“Problems cannot be solved at the level of awareness that created them” A. Einstein
 

INTRODUCTION

The Nuclear Industry in Europe and worldwide is in terminal decline. This decline is led by developments in North America and Western Europe – the birthplace of the commercial nuclear power industry. Reactors are no longer being ordered.  Consequently, existing units are being operated longer and longer, well past their original design lives.  But even this desperate and dangerous policy will not save the nuclear industry, which will be remembered by future generations as the folly of the 20th Century. It leaves the cumbersome heritage of the radioactive waste stockpiles, some of which will be hazardous for many thousands of years. 
 

spent nuclear fuel (SNF)

Radioactive waste is produced at each stage of the functioning of any commercial nuclear power plant. One of the most dangerous highly radioactive waste is spent nuclear fuel. Each normally operating nuclear power plant uses fresh fuel, which after several years of exploitation becomes irradiated and must be taken out of the reactor. Despite its name the “spent” fuel actually contains long-living elements such as Plutonium – 239, Uranium – 233, Cesium – 137, half-life of some of which is thousands of years. 
A cask with spent fuel has an inner temperature of 300-400 degrees centigrade and a radioactivity equal to 40 nuclear bombs as the Hiroshima one.

One of the biggest problems, which nuclear industry faces, is how to deal with this time bomb.
 

approaches for management of spent fuel

The three basic approaches for management of irradiated nuclear fuel, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, are:
 

• Direct disposal, which involves steps that would place the spent fuel in a location, such as a geological repository, under conditions that would not envisage its later removal.
• Reprocessing during which fissile plutonium and uranium are extracted.  Plutonium is the main material used for the production of nuclear bombs.
• A third option for managing spent fuel is a deferred decision approach that involves interim storage. The approach enables operators to monitor the stored spent fuel continuously and to retrieve it later for either direct disposal or reprocessing. 

In addition to the extracted plutonium and uranium, the so called reprocessing creates a tremendous volume of radioactive waste - chemicals, equipment and other materials involved in reprocessing, generating a volume of waste as much as 189 times greater than that contained in the original irradiated fuel. 
 

transport of spent fuel

Reprocessing involves transportation of the spent fuel to reprocessing facilities and in most of the cases, returning the high-level waste out of the plutonium extraction.  This transportation takes place by sea, rail, road and air. It involves significant and unjustifiable risks to human health and the environment.  According to the statistical data of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power (Minatom), 43% of all nuclear accidents occurred during transportation at different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. The hazards posed by nuclear transportation are yet another reason why communities, environmentalists and politicians around the world oppose nuclear power and reprocessing.
 

accidents and disasters

Some of the most serious accidents that occurred at reprocessing facilities and during transportation are:

1957 – “Mayak” (Chelyabinsk, South Ural, Soviet Union) – led to a large off-site release. The region is probably the most contaminated in the world.  Thousands of people were exposed to severe radiation and died as a consequence.

1997 – Germany/France – A train carrying three casks of spent nuclear fuel derailed close to the French - German border. Even these two mostly developed West European countries were not able to prevent such a hazardous event.

30 September 1999 – Japan – Accident in the Tokaimura reprocessing facility, 110 km northeast of Tokyo. Japan’s worst nuclear accident led to the off-site release of radioactive material. Two workers have died so far, more are expected over the next few years.
 

consequences on human health and environment
 

• The explosion in the pool, where the high radioactive waste was stored at the Chelyabinsk reprocessing facility “Mayak” in 1957, caused a radioactive contamination several times higher than the one in Chernobyl.  This region suffered two other nuclear accidents connected with the inappropriate waste storage at the facility. More than 270 thousand people within the 150 km zone were affected, but only 0,5 % of them were evacuated. Both, the Soviet and the US secret services, kept the accident secret for years, fearing harm to the nuclear industry. 
• A study in 1997 funded by the British Department of Health found plutonium in the teeth of children throughout England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The study shows that radioactive discharges from the Sellafield plutonium-reprocessing factory have contaminated people throughout the region.  The research involved the evaluation of 3,300 teeth, which had been extracted from adolescent children in the U.K.  The levels of contamination were directly dependent on the distance the children lived from the Sellafield plutonium reprocessing plant on the Irish Sea coast of Cumbria.
• The revelation about pollution from Sellafield came in the midst of growing concern in France about the La Hague plutonium factory, which annually pumps some 230 million liters of nuclear waste into the Atlantic.  Another study identified a leukemia cluster among children living near the La Hague reprocessing plant. In addition, a sampling by Greenpeace revealed that the discharges from the state-controlled plant have turned the seabed into a nuclear waste dump. The sediment sample analysis showed that stones covering the ocean floor were so radioactive that EC regulations would require they be treated as controlled nuclear waste.

general trends in the European Union nuclear policy

With no new reactor orders and none on the horizon, EU’s nuclear industry is in terminal decline.  In the 15 Member States of the EU, seven do not have nuclear power.  Either they have phased out their programs, such as Italy, or abandoned part built reactors as with Austria, Greece and Portugal, or never built reactors as with Ireland, Luxembourg and Denmark. In a second group are countries that have agreed to end their nuclear programs.  In Sweden there was a referendum on closing all nuclear power plants in 1980.   The first reactor at Barseback was ordered closed in November 1999.  In the Netherlands, the Dodewaard reactor was closed in 1997 and the country’s final reactor is scheduled for closure in 2004. While in Germany all nuclear power plants in the former East Germany (Greiswald and Stendal) have been closed and the government has decided on a closure schedule for all other reactors. Many other countries have moratoriums against new construction.  In Great Britain, in 1995, the proposal for the constructions of new nuclear reactors was cancelled.  In Finland, the Finnish Parliament voted against the government’s proposal to build a fifth reactor in September 1993.  In Spain in 1991 a moratorium was declared, affecting the existing 5 power plants.  In Belgium the Parliament also decided to phase out its existing plants and not to build any new ones.  Leaders of Belgium’s new three-party (Liberal, Socialist and Green) coalition government are to introduce a nuclear energy phase-out policy, setting a maximum forty-year lifetime of the country’s seven reactors.  Under this plan, the phase-out  would be completed in 2025. 

Finally, in France, often regarded as the fundamental supporter of nuclear power, the last reactor was planned to be completed in 1999 and there were no more reactors ordered.  The Supherphenix reactor, the pride of the nuclear industry, has been closed and its decommissioning has begun. Thus the abandonment of Europe’s remaining Fast Breeder program was commenced.