The elusive search for a long-term nuclear disposal solution

摘要

It has been more than six decades since the first nuclear power stations began producing electricity-and there's now a global stockpile of almost 250,000 tonnes of highly radioactive spent fuel distributed across 14 countries.Each year of commercial reactor operation produces an additional 12,000 tonnes of used nuclear fuel,the majority of which is stored-for the present-in deep cooling pools at reactor sites.According to a new report from Greenpeace,The Global Crisis of Nuclear Waste,many of these pools lack crucial safety infrastructure,such as secondary containment and independent back-up power-see box.Most countries have yet to decide on a final destination for their spent fuel,meaning that prolonged storage in cooling pools is likely.As quantities of spent fuel accumulate,the need to expand and secure storage facilities grows more urgent.Pools that are densely packed with fuel present a greater fire risk if water and cooling levels are compromised.A 2016 report by the US National Academy of Sciences(NAS)found that a fire in a spent fuel pool was only narrowly avoided in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.In this case,a fortuitous water leak kept used fuel from being exposed to the open air.Had the hot fuel been uncovered and caught alight,the NAS warned there could have been’large radioactive material releases into the environment.’