Not all nuclear waste is equal, according to the Obama administration’s decision to split the disposal paths for highly radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production and the far bigger inventory of commercial spent fuel.
The decision approved by the White House should help accelerate the cleanup of defense waste, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced on 24 March. The Department of Energy waste, stored at Cold War–era weapons production sites, is in various forms. Some could be disposed of more cheaply and expeditiously than via an as yet nonexistent geological repository. For example, Moniz noted that strontium and cesium, which account for more than 30% of the total radioactivity but just 0.03% of the volume of waste at the Hanford Site in Washington State, might be deposited in capsules buried in boreholes drilled several kilometers below ground. Most of the Hanford waste is in liquid form and will be vitrified for...
