Managing radioactive waste

Nuclear power plants generate electricity. They also produce two types of radioactive waste—low- and high-level.

Low-level waste includes such items as protective clothing, tools and equipment that has come into contact with radioactive materials. High-level waste consists almost entirely of used fuel.

Low-level waste isn’t produced only by nuclear power plants. Hospitals, universities, pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers also produce low-level waste as a result of their use of nuclear materials. Nuclear power plants can ship the waste to a disposal facility or store it at the plant site. With strict regulations and precautions in place, low-level waste is not a hazard either to the people who live near the disposal facility or to the workers who handle it. For more information, see the Nuclear Waste Disposal area of the site or the fact sheet Disposal of Low-Level Radioactive Waste.

Nuclear plants handle used fuel by remote control and safely store it inside the plant in steel-lined, concrete pools filled with water or on the plant property in huge steel-lined, concrete containers.

All used fuel from nuclear plants is in solid form. A typical nuclear power plant produces about 20 metric tons of used fuel each year. All the used fuel produced by the U.S. nuclear energy industry in 40 years of operation—some 40,000 metric tons—would, if stacked end to end, cover an area the size of a football field to a depth of about five yards. For more information on used fuel, see the Nuclear Waste Disposal area of the site or the fact sheet Used Nuclear Fuel.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has conducted extensive scientific studies of a site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada to determine if it is suitable for a deep geologic repository for used fuel and high-level waste. For details of DOE’s scientific investigations and other information about the Yucca Mountain project, see DOE's Yucca Mountain Youth Zone.

The Energy Secretary recommended to the president in 2002 that whether the site is suitable. The president approved this recommendation, and the U.S. Congress endorsed his approval.

Nuclear Energy Institute—Washington, DC
August 2000