High-level nuclear waste storage vessels could degrade much faster than previously thought

As posted at the State of NV Agency for Nuclear Projects' "What's News?" webpage:

Updated - Tuesday, February 04, 2020

• Physics World - High-level nuclear waste storage vessels could degrade much faster than previously thought

Updated - Monday, February 03, 2020

• Science News - The containers the U.S. plans to use for nuclear waste storage may corrode - By Maria Temming
• Futurism - Nuclear Waste Storage Containers Break Down When Exposed To Water - Dan Robitzski

Updated - Friday, January 31, 2020

• Exchange Monitor - Study Finds Corrosion Potential in High-Level Waste Disposal - By Exchange Monitor

As the Exchange Monitor article reports:

“In the real-life scenario, the glass or ceramic waste forms would be in close contact with stainless steel canisters,” lead author Xiaolei Guo, deputy director of the university’s Center for Performance and Design of Nuclear Waste Forms and Containers, said in the release. “Under specific conditions, the corrosion of stainless steel will go crazy. It creates a super-aggressive environment that can corrode surrounding materials.”

Note that the articles are referring to post-reprocessing high-level radioactive waste. After irradiated nuclear fuel is turned into liquid high-level radioactive waste (for fissile plutonium and fissile uranium re-use), it would be re-solidified for ultimate disposal. This has already happened at West Valley, NY. But it has yet to happen at Hanford, WA; Idaho Nat'l Lab; and Savannah River Site, SC.

As also reported in the ExchangeMonitor article:

The Department of Energy is responsible for 11,655 metric tons of defense high-level radioactive waste from production of plutonium and other nuclear-weapon materials, along with 2,195 metric tons of defense spent nuclear fuel, the Government Accountability Office said in 2017. It also holds a small amount of commercial high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel, totaling 379 metric tons.

The "11,655 metric tons of defense high-level radioactive waste from production of plutonium and other nuclear-weapon materials" is what would be re-solidified, in either glass form (vitrification) or ceramic form. Such waste forms are the subject matter of the technical study, and consequent news coverage above.

However, the other DOE-jurisdiction waste forms mentioned, as well as the currently more than 80,000 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel from the commercial nuclear power industry (a figure that increases by 2,000 metric tons per year) are a different waste form, un-reprocessed, solid, irradiated nuclear fuel. The study's findings nonetheless raise red flags however, as multiple layers of differing materials would be encased in even these irradiated nuclear fuel waste burial containers. This would include ceramic uranium dioxide fuel pellets at the heart of the zirconium metal clad fuel rods, then encased in multiple layers of steel comprising the waste burial containers.

The targeted dump-site for all of this DOE weapons complex, and commercial nuclear power industry, re-solidified high-level radioactive waste and irradiated nuclear fuel, has long been Yucca Mountain, Nevada -- Western Bands of Shoshone Indian Nation land. It has large amounts of groundwater saturation and flow, making the findings of the study all the more alarming. President Obama cancelled the Yucca dump in 2010, but opponents must stay vigilant, as proponents in industry, Congress, and the White House have tried hard to restart Yucca dump licensing ever since. (President Trump said he opposed the Yucca dump in his 2016 campaign. Then, once in the White House, he proposed over $100 million annual budgets to restart the Yucca dump licensing proceeding in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Now, in 2020, Trump again says he opposes the dump, and will not request any funding for it in Fiscal Year 2021.)

If Yucca would have opened, 90% of its burial capacity is reserved for commercial solid irradiated nuclear fuel, while 10% is reserved for DOE-jurisdiction re-solidified high-level radioactive waste and solid irradiated nuclear fuel. The breakdown is by DOE policy determination. The current burial limit at Yucca is 70,000 metric tons. So the breakdown would be 63,000 metric tons commercial irradiated nuclear fuel, and 7,000 metric tons DOE-jurisdiction wastes.

As can be seen above, this is 20,000 metric tons less than the quantity of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel that exists in the U.S. currently (which increases another 2,000 metric tons per year). And even the 14,229 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and irradiated nuclear fuel (11,655 + 2,195 + 379) is 7,229 metric tons more than that there is current capacity at Yucca.

So a second permanent geologic disposal repository is needed, because the first has long been full. But we don't even have a first repository. The State of Nevada, the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, and more than a thousand environmental and environmental justice organizations will fight at every turn to prevent a revival of the Yucca dump zombie.

Please note that Dr. Arjun Makhijani of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research warned about glassified high-level radioactive waste decomposure in a repository, in a 1991 technical report. It was entitled "Glass in the Rocks: Some Issues Concerning the Disposal of Radioactive Borosilicate Glass in a Yucca Mountain Repository." See <https://ieer.org/resource/repository/glass-rocks-issues-disposal-radioactive/>.