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Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Management of spent fuel and radioactive waste. worldwide overview (2012)

Auteur	D.Bannink, H.Damveld, Nuclear Monitor
	-
Datum	mei 2012
Classificatie	1.01.2.12/34 (LAKA (VML.KERNENERGIEARCHIEF))
Voorkant

INTRODUCTION

,,Taking into account the results already achieved, the expected technological 
developments in the coming years, and above all the existence of a well-established 
basis for the assessment in numerical terms of radiation hazards, the group are 
convinced that the optimum development of nuclear energy need not be impeded by 
radioactive waste management problems which will have to be dealt with".

This quote is from the OECD report ,,Radioactive waste management practices in 
Western Europe". It is not from the most recent report, although the wording would 
be the same, but from a report in 1972!

Since the beginning of nuclear power the major claim is that there will be a solution 
for nuclear waste soon, that the waste problem really is not a technical problem but 
a social problem, but, anyway, we are near a solution. So there is no reason to stop 
producing it or endanger the future of nuclear energy.

But as the authors describe in this worldwide overview, none of the roughly 34 
countries with spent fuel (reprocessed or not) from nuclear power reactors have a 
final disposal facility, be it in deep geological formations or (near) surface. A very 
large majority of those countries are not even close. Some postpone the need for 
final disposal by long term interim storage of up to 100 years; and other countries 
use (the future option of) reprocessing as an alibi for postponing that decision.

As this worldwide overview of the state of affairs shows, siting radioactive waste 
repositories is seen as one of the main problems due to socio-political 
circumstances. Almost without exception, all radioactive waste management 
programs state that this generation must solve its own problems and not lay the 
burden of solving the waste problem on the next generations. But those same 
programs propose, again almost without exception, to postpone a decision on final 
disposal and/ or reprocessing into the far-future, and consider interim storage.

Fact is that the problem of final disposal of high-level radioactive waste and/or 
spent fuel has not been solved, more than half a century after the first commercial 
nuclear power plants entered into operation and used fuel was unloaded from the 
reactors.

Although we briefly describe the storage and disposal of low and intermediate level 
waste, the focus of this report is clearly on spent (or 'used') fuel from nuclear power 
plants. Waste from uranium mining is not even mentioned. It is also not about fuel 
from research reactors, which is mostly returned to the country of origin.

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