PNNL

Abstract

Used nuclear fuel in the US currently has no disposal pathway. No consensus has been obtained on the location and design of a repository for commercial used fuel. A widely held, but incorrect belief is that since many of the fuel components have long half-lives and no treatment will alter the long half lives, spent fuel is therefore an intractable problem and no solution is possible. This misperception and the lack of a repository constitute two of the largest obstacles to the expansion of nuclear power. Here, we present a technically sound pathway for fuel disposition, by chemically resolving the fuel into its components. The individual components are more readily dealt with than the intact used fuel. Most of the radioactivity of used fuel is from only two fission products, with half lives of about 30 years apiece (90Sr and 137Cs), too short to warrant a geological repository. Most of the radiotoxicity is caused by the transuranic elements, which can be separated and burned up in a reactor. The remainder of the fuel (roughly 99% of the starting mass) is far less hazardous. In this paper, we show chemical separations which can cleanly resolve used fuel into its components so that these components can be safely disposed of, based on their specific hazards.