Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
27
International Energy Agency (IEA) has
done and the work that other responsible,
highly respected organizations have
produced, it’s difficult to see how you
can meet those targets without the use
of nuclear power. And part of our job
at the Nuclear Energy Agency is to try
to anticipate the technical barriers to
making that a reality and to address them
as best we can.
3.
What’s the global approach for
management of high-level and spent fuel
waste?
My view has always been that nuclear
spent fuel is a very easily manageable
waste form. It’s one that’s very easily
contained and maintained and stored for
long periods of time. We are able to store
it first in pools, obviously, and then when
appropriate, move it to dry cask storage.
Once in dry cask, you can store spent fuel
for many, many years very safely. And so
I think that the ability to store spent fuel
safely, efficiently and cost-effectively,
as well, for long periods of time means
that we have the ability to make good
decisions, and we don’t have to rush to
do anything. So while I think the problem
should be solved as soon as possible, we
should take our time to develop the right
solution, something that will stand the
test of time and something that the public
will support.
Several countries have made good
progress in this. In Finland and Sweden,
they’re beginning programs to establish
repositories. The same is true in France.
And a lot of important progress has been
made in those countries. My hope is
that they’ll set a good example for other
countries to follow. But every country
does have to find a solution, and one
of the things that we should do in the
technical community is to assure people
that this is not a technical problem.
Geologic disposal is very practical,
and it’s a very doable approach to
deal with high level waste. Every
country in the world can do it, and
it’s really a political challenge. It’s a
policy challenge. It’s a stakeholder
challenge. And while these are not easy
challenges, the technical issues are not
insurmountable. Our NEA committees
work on those technical issues, and there
are no showstoppers. There are no major
barriers that would keep us from being
successful in deploying repositories in
all major countries. That said, we have
the time to sort through this. And for
some countries like France, they want
to look at different types of recycling.
Some countries are looking at today’s
technology. France, Japan, China, and
Russia are all either using or planning
to use recycling technology – Purex
technology today. In many countries, like
the United States, the decision seems to
have been made that there’s not much
interest in doing that, but in the future,
there might be technologies that become
available to make proliferation concerns
more manageable or environmental
concerns more manageable. And if you’re
