UK Scientists Designing Cement To Safely Store Nuclear Waste For 100,000 Years (ibtimes.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: A team of British scientists are working on designing a form of cement which could safely withstand the harmful effects of nuclear waste for thousands of years. The team at the UK's synchrotron science facility, Diamond Light Source, said the project will be vital as Britain looks to expand on its nuclear industry.

The team believe the new material is 50% better at reducing the impact of radiation than current storage solutions. The government is set to choose a location of where to store the estimated 300,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste which is estimated to have been accumulated by the UK by 2030.

Comments

Utter Stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't these idiots use that "waste" as fuel for breeder reactors? They are throwing away 98% of their fissile material and worse, trying to make 100,000 year plans for it.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[careysub]

Cue the knee-jerk fuel-reprocessing-and-fast-reactor-is-the-complete-solution-to-all-nuclear-waste-problems-everywhere nutter comment.

Pointing out the problems with this comment is a bit of a problem in itself knowing what I should start with.

First, the 200,000 cubic meters of high-level waste already exists and is the product of the British nuclear weapons program, and possibly some of the high-level waste already created by fuel reprocessing. This stuff is a radiological and chemical witches brew that cannot be easily treated in any way. Some means of reducing this stuff to a stable state for long term storage is essential.

Second, there are only three operating (or soon to be operating) commercial scale breeder reactors in the world, two in Russia (operating) and one in India (not yet operating). A non-existent world fleet of breeder reactors cannot solve any real existing problems. Building a world-wide industrial deployment of breeder reactors is an exercise orders of magnitude more costly than waste disposal problems.

Third, breeder reactors do not make fission products go away. These must still be disposed of once the actinides are burned.

Fourth, fuel reprocessing systems currently operating produce larger volumes of high-level waste in physical terms than they take in. This must be converted to some form that be stored long term (see point one, above).

Fifth, spent fuel from power reactors does not contain "98% of their fissile material". Real nuclear fuel today is enriched to about 4% U-235 for loading (96% U-238), plutonium is bred and burned in place so that 5% of the actinide content is consumed, and the discharged fuel is about 0.8% U-235, 1.2% plutonium and 0.2% other actinides, for a "fissile content" of 2.2%. Reprocessing can only recover about 44% more usable energy content that the fuel already has provided. If you are thinking of the U-238, it is not fissile, but must be bred further to make it fissile. We can obtain U-238 far more cheaply and easily, if we need it, by simply converting the millions of tons of depleted uranium currently in storage into breeding fuel element.

Sixth, reprocessing is very expensive. Make that "VERY expensive". The cost of the fissile material produced is much higher than enriching natural uranium, and every aspect of fuel fabrication and handling is much more expensive due to it being "hot" from the beginning. The value of mixed oxide fuel on the market is less than zero. Utilities must be paid a subsidy to take it for free.

Seventh, a breeder reactor power economy cost much more than a conventional power reactor economy. As things now stand the high capital cost of conventional power reactors make them economically unattractive without some sort of construction mandate, or special economic support. A system that is much more expensive is a non-starter if the conventional power reactor problem is not solved in practice (see point two, above).

Eighth+ (yes, I have more points), but I am tired of typing.

Re:Clarification

[wbr1]

Thanks for the concrete example. It really cemented things in my mind.