Nuclear Science

U.S. efforts to develop a technology, known as waste transmutation, that might be able to reduce the volume and the radioactivity of nuclear waste have lagged because the Energy Department (DOE) believes that the technology is too costly and unnecessary. Such radioactive waste, the legacy of commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons production, will have to be buried in a deep geological repository. In essence, any practical application of transmutation is at least decades away, and several roadblocks would likely slow or prevent application should it be pursued. These include current funding constraints; the high cost and the long time needed to develop and implement transmutation; and the technical, institutional, and public challenges that would need to be overcome. Moreover, DOE's waste managers, industry representatives, and others now believe that transmutation is neither necessary nor cost-beneficial.

GAO found that: (1) the Department of Energy's (DOE) radioactive waste managers are not pursuing the transmutation of radioactive waste because they believe that it is too costly and unnecessary; (2) a geological repository will still be needed for residual and untransmutable high-level wastes; (3) other DOE officials are developing concepts to use advanced reactors or accelerators to transmute waste, but they have not done the research necessary to determine the concepts' feasibility; (4) DOE has commissioned the National Research Council to give an independent assessment on the benefits and costs of different transmutation concepts by July 1994; (5) most proponents of waste transmutation believe that commercial spent fuel is a more probable candidate for waste transmutation than defense waste because of its greater volume; (6) there are five transmutation concepts under consideration, but none of the concepts are technically or economically feasible; (7) waste transmutation development and implementation will cost billions of dollars and will not be commercially available until 2015; (8) it could take until 2240 to process all accumulated spent fuel; and (9) practical application of waste transmutation is decades away and could be prevented by funding constraints, the high costs and long lead-times for technology development and implementation, and technical, institutional, and public obstacles.