More than 120 million Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. NC State itself sits less than 30 miles from the Shearon Harris plant in Holly Springs. At first glance, nuclear energy seems ideal, as it generates a significant amount of energy without emitting harmful greenhouse gases. However, this energy source has a major drawback.
In addition to energy, nuclear power plants also generate radioactive waste, which can remain hazardous for millions of years. As of now (in the aftermath of the political defeat of the Yucca Mountain project), no permanent storage facility for nuclear waste exists. This means that tens of thousands of metric tons of waste are being stored on-site at the various nuclear power plants of the United States.
The first power plants built in the U.S. in the middle of the 20th century were built under the assumption that the plants would reprocess waste. This means that plants would eventually reuse spent fuel, thus eliminating the need for bulk storage of waste. According to Walter Rosenbaum, a political scientist who specializes in environmental politics, these plants “were designed to store temporarily no more than three years of accumulated spent fuel rods.”
Eventually, it became clear that reprocessing spent fuel would be far too expensive and would not eliminate all of the waste. The power plants needed a permanent geologic storage facility, and Yucca Mountain, Nevada was that site. Spent nuclear fuel would be stored in this sealed mountain for millions of years for decomposition. However, this site failed to be realized due to inadequate planning and research and too much public disapproval from the citizens of Nevada.
The two main ways that nuclear waste can be stored at a plant are cooling pools and dry cask storage. Cooling pool storage is basically nothing more complex than putting the waste in a large pool of water and leaving it to cool for thousands of years. Approximately 78 percent of spent fuel is stored in cooling pools. The pools are heavily reliant on electricity to maintain the requisite water level. Without electricity, the water in the pools would boil away, causing the waste to burn, thereby releasing radioactive smoke into the air over an area of hundreds of miles. However, there are now alternative ways to cool the spent fuel pool using temporary equipment.
Fuel rod fires, due to a loss of coolant, caused both the disasters at Fukushima in 2011 and Chernobyl in 1986. According to the National Academy of Sciences, cooling pools are ticking time bombs vulnerable to both natural disasters and terrorist attacks. As if that were not frightening enough, the environmental interest group NC WARN states that the Shearon Harris plant is perhaps the most dangerous nuclear power plant in the U.S. This plant stores 10 times the waste that was released in the Chernobyl disaster. The Shearon Harris plant stores waste in four large, overcrowded cooling pools. If anything went severely wrong at this plant, thereby causing a catastrophic meltdown, radioactive smoke could spread as far as Washington, D.C.
Fortunately, we do have an alternative to cooling pools: dry cask storage. Fuel that has already cooled for one to five years can be removed from the pools and encased in steel cylinders that are filled with inert gas and then welded shut. Dry casks are not reliant on electricity, and the waste can be safely stored in them for at least 50 years. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, about 80 percent of the spent fuel that is currently being kept in cooling pools could be moved to dry casks. However, without a government mandate or the attention of public opinion, plant managers have little reason to go through the trouble and expense of transferring the nuclear waste to dry casks.
Data from a 2012 Gallup poll show that 57 percent of Americans favor nuclear power. However, it is unclear how many of these people realize the dangers associated with this form of power. It is also unclear whether they realize that nuclear energy accounts for only 8 percent of the U.S. power supply. It seems that the American public is taking a large risk and getting little in return.
It is apparent that we will not solve the issue of nuclear waste disposal easily. We are still living through the early days of the Atomic Age. We have much to learn before we can accurately assess the benefits and consequences of nuclear power. The problems of nuclear energy must reach a broader public awareness so that the American citizens can make informed decisions on this issue of vital importance to national security.
Clearly, we need an alternative to fossil fuels. But it is unlikely that nuclear power is the way of future, as many believed in the 1950s. In fact, the world would probably be a lot safer without this technological capacity. It was, frankly, quite foolish for so many plants to be created without any permanent solution for bulk storage. But pining for the golden days of yore and placing blame on our forebears will achieve nothing — what we need now is action.
The best option at this point is to move as much waste as possible into dry cask storage while scientists work to find a site for more permanent storage. In addition, the United States should also work to phase out nuclear power. The U.S. still uses commercial plants that were built during the 1970s, and many of the current plants are scheduled for retirement in the near future.
The entire history of atomic power in the U.S. consists of a series of half-measures. Never was a permanent solution for waste disposal adequately pursued. All the solutions — reprocessing, cooling pools, dry cask storage — were nothing more than short-term bandages on a deep wound. Nuclear energy is not an issue that we can suppress forever with half-measures. The time has come for a decisive and deliberate solution that does not simply leave the problem for the next generation.
