Nuclear wasteWhat should we do with nuclear waste?

Published 12 December 2018

The failure to develop a strategy for permanent storage and disposal of this fuel costs Americans billions of dollars a year and jeopardizes the future of nuclear power as a carbon-free source of energy, according to nuclear security expert Rodney C. Ewing. He recommends a new not for profit independent corporation that’s owned and supported by the utilities that operate nuclear power plants. The new organization would deal only with spent fuel from commercial reactors. Defense waste is an entirely different issue and should, at this time, remain the responsibility of the federal government.

Some 80,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel have accumulated at more than 75 sites in 35 states – and the inventory is growing. 

Failure to develop a strategy for permanent storage and disposal of this fuel costs Americans billions of dollars a year and jeopardizes the  future of nuclear power as a carbon-free source of energy, according to Rodney C. Ewing, the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Precourt Institute for Energy and the co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

A new report offers new recommendations for solving the U.S. nuclear waste problem, after discussing why conventional risk assessments don’t go far enough and what makes this challenge more difficult than putting a man on the moon.

The three-year study spearheaded by Ewing with input from some seventy-five technical experts, government officials, leaders of nongovernmental organizations and affected citizens proposes a different path than the one so far taken. “We have to really change what we’re doing if we want to succeed,” Ewing said.

Ewing, in a discussion with Josie Garthwaite of Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, talks about the report’s core recommendations, why conventional risk assessments don’t go far enough and what makes this challenge bigger than putting a man on the moon.

Josie Garthwaite: What would you like to see replacing the status quo of nuclear waste management in the U.S.?
Rod Ewing
: We recommend a new not‑for‑profit independent corporation that’s owned and supported by the utilities that operate nuclear power plants. This independent, private corporation would receive over a period of decades the more than $40 billion in the Nuclear Waste Fund, which has accumulated fees from ratepayers who use electricity generated by nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Waste Fund was established to pay for the disposal of commercially generated spent fuel.

The new organization would deal only with spent fuel from commercial reactors. Defense waste is an entirely different issue and should, at this time, remain the responsibility of the federal government.