Radioactive waste is a waste product containing radioactive material. It is usually the product of a nuclear process such as nuclear fission. However, industries not directly connected to the nuclear industry may produce quantities of radioactive waste. The majority of radioactive waste is "low-level waste", meaning it contains low levels of radioactivity per mass or volume. This type of waste often consists of used protective clothing, which is only lightly contaminated but still dangerous in case of radioactive contamination of a human body through ingestion, inhalation, absorption, or injection.
The issue of disposal methods for nuclear waste was one of the most pressing current problems the international nuclear industry faced when trying to establish a long term energy production plan, yet there was hope it could be safely solved. A report giving the Nuclear Industry's perspective on this problem is presented in a document from the IAEA (The International Atomic Energy Agency) published in October 2007. It summarizes the current state of scientific knowledge on whether waste could find its way from a deep burial facility back to soil and drinking water and threaten the health of human beings and other forms of life. In the United States, DOE acknowledges progress in addressing the waste problems of the industry, and successful remediation of some contaminated sites, yet some uncertainty and complications in handling the issue properly, cost effectively, and in the projected time frame.[1] In other countries with lower ability or will to maintain environmental integrity the issue would be even more problematic.
In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water."[1] Despite copious quantities of waste, the DOE has stated a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025.[1] The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards."[1] The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres.[1][2] DOE wishes to clean or mitigate many or all by 2025, however the task can be difficult and it acknowledges that some may never be completely remediated. In just one of these 108 larger designations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there were for example at least "167 known contaminant release sites" in one of the three subdivisions of the 37,000-acre (150 km2) site.[1] Some of the U.S. sites were smaller in nature, however, cleanup issues were simpler to address, and DOE has successfully completed cleanup, or at least closure, of several sites.[1]
Claims exist that the problems of nuclear waste do not come anywhere close to approaching the problems of fossil fuel waste.[3][4] A 2004 article from the BBC states: "The World Health Organization (WHO) says 3 million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6 million indoors through using solid fuel."[5] In the U.S. alone, fossil fuel waste has been linked to the death of 20,000 people each year.[6] A coal power plant releases 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant of the same wattage.[7] It is estimated that during 1982, US coal burning released 155 times as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as the Three Mile Island accident.[8]
The World Nuclear Association provides a comparison of deaths due to accidents among different forms of energy production. In their comparison, deaths per TW-yr of electricity produced from 1970 to 1992 are quoted as 885 for hydropower, 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas, and 8 for nuclear.[9]
) to the recent rejection of the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme, and the kneejerk reaction of the government and the greens to refuse to even discuss nuclear power, it raises a wider issue.
