"It's Only Waste if We Waste it"
Potential options for "nuclear waste"
Many are concerned about spent nuclear fuel or “nuclear waste”. Some have stated it is the most toxic substance known to man. There are 400,000 tons of “nuclear waste” globally, all is accounted for and contained and no one has been killed or injured by it. Compare this to coal waste, which is more toxic, is not contained or accounted for, its pollution has caused millions of premature deaths all over the world and produces 400,000 tons of waste globally every 30 minutes. Other substances that I would much rather stay away from than “nuclear waste” are: asbestos, lead, mercury, arsenic, salmonella, botulism, botox, benzene, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, nickel, cadmium, mycotoxins, chrysene, anthracene, phenanthrene, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, aliphatics, hydrogen peroxide and of course, coal waste. Here is a 2 minute video stating that “Nuclear Waste Issues are predominantly political”. The attitude that many have towards “nuclear waste” is a “low hazard, high outrage” situation, according to Dr Peter Sandman, see his “risk = hazard x outrage” online video presentation and the corresponding slide deck.
Currently, there are plans to build some deep geological repositories (DGR) for permanent storage all over the world, including Ignace, Ontario, a four hour drive from where I live, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Are these DGR’s necessary, especially for the cost? You are at serious health risk if you ingest or inhale “nuclear waste”, otherwise “600 year old spent nuclear fuel is just another poison”. Some are concerned about “nuclear waste” leakage. I would ask, “why do you think it will leak?”, “how do you think it will leak?”, “If it did leak, what specific damage do you expect it to cause?” “How would it cause this damage?” See picture below by NWNO, Nuclear Waste Management Organization, a representation of what will be built in Ignace, ON.
The following images show interim “nuclear waste” storage (great explainer here). As you can see, nuclear advocate Madi Hilly was pregnant when these pictures were taken. Also shown is interim “nuclear waste” storage in Canada.
Another method to handle “nuclear waste” is to reprocess it, as France has done for decades. They have two MOX (mixed oxide) plants. MOX plants reduce spent nuclear fuel and allows for some of it to be reused as fuel for nuclear power plants. About 10% of fuel for nuclear reactors in France is MOX fuel. Another valuable use for MOX plants was demonstrated from 1993 to 2013 in the “Megatons to Megawatts” program, formally known as the “United States-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement”. This agreement allowed for highly-enriched weapons-grade uranium to be shipped from Russia to France, processed into low-enriched uranium and then shipped to the USA. From 1993 - 2013, 10% of all electricity generated in the USA was sourced from Russian highly-enriched weapons-grade uranium via France’s MOX plants.
Some organizations advocate for processing “nuclear waste” for various other purposes. The Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) published a report in January, 2025 “Unlocking the Hidden Value of Nuclear Fuel: The Societal Benefits of Diverse Material Recycling”. The report documents “Beyond conventional reprocessing to reuse uranium and plutonium as new nuclear fuels, there are also opportunities to recycle other materials from nuclear fuels. In the process, this recycling could address societal needs in industrial, medical and space applications.” The company Exodys Energy intends to provide nuclear recycling operations. They claim that for every one hundred tons of “nuclear waste”, they can create 98 tons of fuel for nuclear reactors and two tons would be left as “nuclear waste”. They also state the best reactor for their recycled fuel would be molten salt reactors.
Alpha Tech Research Corp is a molten salt nuclear microreactor company out of Utah and Brigham Young University. They have developed a virtually corrosion-free salt that is now commercially available and would be used in their own molten salt microreactors. As a “bonus” they are planning to eventually use thorium, which would lead to the development of bismuth-213 medical isotopes. Bismuth-213 is the best medical isotope for use with targeted alpha therapy, which is radiation treatment that kills only cancer cells. At the bottom of their website, it states “Alpha Tech has developed a novel Continuous Electrochemical Extraction (CELEX) process that can efficiently convert nuclear waste into valuable products, including rare earth elements, medical isotopes, industrial isotopes, precious metals, and new fuel for advanced reactors. CELEX is an electrochemical, chemical, and pyroprocessing system with the flexibility to accept waste from both light water reactors and advanced metal and salt reactors. With appropriate approval and licensing, CELEX can close the fuel cycle to offer a truly clean and green circular economy.”
Others prefer to focus on “nuclear waste” exclusively to fuel fast nuclear reactors. Steve Curtis of U2 Energy (who refer to “nuclear waste” as “slightly used nuclear fuel” SUNF) claims “We’re (the USA) Sitting on $100 Trillion ($500 Trillion globally) and Want to Pay $400 Billion to Throw It Away” Erlend Hagen wrote the following post in September, 2025 for the International Journal for Nuclear Power “Revival of the Closed-Loop Nuclear power system – A Roadmap for a net-zero grid”. Most nuclear reactors use only the uranium-235 atoms for fuel, the rest is “waste”.
Fast spectrum reactors or fast breeder reactors are able to use uranium-238 atoms as fuel and thereby can use most of the spent nuclear fuel as fuel. According to Dr. Nick Touran, if we went down the path of using spent nuclear fuel as fuel for fast breeder reactors, we would have enough fuel to last, um, a very long time. The USA had a fast breeder reactor running for thirty years at Idaho National Labs, which provided power to the facility for all that time. It was the EBR II (Enhanced Breeder Reactor). The program was cancelled in the early nineties by Bill Clinton and John Kerry, just before they were ready to commercialize it. See an eight minute segment about the EBR II from the 2013 Robert Stone documentary film “Pandora’s Promise”, which made its debut on CNN. Other countries have had fast reactors in operations, such as Japan, China, France and Russia, which currently has two in production, one of which has been running since 1980. There are several companies working on new fast nuclear reactors and are planning to be commercialized by the early 2030’s, including the USA company Oklo, who have additional plans. “Oklo Announces Fuel Recycling Facility as First Phase of up to $1.68 Billion Advanced Fuel Center in Tennessee”. Organizations that advocate this recycling as fuel for fast reactors are the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (they released a report in October, 2025 entitled “Recycling: A key enabler for sustainable nuclear fuel cycles”), the Nuclear Innovation Alliance (they released a report in October, 2025 entitled “Recycling Reconsidered: Unlocking the Value of Spent Nuclear Fuel”) and WePlanet (they released a report in April, 2023 entitled “What a Waste!”)
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.” - Marie Curie, who discovered radiation over 100 years ago. With the state of our one and only home, planet earth, and a looming climate change crisis, it is now more important than ever to have an open mind about technologies and solutions that have either been brushed aside or not given serious consideration. Solutions that are in close alignment with Science, Engineering, Facts, Evidence and Data (SEFED) should be given higher priority. Therefore, we need to view these solutions outlined above for “nuclear waste” or spent nuclear fuel or slightly used nuclear fuel as critically important and “nuclear waste” as a valuable asset and resource.