N-plant plans revive spent-fuel concern

..five decades into the era of nuclear energy, with 103 nuclear reactors powering one-fifth of the nation’s homes, there is still no accepted method for ridding the world of nuclear waste that remains lethal for thousands of years.

The waste is so dangerous that after 50 years in storage it emits gamma rays potent enough to deliver a fatal dose within a half-hour, from a distance of 3 feet.

Neutralizing the waste requires thinking about time on an entirely different scale — not years or centuries, but millennia. The spent fuel from a nuclear reactor must be safeguarded for at least 10,000 years — longer than the recorded history of human civilization.

The News & Observer