John W. Bartlett
S. Cohen & Associates, Inc.
McLean, Virginia
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the incentives for an international approach to disposal of radioactive wastes and the means by which it might be accomplished. The incentives focus on the need for cost effectiveness, minimization of environmental impacts, and potential limitations of availability of disposal sites. Implementation should be led by the diplomatic community, and should build on the now extensive world-wide experience concerning selection and characterization of candidate disposal sites, and on existing, in-use technologies for all operations except disposal. The initiative could come from a group of nations which has commitments to nuclear power but no current disposal programs. Nations such as France, Sweden, and the United States, which do have ongoing disposal programs, can provide support for the concept, expertise, and venues for implementation.
INTRODUCTION
This paper presents concepts and guidelines for implementation of international disposal of high-level and other radioactive wastes. As used here, "international" means that several nations provide locations for waste repositories which receive wastes from various nations, and pre-disposal services such as waste treatment, packaging, storage, handling, and transport are provided by commercial entities in various nations. All operations are performed under the auspices of an international organization whose membership is drawn from the participating nations. The concept of international management and disposal of radioactive wastes has for many years been recognized but not seriously considered. Historic reasons for lack of serious consideration include technical uncertainty, political reluctance, and "the world's not ready for this yet". As impliedby the latter reason, many interested parties believe an international approach would be beneficial if not in fact essential.
Because international management and disposal of radioactive wastes has not received serious in-depth consideration, none of the issues has been addressed or resolved on a global scale by responsible parties. Understanding of the issues and implementations of pre-disposal technologies have, however, matured and advanced during the past twenty years.
Every type of technology needed except actual deep geologic disposal has been developed and proven. A high degree of international consensus on acceptable levels of risk associated with disposal has been established, and international consensus has also been established that methods adequate to assess the safety performance of geologic disposal systems are now available. In short, the only things now missing are disposal sites and the enabling framework.
This paper suggests how these missing ingredients might be brought into being. Topics addressed include incentives for an international approach; key issues to be resolved, means and logistics of implementation, the potential U.S. role, and how to proceed.
INCENTIVES FOR AN INTERNATIONAL APPROACH
Many of the thirty-three nations which currently use nuclear power to generate electricity share two principal incentives for an international approach to management and disposal of their radioactive wastes. First, it would be very difficult and highly cost-ineffective for them to establish and pursue a national program to site, design, license, and operate a geologic repository for disposal of highly radioactive wastes. Secondly, they do not have useable geologic formations which provide highly effective natural barriers that can retain wastes in isolation without principal reliance on engineered barriers.
The geologic formations within some nations' borders may not be useable because they do not have acceptable waste isolation characteristics or because population centers are proximate to formations which might otherwise be acceptable. Conversely, other nations may have large areas which have good geologic features for waste isolation, are sparsely populated, and could be a source of beneficial economic activity if used in part for radioactive waste disposal.
Both types of situations would benefit if an international approach to disposal was in place. It is not sufficient or acceptable, however, for nations with suitable locations for disposal to simply offer disposal services to other nations. The citizens of the nation with the disposal capability would believe they were being made the world's waste dump, and the citizens of the nations using the services would believe their government was trying to dump their problems on someone else. The mutual benefits can be obtained only if there are international agreements prior to implementation.
With respect to costs, existing programs in various nations, which are exploring the potential for use of a wide variety of rock types for disposal, have shown that the costs of site selection and characterization to the extent necessary to make a determination of suitability for disposal are extremely high for all rock types and program strategies. There are no shortcuts. There are, however, economies of scale. Once an acceptable disposal location is established, all users would benefit if it is used to its capacity and the costs of site selection and characterization are distributed as fees to the users.
For nations with only a few reactors, the costs of a within-borders disposal program would be prohibitively expensive if allocated as fuel cycle costs and could be politically unacceptable if allocated to the general budget. A policy to hold wastes in storage for a long time and then to purchase essential services, including disposal, from other nations is also unlikely to be acceptable to the public because it gives at least the appearance of abrogation of responsibilities. If international agreements are in place, a nation could pursue whatever spent fuel and waste management strategy it considers appropriate.
The historical reluctance to pursue an international approach to radioactive waste disposal is embodied in the NIMBY concept. Most political leaders to date have been quick to demonstrate their concern for their constituents' well-being by rejecting, as quickly and as forcefully as possible, the possibility of waste disposal in their backyards. Similarly, the idea of imposing "our" wastes on others has been rejected.
As illustrated by the wandering New York City garbage barge, perhaps the politicians' assumptions and instincts are not wrong. However, the underlying presumptions, absent purely political motivations, are associated with expectations or perceptions of irresponsible behavior and incompetent management. When opportunities to demonstrate responsibility and competence are provided, as illustrated by the French and Swedish programs, performance can be excellent and the politicians' fears are mitigated.
To proceed with an international approach to radioactive waste disposal, opportunities to demonstrate responsibility and competence must be provided by the governments of involved and concerned nations. If the initiative is taken by several nations acting in concert, rather than having the leadership of one nation stick its neck out, the opportunities can be established and the perceived political liabilities can be shared.
HOW TO PROCEED
As indicated by the above discussion, initiatives and leadership for an international approach to radioactive waste disposal must come from the diplomatic community, not the technical community. The classic arrogance of the technical community to assert that the technical issues are well in hand, so that political leaders and the public should adopt their views, is wrong and counterproductive.
The technical accomplishments and consensus technical judgments that have been developed over the past twenty years simply enable serious consideration of the concept by the diplomatic community. In the words of the cliche, the present status of technical knowledge and understanding is a necessary but not sufficient condition. In adaptation of the words of another cliche, it can be stated that international implementation of disposal is too important to be left to the technicians.
An initiative for serious consideration of an international approach to radioactive waste disposal might best succeed if it comes from a group of nations which has commitments to nuclear power but no presently-operational disposal program. In contrast with the nations that have ongoing disposal programs, such nations have clear need for consideration of a well-founded international approach. The nations which currently have disposal programs could then join the initiative by contributing their experience and expertise, with expectation that their established capabilities could beneficially become part of an operational international radioactive waste management and disposal system.
The participating nations could establish an organization with a name such as the International Institute for Radioactive Waste Disposal. The organization would be chartered to provide functions and services such as development and implementation of an institutional framework; identification of candidate disposal locations, and negotiation of terms and conditions for their evaluation; sponsorship of technical studies on topics such as system logistics, development of improved technologies, and disposal of fissile materials and non-high-level wastes; and provision of disposal system safety performance assessment services.
The organization, or a companion organization, could also provide an information forum for implementation of the businesses that would constitute the radioactive waste management and disposal system. As previously noted, all technologies except disposal currently exist and are proven, but the level of service is not now what it must be for full-scale international operations. Expansion of capabilities, development of improved technologies, and brokerage services for use of regionally-sited international disposal facilities will be needed.
IMPLEMENTATION AND LOGISTICS
There are currently nearly 200,000 metric tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in storage worldwide, and the existing reactors discharge in aggregate about 10,000 metric tonnes per year. New reactors currently planned or under construction, in combination with planned shutdowns, would increase the annual discharge rate by about 10%. There is already, therefore, a significant and growing inventory of spent fuel, and the basis for long-term business services is assured.
Siting and development of each disposal facility will probably take on the order of 10 years. Each facility can handle comfortably a disposal rate of about 3,000 tonnes per year, and the total practical capacity of a given site is probably on the order of 100,000 tonnes. The world's existing and planned nuclear power economy therefore will need on the order of a half-dozen repositories located regionally throughout the continents.
Use of the disposal facilities will be supported by international commerce in spent fuel storage, transport, and reprocessing; storage and transport of the high-level waste produced from reprocessing operations and destined for disposal; and operations for any other types of radioactive wastes, such as those from medical uses or facility decommissioning, that might be allocated to these disposal facilities.
If planning and implementation of the enabling international organization is accomplished within the next five years, the first international disposal facility might be available for use about 20 years from now. At that time there will be nearly 500,000 tonnes of spent fuel or high-level waste equivalent in inventory throughout the world. This material will provide the basis for operation of the initial and future disposal facilities, and for development and deployment of the essential supporting facilities and equipment.
KEY ISSUES
The most important issue by far is the first giant step of initiative to establish an international approach to management and disposition of radioactive wastes. As argued above, this initiative must come from the diplomatic community and it should best come from a group of nations that have need for disposal services but have not yet made a major investment in a disposal program.
The initiative can be based on the knowledge and confidence concerning deep geologic disposal that has been developed in the world-wide technical community. The technical bases and risk policies of various nations have now matured to the point that the governments of the nations that take the initiative can have confidence that communications to their constituencies will be believed and accepted. The governments can tap and use the reservoir of technical information through international organizations such as the OECD and the ICRP.
After initiation of the international approach, a key issue will be the basis and means for selecting the locations for international disposal facilities. An obvious starting point would be the locations under consideration within current national programs. In addition, however, it would be appropriate to initiate a top-down investigation of other possible locations. The international organization could establish an internal or captive capability to do this which draws on, but is independent of, existing national capabilities.
The spent fuel and waste management facilities and equipment needed to support the disposal operations can evolve as business enterprises of existing capabilities. This free enterprise approach will lead to the most cost-effective implementation of the waste management and disposal system. An international brokerage service to manage the logistics of implementation of services dispersed among the continents may be necessary.
ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES
The United States is similar to other nations which currently have major use of nuclear power in its pursuit of disposal within its political borders. It is unique in that the U.S. alone has identified a specific candidate site for disposal, the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, and extensive investment of monetary and political capital has been made to date concerning the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site as a location for disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes.
The Yucca Mountain site was selected for evaluation because of the anticipated superior capabilities of the site's natural features for waste isolation. Assuming the site is found suitable and implemented for disposal, it will be the disposal location for the nation's defense high-level wastes, about 70% of the anticipated mass of spent fuel from commercial power reactors, and possibly about 50 metric tonnes of vitrified weapons-grade plutonium. About 15,000 metric tonnes of spent fuel from the current U.S. inventory of power reactors, and possibly the weapons-grade plutonium, would have to be disposed at another location.
Under present statutes, the United States cannot participate directly in an international repository program, and, although the issue has not been addressed directly, under present policy the U.S. apparently would not foster the concept. The current administration has threatened to veto legislation that would establish a central interim storage facility at Yucca Mountain and thereby ease on-site spent fuel storage problems for commercial power reactors, and it has demonstrated its opposition to increased use of nuclear power in many ways. For example, as reported in the January 1997 issue of Nuclear News, Vice President Gore responded to a paper published by the National Academy of Sciences entitled "Why Environmentalists Should Support Nuclear Power" by stating that "[The administration believes] strongly that this country should meet future energy demand by devoting better efforts to energy conservation and the widespread use of alternate energy. To that end this administration is opposed to increased reliance on nuclear power".
Aside from the lack of recognition of past and on-going effort to maximize conservation potential, and the lack of explicit indication of what "alternate energy" sources of adequate capacity might be, this attitude is both selfish and inconsistent with global policy that allegedly fosters development of emerging national economies, reduction of greenhouse emissions, and sustainable development and use of resources.
Global expansion of the use of nuclear power will meet the growing energy needs of expanding national economies and curb concomitant expansion of emission of greenhouse gases. In recognition of this reality, many nations are in fact planning significant expansion of their use of nuclear power. At present, a total of 33 nations use nuclear power as a source of energy for their national economy, and 37 nations do not have power reactors but have test reactors that produce spent fuel. It would be absurd and highly inappropriate, especially under a policy framework of energy conservation, environmental protection, and sustainable development, to expect that each of these nations would have to pursue siting and implementation of a geologic disposal facility within its political borders, especially if it would be a process as ineffective, politically sensitive, unstable, and costly as that of the United States.
In the interest of global economic and health equity, reduction of greenhouse warming potential, promotion of sustainable development, and avoidance of unnecessary environmental impacts, the United States must support the concept of an international approach to disposal of wastes from nuclear power as an element of global strategy to meet humanity's energy needs and to protect the environment and public health.
Even in the absence of direct participation or a national need, the United States can play a leadership role which can take many forms. First and foremost, the U.S. can assert, even though it does not have need to participate because it has an abundance of potentially suitable disposal sites, that an international approach makes sense and should be pursued. Secondly, the United States can directly and indirectly contribute the technical expertise in disposal facility siting and design gained from experience in its program. In addition, the United States can take initiatives to arrange and implement the interactions between affected and participating nations that must occur to implement the concept. In this capacity, the U.S. would function as a facilitating third party that contributes expertise, venue, and means.
These are opportunities that the United States can ill afford to neglect or ignore. Whatever the policy proclivities of the current administration, global growth in the use of nuclear power is a reality and a necessity. The United States must take an international long range view, and play an effective, long-range, and facilitating global role. The possibility to so exists now and is recognized; it remains only to implement it.
SUMMARY
The need for an international approach to management and disposal of radioactive wastes is evident, and the technical and safety-assurance bases for an international system have now matured enough to make serious consideration of the concept a real possibility.
The initiative for the approach must come from the diplomatic community, and it would ideally come from nations with a vested interest in effective radioactive waste management and disposal services but no major investments in the services to date.
The system would operate as a collection of interactive businesses which provide essential services. A principal function of the international organization formed to facilitate and implement an international approach to radioactive waste management and disposal would be to lead siting and implementation of disposal facilities, each of which serves the needs of several nations. The United States can and should play a facilitating, leadership role in implementing the concept.