Comparative Assessment of Status and Opportunities for CO2 Capture and Storage and Radioactive Waste Disposal in North America

Aside from the target storage regions being underground, geologic carbon sequestration and radioactive waste disposal share little in common in North America.The large volume of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) needed to be sequestered along with its relatively benign health effects present a sharp contrast to the limited volumes and hazardous nature of high-level radioactive waste.There is welldocumented capacity in North America for 100 years or more of sequestration of CO 2 from coalfired power plants.Aside from economics, the challenges of geologic carbon sequestration include lack of fully established legal and regulatory framework for ownership of injected CO 2 , the need for an expanded pipeline infrastructure, and public acceptance of the technology.As for radioactive waste, the U.S. has proposed the unsaturated tuffs of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the region's first high-level radioactive waste disposal site.The Canadian radioactive waste program is currently evolving with options that range from geologic disposal to both decentralized and centralized permanent storage in surface facilities.Both the U.S. and Canada have established legal and regulatory frameworks for radioactive waste disposal.The most challenging technical issue for radioactive waste disposal is the need to predict repository performance on extremely long time scales (10 4 -10 6 years).While attitudes toward nuclear power are rapidly changing as fossil-fuel costs soar and changes in climate occur, public perception remains the most serious challenge to opening radioactive waste repositories.Because of the many significant differences between radioactive waste disposal and geologic carbon sequestration, there is little that can be shared between them from regulatory, legal, transportation, or economic perspectives.As for public perception, there is currently an opportunity to engage the public on the benefits and risks of both geologic carbon sequestration and radioactive waste disposal as they learn more about the urgent 2 energy-climate crisis created by greenhouse gas emissions from current fossil-fuel combustion practices. IntroductionAccelerating emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from fossil-fuel combustion (Raupach et al., 2007) and associated threats to global climate are motivating an urgent search for low-carbon energy sources.With renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric, solar, and wind projected to supply less than 10 percent of the world's energy needs by 2030 (EIA, 2007), two low-carbon sources of electricity, namely nuclear (fission) power and coal with pre-or post-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) have been proposed as key components of a multifaceted approach to meeting the global energy-climate challenge (e.g., Pacala and Socolow, 2004).While producing a majority of electricity from nuclear fission and from coal with CCS in the future will drastically reduce atmospheric CO 2 emissions relative to today, nuclear power produces radioactive waste that must be isolated from the environment and the CO 2 from coal combustion must be sequestered.For nuclear power, the waste stream is radioactive, highly toxic, and, depending on the nuclear fuel cycle (i.e., after reprocessing), may present a security risk owing to its capacity for use in producing nuclear weapons (IAEA, 2005).In the case of electricity production using coal, the concern about CO 2 is its role as the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.Research into Radioactive Waste Disposal (RWD) has been going on for decades in North America, and geologic disposal of radioactive wastes is planned in many countries worldwide (e.g., Witherspoon and Bodvarsson, 2006).Of the countries often considered geographically as part of North America, only the U.S. and Canada have substantial amounts of radioactive waste.We therefore restrict our comparisons in this paper to U.S. and Canadian RWD activities.In North DISCLAIMER This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government.While this document is believed to contain correct information, neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor The Regents of the University of California, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by its trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States

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