A new federal report warns that without Congressional action, the U.S. is vulnerable to environmental catastrophe or nuclear terrorism.
WASHINGTON — The federal government has no legal way to dispose of certain nuclear waste, forcing sites around the country to hold onto their radioactive waste and risking widespread environmental damage or the creation of a “dirty bomb,” according to a new report from a government watchdog.
A report released last week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office outlines the issue simply:
“The federal government is responsible for disposal of certain low-level radioactive waste, including greater-than-Class C (GTCC) waste. This waste, which is commercially generated, does not currently have a legal disposal option.”
So what exactly is “greater than Class C waste” and why can’t it be disposed of?
To put it simply, GTCC waste is the most dangerous form of “low-level” radioactive waste. Within the category are radioactive metals from decommissioned commercial nuclear plants and nuclear materials sealed in industrial or medical equipment (such as the radioactive dye used in some medical procedures).
Some, but not all GTCC waste contains manmade elements heavier than uranium on the periodic table, making that material especially hazardous and long-lasting.
Another category, GTCC-like waste, comes from federal activities such as environmental cleanups, space exploration and government-run nuclear facilities. In essence, it’s treated the same as GTCC waste.
Compared to the less dangerous classes: A, B and C, GTCC waste has a higher concentration of radioactive material and decays slower, over hundreds of thousands of years.
The U.S. Department of Energy, which is responsible for storing nuclear waste, has a rough estimate of how much GTCC waste is out there.
In 2010, the department estimated that about 1,100 cubic meters of waste had been produced in the U.S. — enough to fill about 40% of an Olympic swimming pool. By 2083, the Department of Energy says that number will balloon to 12,000 cubic meters of waste. That’s enough to fill five Olympic pools.
But the GAO report points out that there is a lot of uncertainty associated with those numbers, partly because there is no national tracking database for sealed sources of GTCC waste, like medical equipment, and because the DOE’s projections aren’t clear on how they estimate the amount nuclear waste that will come from environmental cleanup sites in the coming decades.
Because policymakers and Congress use those numbers to determine which disposal options are viable, the fact that the information is shrouded in uncertainty makes it more difficult to find a path forward.
After the GAO pointed out the limited useability of the 2010 numbers, the Department of Energy promised to update its procedures for future estimates.
But in a catch-22, officials with the department told the GAO that they had no plans to make new estimates about how much GTCC waste is around until a disposal site has been secured.
“DOE officials told us they do not plan to update the 2010 estimated inventory until a disposal facility applies for a license to dispose of GTCC and GTCC-like waste,” the report reads.
Currently, the U.S. has four locations scattered…
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