[en] The paper speaks to opportunities for the United States and the Soviet Union to mount international initiatives to help the world cope with its growing accumulations of spent reactor fuel and high-level waste. Important new initiatives in spent fuel and waste management could be centered partly in or near sites long used for testing nuclear weapons, and be subjected to IAEA inspection and safeguards. In addition to an international storage center, a new center dedicated to research and development is proposed to be aimed at reducing geologic isolation of spent fuel or high-level waste to a routine that offers predictable and acceptable results. 10 refs

[en] Two studies of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 as related to the future development of nuclear power (particularly breeder reactors) both in the US and other countries are reviewed. Both the Rowen-Wohlstetter study commissioned by the Department of Energy, the National Security Council, and the Council on Environmental Quality and the Ford Foundation sponsored report reinforce the opposing sides of the debate. The Rowen-Wohlstetter report argues strongly against the apparent relaxation of the US position on nonproliferation, while the Ford Foundation report maintains that a policy of denial of nulcear technology is mistaken and counter-productive. It is pointed out that the basic energy needs of any country will probably finally decide its stand on the use of breeder reactors if the technology is available to all people and that there is no real assurance that breeder technology for power cannot be diverted to weapon technology, i.e. India produced a bomb in 1974

[en] The nation's nuclear waste problem began in 1955 but did not draw widespread public attention until the early 1970s. It was then that the old Atomic Energy commission got in trouble by prematurely designating a site in Lyons, Kansas, as its first nuclear waste repository. This and several other false starts, coupled with the growing environmental and anti-nuclear movements, thrust the issue to the forefront of national consciousness. in the meantime, growing quantities of waste were accumulating at nuclear power plants across the country, creating mounting pressure for action. Congress acted in 1982 and again in 1987. Its 1987 decision was decisive: stop the nationwide search for a disposal site, and focus all efforts on Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Despite the clear Congressional mandate, the program is again bogged down in controversy, internal conflicts, and bureaucracy. Its future depends on a solution to these problems. And the solution involves charting some new and innovative paths around political and technical mine fields

[en] Massive protests are taking place in Russia against nuclear weapons testing. Efforts have been mounted to stop all testing at Kazakhstan test site near the town of Semipalatinsk, site of the first nuclear detonation in 1949 and of more than 500 test conducted since. Boris Yeltsin proposed just after his election as president of the federation the elimination of testing grounds for nuclear and biological weapons on Russian territory. The central government in Moscow has announced that it is considering closing the Semipalatinsk site. Reaction has also been strong to testing at the Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya, and severe constraints, such as Arctic cold, frozen rocks, high winds, difficult access, and protests by Greenpeace activists and USSR's Nordic neighbors do not make this site attractive. The author feels that this movement in the USSR has set in motion a politically dynamic situation that makes for the best chance for a comprehensive test ban treaty yet witnessed

[en] The Paradox Basin is one of the places where the US Department of Energy is looking for a site for a deep-mined repository for high-level radioactive waste. This seems appropriately symbolic because the geologic disposal problem has increasingly taken on the aspect of a political and technical conundrum, replete with real or seeming contradictions and paradoxes. A central paradox is that, while the concept of sequestering long-lived wastes in mined repositories is attractive intuitively, the very efforts made to confirm the suitability of particular rock formations give rise to further uncertainties. The new law contemplates repository construction will start as early as 1989. Experience so far at the several sites suggests that the technical and political questions tend to proliferate rather than diminish as more becomes known about the geology and hydrology. The following sites were discussed: the Hanford basalt; the Nevada tuff; and salt beds and salt domes (Utah, Texas, Mississippi). (DP)

No abstract available

[en] The problem of nuclear waste disposal has always been recognized as one that is as much political as it is technical. This could explain why the National Academy of Science is just now showing interest in the social and economic aspects of nuclear waste disposal. It has just now issued a report called Social Aspects of Radioactive Waste Disposal: Considerations for Industrial Management. This article is a critical review of the content of this report

[en] The President's Commission on Three Mile Island has under review a report by two nuclear physicists at Princeton University who are calling for measures to protect populations living at distances up to at least 100 miles from nuclear reactors. In particular, they advocate virtually nationwide distribution of potassium iodide, which can block the uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland; their report suggests, for example, that a supply of the medicine might be fastened to electricity meters

[en] Congress is grappling again with the elusive problem of the storage and permanent disposal of spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. The need for innovative approaches to resolve this issue is more evident now than ever before. So, too, is the need for broader understanding of the fact that the benefits to the state that accepts a waste repository can greatly outweigh the risks. This is especially true in the case of Nevada, which probably offers the best opportunities for minimizing the real or perceived land use and environmental conflicts associated with the siting of a nuclear waste repository

[en] What should be done with the radioactive wastes that are accumulating from nuclear power plants throughout the world? Should spent nuclear fuel be reprocessed despite complications surrounding the containment of radioactivity despite complications surrounding the containment of radioactivity and the safeguarding of explosive plutonium from terrorists? Or is there another solution to this pressing problem? The author advocates treating spent nuclear fuel as waste -- rather than as recyclable material -- and burying it in deep geologic repositories. Moreover, he contends that because of its size, geologic diversity, and technical sophistication, the United States should be able to establish a system of nuclear waste isolation that is technically and politically robust enough to be a model for the rest of the world. The key to a successful repository siting effort is to select a relatively small number of carefully screened deep geologic repositories for intensive investigation, the author maintains. Potential risk can be further minimized by harnessing technology to develop engineered barriers that complement natural geologic barriers. Emphasizing that geology and technology are not the only factors that stand in the way of success, the author calls for a carefully mapped strategy. Policies should incorporate means to avoid environmental conflict, the locality eventually chosen should receive meaningful benefits, and the door should be kept open for eventual retrieval of spent fuel if the reprocessing of plutonium ever becomes safe enough to make economic and political sense