Overview of the concept for ocean storage of nuclear wastes

The storage of byproducts associated with nuclear reactors and nuclear wastes is reaching the capacity of safe isolation in power plants and other nuclear facilities in the United States. Additional depositories in other countries are also taxed for secure storage, in the U.S., commercial spent fuel from 118 reactors, 104 still operating, is located at 73 sites in 33 states. The Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada recently (July, 2002) received congressional authorization as the licensed Federal Nuclear Waste Geologic Repository, but it will not receive nuclear wastes until 2010. The prospect of terrorist interdiction at land-based sites and the harmful dispersion of radioactivity before that date suggests the need for an expedient and highly secure alternative to provide for isolation and storage of nuclear wastes. The concept reviewed in this paper is for ocean storage of nuclear wastes at >1000 m depths in special monitored containers on the ocean seafloor. Extensive studies are proposed over a multiyear period to demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the concept.