Nuclear fuel is stored in metal tube tubes, which are full of the small ceramic pellets of uranium oxide. These pellets are stable due to the lack of free neutrons and safe enough to handle freely. It is used in a reactor, and after a 1-2 year cycle, the oldest fuel is replaced. Each set of new fuel will typically last three cycles, then the rods will be stored in water where their temperature will be controlled until their heightened radiation dies down. This is nuclear waste, or more accurately, spent nuclear fuel. Then, they are put in steel sleeves, and are inserted in concrete casks where the heat produced is marginal enough to be counteracted by air circulation.

95.6% of this spent fuel is uranium oxide, but it is mixed with the hot fission products, which are extremely radioactive. Originally, it was planned to recycle the lost fuel, potentially decreasing in the volume of waste up to 90%. This concept was banned due to unfavorable economics and the fear of proliferation, as they didn’t want third world people to handle the plutonium, which is eligible to use in bombs.

Actinides are the real issue, the resultant of when uranium absorbs a neutron, but does not split apart. A “fast reactor” would break up these actinides with high-end energy neutrons, which greatly increase decrease has the volume and half-life from hundreds of thousands of years to just one thousand.

Spent nuclear fuel is most often stored underground in giant metal canisters, but other elimination methods have been discussed, including vitrification, shooting it into space, and burying next to tectonic plates where it would be able to slide into the earth’s mantle.

The ideal form of spent nuclear fuel is solid, as it would be insoluble and easier to store and transport. This is possible with the aforementioned vitrification, which is the process of converting it into glass. Waste would be dried, heated, mixed with glass-forming chemicals, then heated again at extremely high temperatures. However, this glass is still radioactive, and requires high investment and operational costs and extremely knowledgeable personnel.

Due to my extreme lack of time, I haven’t been able to research this topic as much as I would have liked to, and my editing and foundation for this edition is not optimal. However, I am thoroughly exhausted after this week. This was the first set of shows for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I’ve barely had a moment to myself. Of course, I’ll have to get used to having very little time when I go to college, but spending 15 hours at school every day is a little taxing. Naturally, though, I couldn’t miss a week! Hopefully that will never happen. Hopefully. Hasn’t yet!

Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed learning about waste that isn’t supposed to be called waste. I thought the proportion of pristine fuel that has to be discarded was shocking. I don’t know what the plan is for the next post, but stay tuned to learn with me!

Wald, Matthew L. “Underground Nuclear Waste Storage Is Not the Only Option.” Nuclear and Toxic Waste, edited by Stuart A. Kallen, Greenhaven Press, 2005. At Issue. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010401222/OVIC?u=ante588&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=278f9ebf. Accessed 30 Oct. 2022. Originally published as “What Now for Nuclear Waste?” Scientific American, Aug. 2009, pp. 46-58.

Grayson, Krista. “Vitrification: The Workhorse of Nuclear Waste Management.” Mo, 3 Feb. 2020, https://mo-sci.com/vitrification-nuclear-waste-management/.

Thompson, Linda. “Vitrification of Nuclear Waste.” Stanford University, Nov. 2010, http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/thompson2/.