The Donald Trump administration's plan to launch a wave of small, futuristic nuclear reactors to power the era of artificial intelligence relies on an old strategy for disposing of highly toxic waste: bury it at the bottom of a very deep hole.
However, Reuters points out that there is a problem. There is no such deep hole, and the stockpile of about 100.000 tons of radioactive waste, temporarily stored at nuclear power plants and other locations across the United States, continues to grow.
To resolve this dilemma, the US administration is now offering a “radioactive carrot”.
States are being asked to volunteer to host a permanent geological repository for spent nuclear fuel, as part of a campus of facilities that would include new nuclear reactors, waste processing, uranium enrichment and data centers, according to a proposal released by the Department of Energy (DOE) last week.
Their request for information (RFI) marks a major policy shift. The plan to boost nuclear power is now tied to a requirement to find a permanent solution for waste disposal, with decisions left to local communities — decisions that, according to a spokesperson for the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, are worth tens of billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs.
“By combining everything into one package, it's a big 'carrot' being offered alongside a waste facility, which is less desirable,” said Lake Barrett, a former official at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and DOE.
Trump wants to quadruple US nuclear capacity to 400 gigawatts by 2050, as demand for electricity surges for the first time in decades, thanks to a boom in data centers powering artificial intelligence and the electrification of transportation.
However, public acceptance of nuclear power depends in part on the promise that nuclear waste will be buried deep underground, studies by the US and British governments, as well as the European Commission, have shown.
To accelerate the introduction of nuclear energy, countries such as the US, Britain, Canada, China and Sweden are promoting so-called small modular reactors (SMRs).
The appeal of SMRs is based on the idea that they can be converted into factories, which should make them faster and cheaper to assemble than the larger reactors already in use.
However, none of the new SMR projects are expected to solve the problem of nuclear waste. Experts say that designers are not required to think about waste from the beginning, except as part of a plan for how it will be managed.
“This rush to create new projects, without thinking about the system as a whole, is a very bad sign for effective regulatory oversight and for establishing a well-managed, safe and reliable nuclear waste management program in the long term,” said Seth Tueller, an associate professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute who was previously a member of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
Reuters contacted nine companies behind 11 small modular reactor (SMR) projects, and some said nuclear waste was an issue for reactor operators and the government.
For now, most nuclear waste in the US, Canada, Europe and Britain is stored at the power plant sites, practically indefinitely - first in spent fuel cooling pools, then in concrete and steel containers. France sends spent fuel to the La Hague facility in Normandy for reprocessing.
According to the US Department of Energy, the more than 90 nuclear reactors operating in the United States, the world's largest nuclear power producer, ahead of China and France, add about 2.000 tons of waste to the existing stockpile each year.
At the Dounrej site in Scotland, where the last reactor was shut down in 1994, the decommissioning timeline and budget have been repeatedly extended due to complications in waste management, the British government says, an early indication of the problems the industry faces as older plants close.
As Downray, once at the pinnacle of Britain's nuclear industry, is dismantled, vast underground spaces are being filled with low-level radioactive waste in large metal containers.
Ever since the first commercial nuclear power plant went into operation in England 70 years ago, it has been concluded that burying the most toxic waste deep underground is the safest option - but despite this, no permanent repository is yet operational anywhere in the world.
Establishing such a landfill is a slow process, writes Reuters, adding that governments must secure the consent of local communities, and geological surveys are also needed to determine the movement of groundwater and the stability of rocks at depths of up to 1.000 meters.
Finland has come the furthest, and is close to opening the world's first permanent nuclear repository, in Olkiluoto - after starting the process back in 1983.
Once the landfill begins operations, separate underground tunnels will be filled with copper and iron containers to hold the waste, then permanently sealed.
Sweden began construction of its permanent repository in January 2025, with the goal of having it operational by the late 2030s. Canada has selected a site in Ontario and plans to have the repository operational by the late 2040s. Switzerland and France have also selected sites and hope to open around 2050. Britain is targeting the late 2050s, but has not yet decided where the repository will be located.
Some former nuclear sites, including Downray, are also being promoted as potential data center locations, as they are already connected to the electricity grid and do not have to wait for a connection.
However, the cleanup at these sites is far from complete. Irradiated nuclear fuel was released into the sea decades ago, and a “small” radioactive fragment was found on a local beach back in January.
The last “significant” radioactive particle was detected in April, and fishing is banned within two kilometers of the Downray outfall due to radioactive particles on the seabed.
Britain last year extended the deadline for completing the remediation of Downray from 2033 to 2070.
Bonus video:
