.
In the meantime, the industry should design nuclear power systems that address spent fuel, said Moniz, who characterized today's strategy as "kicking the can down the road."
"Long-term managed storage, by which I mean century timescale...should be viewed as an integral part of a waste management system," he said.
Moniz also said that new government policies for managing existing spent fuel are needed to prevent proliferation. "Today we have about 270 tons of separated plutonium essentially in storage in multiple countries. That's about 30,000 significant quantities. Not a pretty picture," he said.
All panelists agreed that establishing consistent policies are required for the growth of the nuclear energy industry. "Political stability is very, very important to solve the nuclear waste problem," said Kadak.
Growing interest
Nuclear power plants produce almost 20 percent of the electricity in the U.S. and are suitable for "baseload power," or supplying electricity reliably at peak times. But despite applications to build 26 new plants, no new nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. for decades.
Senator Carper argued that the U.S. needs a nuclear industry revival to replace aging fleets and to meet growing electricity demand. He called the problem of nuclear waste handling "the elephant in the room."
Even venture capitalists and start-ups are looking to invest in different forms of nuclear power. Colorado-based Hyperion Power is developing relatively small-scale nuclear reactors, which it hopes to sell for $25 million or $30 million a piece. By contrast, construction of a new large-scale nuclear plant can be more than $10 billion.
Fuel or waste? MIT's nuclear waste panel from left: Charles Forsberg, Matthew Bunn, Ernest Moniz, Andrew Kadak, and on right, senator Thomas Carper.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)Interest in nuclear power has grown in the past few years, in part because nuclear reactors don't produce carbon emissions.
MIT's updated nuclear power report said that for nuclear power to be considered a viable method of curbing carbon emissions, there needs to be construction done at massive scale in coming decades--on the order of one terawatt worth of capacity, according to Moniz, or about 1,000 new large power plants.
The study also found that the cost of building new nuclear power plants has gone up faster than the cost of building new coal or natural gas plants.
Moniz, one of the study's authors, recommended that the U.S. build new nuclear power facilities and invest on the order of $500 million a year on research for advanced fuel cycles and other nuclear technologies, such as different types of reactors.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
The other form of nuclear energy that could use more research is fusion but it has a severe credibility problem. I just don't see how tokamak reactors are going to get away from the problem of degradation due to high energy neutrons. Other means of creating fusion should be given a chance.
for nuclear power should be against near-term reprocessing of nuclear
fuel," he said.
Up until the time Obama killed Yucca Mountain, you never heard this from anyone in or near the nuclear industry. It was always: we have perfect storage ability, it's only those crazy anti-nuke nuts who are standing in the way of our salvation.
"Nuclear power plants produce almost 20 percent of the electricity in
the U.S. and are suitable for "baseload power," or supplying
electricity reliably at peak times."
So what happens in France during heat waves? They have to slow their nuclear plants down because there isn't enough cooling water available. That's baseline? reliable at peak times? a good idea when the climate becomes even hotter?
And I'm a little confused about the problems they have with reprocessing. I understand "expensive" pretty clearly (read: WAAAAH! WE DON'T WANNA! WE CAN MAKE MORE MONEY BY FEEDING IT TO YOUR CHILDREN AND CALLING IT ICE CREAM SUBSTITUTE!), but how does it increase risks of proliferation beyond storing the waste?
I submit that we only need to figure out how to store and protect it well for the next 100 years. In 100 years, much better technology will likely be available to use, store, or dispose of it for the following 100 to 1000 years. It can then be repackaged for the next time increment, at which point even better technology will be available.
The mentality here I am seeing, is lets build more reactors and forget our childrens future, for after all it will not be our future, is total irresponsible. What a shame. We all should be punished for being the worst stewards we could ever be of this earth.
I do believe we could achieve better designs for reneable energy that surpasses solar panels and windmills. Even I came up with a few good ideas on types of generaters that could provide electricty for a long time to come. Sad to say we are always confronted with stupidity walls where ever we turn. I would sell the ideas for dirt cheap if some one would only build on them since I am really not much of a smart guy either.
Money spent developing these solutions are a complete farse. Let's see the Obama administration dump money into superconducor research. That's innovation. That's the push that the U.S. needs to start cranking out more engineers and maybe, just maybe, raise the bar for the planet.
Many reactor designs are conceived in a political environment. For example, the pebble bed reactor was conceived as a technical solution to a political problem, proliferation danger here in the US, but more important, in the third world. Its design has been compromised by a number of design tradeoffs to gain political acceptance. The PBMR was evaluated by the men who run the US power industry and was found to be wanting. When there is a shift in the political landscape, the nuclear engineer is stuck with the downside of the trade and has lost any political upside.
When politicians and engineers talk, there is little common ground. Politicians are interested in something they can use in the next hour or for the next daily news cycle; they want to solve a crisis; they need a crisis to force a consensus and drive through a solution. For engineers, a crisis is not good; a crisis is to be avoided at all costs; a crisis is what nightmares are made of. Engineers take the long view. Engineers think in terms of decades and centuries. Politicians are myopic, short sighted. Politicians are concerned only with the next two, four or six year election cycle.
The current favorite third world proliferation solution is the small sealed fully automated reactor. The pebble bed reactor has lost this job to a more nimble solution. Like the buggy whip, the PBMR has lost its relevance in today?s world. All those pebble bed design tradeoffs that have been made cannot be unmade and are a burden to be born by the pebble bed engineer in fruitless discomfiture for many more years to come.
When engineers and politicians talk, it is like a moth attracted to a flame; the engineer will always go down in a cloud of smoke.
Check out http://www.energyfromthorium.com for more details.
If politics is removed and there is flow of appropriate funding, PBMR stands to save the world from self distructing.
PBMR is the only technology that has potential for many other applications than just electricity. It's modularity in size further make it be able to address markets that have congested transmission lines of need small capacity energies.
Most of the reason nuclear power development died in the US is becasue of manufactured fear from special interest groups. Nuke power is actually far cleaner than any other fuel-based power, and the waste is very well accounted for, unlike, say, coal or natural gas plants. Nuclear power is about the only thing that's capable of getting us through our short term (50-100 years) power needs that isn't also going to make our planet look like an old fireplace in the process. Clearly, natural power sources, like solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and tidal would be best, but are still mostly in their developing stages. They should have made significant headway by the second half of the 21st century though, especially if these fools in Washington stop posturing for a few minutes and do what's ACTUALLY best for the country for a change.
- by Paxus_Calta May 23, 2009 11:32 AM PDT
- The article fails to mention why the pro-nuclear scientists are opposed to the current reprocessing technologies. Perhaps this is because they create a far greater volume of waste, while they are making new fuel. Perhaps this is because they are an economic failure, causing Sellifield to shut down and requiring massive subsidies from the French to continue operating and the Japanese even to get started (years late).
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- by idfubar May 25, 2009 9:15 PM PDT
- My impression is that most of the opposition to reprocessing is political; a lot of regulation would have to be changed to allow for the possibility of more reprocessing in the US...
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(18 Comments)Perhaps new reprocessing technologies will be as successful as the breeder reactor program, or the fusion program, or the nuclear airplane program - all of which have failed. Or perhaps instead of investing countless billions in inherently risky technologies, we should invest in efficiency and renewables, which can have positive climate change effects in the near future, rather than again investing in a nuclear pipe dream.