Nuclear Waste From Nuclear Weapons

Site selection for storage and disposal in the past much of the tru waste was disposed of similarly to low level radioactive waste ie in pits and trenches covered with soil.

Nuclear power plants how they work. Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive materialradioactive waste is a by product of various nuclear technology processes. The nuclear reactor compartments rcs and contaminated pipework has to be stored until a long term storage facility for nuclear waste is established. Industries generating radioactive waste include nuclear medicine nuclear research nuclear power manufacturing construction coal and rare earth mining and nuclear weapons reprocessing.

The amount of radioactive waste is very small relative to wastes produced by fossil fuel electricity generation. When the cold war ended in the late 1980s the united states and much of the rest of the world stopped making and testing new nuclear weapons. The effects of any nuclear accidents such as those at chernobyl in 1986 and fukushima in 2011 are also very long lasting and will affect future generations.

However chemical processes used to break down used fuel rods produce even more waste. Nuclear waste is neither particularly hazardous nor hard to manage relative to other toxic industrial wastes. During nuclear waste processing plutonium is divided from the used uranium fuel through various chemical reactions.

Plutonium levels in the environment are very low and pose little risk to most people. Nuclear waste is a problem that the nuclear industry has failed to consider seriously for over sixty years but one that can no longer be put off for future generations to cope with. Originally reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weaponswith commercialization of nuclear power the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into mox nuclear fuel for thermal reactors.

The plutonium is then used to construct nuclear weapons or it is used as a new fuel. Radioactive nuclear waste from nuclear weapons information. Nuclear waste processing is very polluting.

Strategies for nuclear weapons and waste l e t t e r s it is essential that europe does not become the arena for a build up of nuclear weapons writes catherine west mp. The creation of nuclear weapons produced a large amount of waste which is still being managed today. Safe methods for the final disposal of high level radioactive waste are technically proven.

The reprocessed uranium also known as the spent fuel material. Nis has taken a sideways look at the options regarding the cut up of rcs for boxed storage and cut out of rcs to be stored as a whole submarine section.