DISPOSAL OF HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE IN THE USA AT THE END OF 2010 - A VIEW WITH PERIPHERAL AND FORWARD VISIONS

摘要

At the end of 2010, the United States of America's (USA 's) program for disposal of used/spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste (HLW) has been halted at a cross roads since February 2009. One road would likely delay the opening of the nation's first HL W-disposal facility to 2025. The other could delay it another 15-20 years. Although no nation yet has an operating HLW disposal facility, Finland, France, and Sweden are scheduled to open theirs by 2025. They are also already operating a broad range of other disposal solutions for waste containing long-lived radioisotopes (LLRIs) for which USA still lacks disposal solutions. Because of this, USA's leadership ambitions and credibility in the international radioactive waste management community are currently compromised as is the future of the Nuclear Renaissance in the USA and, perhaps, abroad. Based on our active involvement in and monitoring of nuclear-energy and -waste management programs in the USA and abroad since 1978, we opine that some past and existing challenges are "self-imposed" due, in part, to a long-standing reluctance to consider and adopt, as appropriate, stratagems and lessons learned by other programs. We also opine that trust in the messenger is imperative to both initial and sustained acceptance of a proposed disposal solution for waste containing LLRIs and that individual disposal solutions 1) Cannot be looked upon in isolation, and 2) Need to be governed by nationally-uniform regulations.