Nuclear - Energy Policy Analysis: A Conceptual Framework - page 59

and effects of which remain unknown. Low-temperature cement grouts can easily seal fractures
and voids around a penetration but cannot be demonstrated as stable for the required 250,000
years. (D'Appolonia Consulting Engineers 1979, III-22-III-23)
Technology for permanently sealing large-borehole walls against water infiltration or fracture
does not exist, and field research sponsored by DOE has revealed some spectacular failures of
new technologies (Bush and Lingle 1986).
The apparent hope was that disposal will be permanent, but it is not required to be per-
manent. Little planning is required for periods after repository closure to deal with the pos-
sibility it will not be permanent. Nuclear physicist Arjun Makhijani characterized DOE site
selection activities as “a record of astonishing scientific and technical incompetence” (Yates
1989, 33).
Management Is Forever
Disposal is conceptually and practically different from management. Disposal relies on luck in
predicting the distant future; management depends upon continuous control. Deep geologic disposal
of radioactive waste, as required by current policy, relinquishes control over radioactive materials
to geohydrologic processes at repository closure. But existing models of these processes have
not been empirically verified over periods of time equivalent to the lethal half-lives of high-level
radioactive waste (Shrader-Frechette 1988, 1992, 1993). The models are likely to remain unveri-
fied for the foreseeable future. That is, there is no way of knowing how accurate they may be.
Management of highly radioactive materials would seem to require continuous supervision and
exercise of control, including periodic intervention if necessary to ensure the materials' isolation
from the human environment until they are no longer lethal, a period approaching perpetuity.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
Given existing accumulations of radioactive materials, the wisest course may be to put them in
secure, dry subsurface storage where they can be monitored. This appears preferable to the risks of
putting them out of sight and out of mind, perhaps abandoning them in a deep geologic repository
for future generations to discover in their drinking water. Subsurface geologic emplacement is
required to mitigate the risk of sabotage in an unstable political world. Dry rock emplacement is
required to minimize deterioration of containers and the frequency of handling radioactive waste
in managed and monitored storage. Permanent management and continuous monitoring on-site and
off-site are necessary to detect and mitigate any breach of isolation. Periodic on-site repackaging
of entire containers in slightly larger containers should be contemplated, using the best available
materials and handling technology at the time repackaging occurs. Over the next centuries, new
materials are likely to be developed that will not break down as quickly when exposed to high
neutron flux from decay of radionuclides, thus increasing the longevity of containers after they are
permanently buried (Hamilton 1990, 6-7). Estimation of container deterioration rates and periodic
examination of containers with stress and corrosion detection technology will determine necessity
and timing of repackaging. This will allow use of improved container materials as they become
available in future periods, presumably lengthening intervals between repackaging activities while
providing greater assurance of continued waste isolation.
In its management of nuclear defense facilities, its previous radioactive waste disposal activi-
ties, and its attempts to construct a site selection process on the flawed concept of disposal, DOE