Multigenerational resource management and safeguards for spent nuclear fuels

Long-term management of spent nuclear fuels has been a subject of intense debate in the United States for the past two decades. There is a considerable difference between the U.S. spent-fuel management strategies from those of the rest of the world. By the adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, the United States decided to defer indefinitely the commercial reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels and the recycling of plutonium in commercial reactors. At present, U.S. policies for the long-term management of spent nuclear fuels are based on the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act and its amendments. This legislation considers spent fuels as a disposable waste form and includes provisions to develop systems and technologies for storing this waste in engineered facilities within mined geologic repositories. In safeguards parlance, wastes are measured discards from a safeguarded regime. However, spent nuclear fuels are the exception. Many member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including the United States, consider spent fuel a material form for which safeguards cannot be terminated, even after permanent disposal in a geologic repository. However, no one has yet proposed the institutional arrangements or resource requirements for perpetually maintaining safeguards for spent fuels. This paper suggestsmore » a long-term resource-management strategy that involves a unique mortgage arrangement with future generations, pledging the resources of spent fuels as a security. If one designs a long-term policy with future resource needs in mind, at the end of a desirable cooling period (both political and radioactive), the spent fuels can readily become a valuable source for fissile, fertile, and several strategically important elements.« less