For years and years and years, in part thanks to a certain cartoon show, people have thought that used nuclear fuel looked like oozing green goo. Well, I have news: it doesn’t remotely look that way. It actually just looks like little ceramic pellets, but I know that isn’t crazy or attention-grabbing. There is clearly a lot that folks don’t know about this incredibly important topic, though. When most people talk about used nuclear fuel, they’re referring to fuel that’s been used in a reactor once. That fuel needs to be taken care of safely, which, thankfully, it is.
Right now, the nuclear industry handles used fuel safely and in compliance with the stringent requirements of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
We were at Climate Week this week (recap to come next week) and had a lot of folks interested in nuclear ask questions about the common misconceptions around nuclear waste. Luckily, our expert, Rod McCullum, answered most of these questions in a recent episode of Ask an Expert. Like any good communications staffer, I made sure I memorized his answers (had the website link handy) to tell the good people who were curious.
There are frequently questions around how used fuel is stored currently. Let's just get one thing out of the way right off the bat: Used fuel is safely stored already. The science behind disposal is well established, and repositories are being developed around the globe.
The number one myth surrounding used fuel, besides the whole green goo thing, is that we don’t have any solutions for it. Geologic disposal, the permanent disposal of these materials has been proven as being implemented in other countries, and we should not undersell the success we've had with the storage with our dry cask storage systems.
With these systems, we've never had an unintended exposure of radiation, any kind of a release, or an accident. We’ve been doing it for 60 years, so that’s a pretty good track record. We do have a solution, and the solution will evolve over time. Maybe we'll even bring in recycling technologies and get additional energy out of it.
To ensure nuclear energy in the United States is able to meet growing demand and deliver the clean energy we need, we need to combat the false stereotypes around what used fuel looks like and how we take care of it. If you want to learn more about used fuel, feel free to check out this page here on our website.
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