{"id":11513,"date":"2024-03-22T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=11513"},"modified":"2024-03-19T06:16:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T06:16:50","slug":"100000-years-and-counting-how-do-we-tell-future-generations-about-highly-radioactive-nuclear-waste-repositories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/100000-years-and-counting-how-do-we-tell-future-generations-about-highly-radioactive-nuclear-waste-repositories\/","title":{"rendered":"100,000 years and counting: how do we tell future generations about highly radioactive nuclear waste repositories?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n \u00c4sp\u00f6 Hard Rock Laboratory in Sweden, where KBS-3 repository technologies have been tested.\n Anna Storm<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nThomas Keating<\/a>, Link\u00f6ping University<\/a><\/em> and Anna Storm<\/a>, Link\u00f6ping University<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

In Europe, increasing efforts on climate change mitigation, a sudden focus on energy independence after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, and reported breakthroughs in nuclear fusion<\/a> have sparked renewed interest in the potential of nuclear power. So-called small modular reactors<\/a> (SMRs) are increasingly under development, and familiar promises about nuclear power\u2019s potential are being revived.<\/p>\n\n

Nuclear power is routinely portrayed by proponents as the source of \u201climitless\u201d<\/a> amounts of carbon-free electricity. The rhetorical move from speaking about \u201crenewable energy\u201d to \u201cfossil-free energy\u201d is increasingly evident, and telling.<\/p>\n\n

Yet nuclear energy production requires managing what is known as \u201cspent\u201d nuclear fuel where major problems arise about how best to safeguard these waste materials into the future \u2013 especially should nuclear energy production increase. Short-term storage facilities have been in place for decades, but the question of their long-term deposition has caused intense political debates<\/a>, with a number of projects being delayed<\/a> or cancelled entirely<\/a>. In the United States, work on the Yucca Mountain facility has stopped completely<\/a> leaving the country with 93\u00a0nuclear reactors and no long-term storage site for the waste they produce.<\/p>\n\n

Nuclear power plants produce three kinds of radioactive waste<\/a>: <\/p>\n\n