Solving the Nuclear Waste “Problem”
Nuclear is the new darling of the energy sector. Popular support for adding nuclear energy capacity is near an all-time high. Sentiments toward radioactive waste, however, remain uneasy.
Objections that stymied nuclear expansion for half a century ultimately resurface around what to do with and where to put commercial nuclear waste storage sites. Indeed, policy paralysis has resulted in 95,000 metric tons of used fuel sitting in pools and dry casks at 73 sites across the country. Fear drives inaction.
While the anti-nuclear crowd paints a grim picture of nuclear waste management, the problem is solvable and, indeed, must be solved to unleash the promise of nuclear power.
The Truth About Nuclear Waste
During decades of commercial storage, used nuclear fuel has caused no documented harm to workers, the public, or the environment. It sits in sealed steel casks, shielded, and monitored. It has a light footprint: Without shielding, the entire volume of commercial used fuel ever produced in the U.S. fits inside half a typical Walmart Supercenter.
We have demonstrated the fact that properly managed nuclear waste is not dangerous. The science is settled. Geologic disposal is the global consensus. Yet policymakers have failed to establish long-term, scalable policies for nuclear waste management.
A Half-Century of Political Failure
Politics have repeatedly thwarted a sensible policy solution.
Over $51 billion sits in the Nuclear Waste Fund, collected from ratepayers for the purpose of waste management. Only $11.5 billion of the funds have been spent.
After decades of work and billions spent on Yucca Mountain, Nevada’s political opposition killed it. The site never opened. Even if it had, its statutory capacity couldn’t hold all the fuel now in storage. What remains is a patchwork of 73 interim sites — a permanent solution in everything but name.
A new request for information by the Department of Energy seeks to shift perspectives on nuclear waste by positioning the problem as an economic opportunity.
The Recycling Option
Discharged fuel still contains roughly 95% of its original uranium. Reprocessing — separating that unused material for reuse — can reduce disposal volumes by a factor of four and shrink the required isolation period from hundreds of millennia to mere centuries.
France and Russia have done it commercially for decades. In fact, the U.S. invented the underlying technology but walked away from it over proliferation concerns in 1977.
The second Trump administration has made reprocessing a priority, framing integrated fuel cycle campuses as economic development opportunities for host states. It’s the right reframe — but reprocessing alone doesn’t eliminate the need for permanent disposal. It does, however, change what needs to be buried, how much, and for how long.
“This is not a problem waiting for a technological breakthrough. It is a problem waiting for a political one — and the window may not stay open indefinitely.“
The used fuel in dry casks today is an opportunity. It is a solvable engineering challenge wrapped in an unsolved political one. As Visiting Fellow Brett Rampal documents in his issue brief, the money is there; the science is there, and no unresolved technical barriers remain. What’s needed is the will to seize the opportunity.